Will Hemp raise Germany's Brewing Consciousness?
By Asbjoern Gerlach
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Drug abuse is impossible given ist marginal content of hallucinogenic substances. So we started brewing a beer with the addition of hemp buds (not the seeds) for aroma and flavoring.
We chose the name "turn" for the product and selected a very provocative, eye-catching label showing a blue cannabis leaf on a yellow street sign-like square. The promotional slogan was "turn. Your mind." This was chosen for two reasons. First, we wanted to promote the industrial use of the hemp plant (not the drug variety) because of ist ecological advanteges, and we wanted to do away with the widespread prejudices against it. Second, we wanted to actively confront consumers with the question of wether or not the Reinheitsgebot is up to date.
You thought the use of hemp and other ingredients was banned through the Reinheitsgebot, you say? You are right, but not exactly. And this is where the fun begins. If you read the law closely, you will find that it only bans ingredients other than water, malt, hops and yeast for "beer". So we just called it "turn - alcoholic beverage spiced with hemp buds." It may sound stupid, but because we used standard beer bottles and again because of extensive media interest, everybody knew it was beer anyway.
In spite of ist officially not beeing a beer, we still had to pay beer tax on it. But that is another law. Anyway, we didn't worry, relaxed and paid taxes. Because we still were brewing on a very small scale, we obviously meant no harm to other breweries' market share, and they continued to mind their own business. But after having sold nearly 900 hectoliters in 1997, and after we started exporting our brand to Great Britain, Denmark and Spain, things began to change dramatically earlier this year.
The "Deutscher Brauer Bund," the German brewers organisation, started to take serious steps to stop us from brewing. They contacted the National Health Ministery and argued that, if you looked at our product scientifically, turn fell into the beer category (now that's news), and if, in fact, it was a beer, it must be brewed according to the Reinheitsgebot, and therefore we must leave the hemp out. This interpretation has no support in the law books, but it shows the hghly political aspect of what is at first glance a seemingly harmless case.
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