You don’t mess with Germans when it comes to beer purity. Period. An official letter was sent to Berlin officials by brewers, stating their concern that fracking (to extract shale gas) could endanger the water supply that beer is made from, and change its composition.
This will breach a 497-year-old law called “Reinheitsgebot” (Beer Purity Law), issued in 1516 and the world’s first of its kind. The German government has been asked to protect the quality of German waters – you have to preserve the standard, or otherwise everything’s going to go downhill with beer makers all over the world (more or less).
Der Spiegel says: “Attempts at introducing legislation on fracking in Berlin have been postponed several times. In mid-May, Merkel’s cabinet agreed on a proposal to ban fracking in catchment areas for lakes, such as Lake Constance in southern Germany, that are drinking water sources. But several areas would be exempt from the ban.
Berlin wants to develop a law that would define the conditions under which the technology could be used in Germany. The fracking procedure is used to release shale gas from stone deposits deep in the earth. The process is controversial because, among other reasons, it involves the use of chemicals that could contaminate the water supply.”
As I was saying, you don’t mess with Germans when it comes to beer, or you can get a class action lawsuit for doing so, even if it’s about extracting energy.