in honor of atomic:
German beer: Pure, cheap and a bit dull(...) German beers are bland and indistinguishable. The country has many tiny breweries whose ales can only be had locally. Some, like the smoked beers of Bamberg in Franconia, are distinctive. But many of the small fry competently but predictably turn out a narrow range of flavours.
Rory Lawton, an Irish beer expert in Berlin, thinks Germany?s Reinheitsgebot, or beer-purity law, is discouraging innovation. The 1516 law was intended to make it easier to tax beer, through levies on its permitted ingredients: malted barley, hops, water and, later, yeast. Centuries on, brewers began using the Reinheitsgebot as a marketing tool to promote their products as pure and authentic. If anything else is put into a brew made in Germany it cannot be called Bier, but must be labelled ?alcoholic malt drink?.
Today, the link between quality and the purity law seems strange outside German brewing circles, since the restriction on experimenting with ingredients has meant that the country has largely missed out on the American-led ?craft beer? craze. Germany?s beer exports have been flat since 2007, whereas imports of more varied foreign beers have climbed. In America, consumption of the watery swill that passes for beer is falling, but the trade body for craft brewers reckons their sales rose by 17.2% in 2013.
(article goes on to talk about Stone's upcoming expansion into Germany. the company has $137m in annual sales but trying to
crowd-fund $1m of the $25m price tag. for a while it wasn't working, but they're now at 25% of their goal. some are objecting, saying
Crowd-Funded Brewery Campaigns Are Bullshit).
