Trouble brews in Germany as boom in biofuel jacks up price of beer
AYING, Germany (AP) - Like most Germans, brewer Helmut Erdmann is all for the fight against global warming. Unless, that is, it drives up the price of his beer.
And that is exactly what is happening to Erdmann and other German brewers as farmers abandon barley - the raw material for the national beverage - to plant other, subsidized crops for sale as environmentally friendly biofuels.
“Beer prices are a very emotional issue in Germany - people expect it to be as inexpensive as other basic staples like eggs, bread and milk,” said Erdmann, director of the family-owned Ayinger brewery in Aying, an idyllic village nestled between Bavaria’s rolling hills and dark forests with the towering Alps on the far horizon.
June 1st, 2007 at 12:00 pm
That would be incentive for Germany to create and drive the most fuel efficient vehicles possible in order to keep the price of beer down!
June 1st, 2007 at 1:23 pm
This was sent from Adriana:
I have actually come across the Quarterly Journal of Inebriety.
Here’s a quote from their 1850 edition:
“In appearance, the beer-drinker may be the picture of health, but in reality he is most incapable of resisting disease… it is our observation tht beer-drinking in this country produces the very lowest forms in inebriety, closely allied to criminal insanity. The most dangerous class of tramps and ruffians in our large cities are beer-drinkers.”