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Germany's thirst for beer is drying up but one small brewer on the Polish border has added seaweed and minerals to the traditional drink in the hope of luring back drinkers with the promise of longevity, Reuters wrote on June 17. While beer-belly fearing youngsters are ditching the country's national brew in favour of wine, scientists continue to say that beer is full of goodness and can help fight disease.

The Neuzeller Kloster Brewery has taken that theory and thrown in a sprig or two of seaweed to create what it calls "Anti-Aging-Bier" -- a dark brew with a bitter aftertaste but not a hint of fishiness. The elixir was born of a love of the brewing trade, its creators say. Businessman Helmut Fritsche bought the small beer maker in 1992. He quickly fell in love with the 400-year-old brewery in the grounds of a hilltop monastery, where monks first made beer in the 12th century.

His son Stefan Fritsche, 37, joined the business and together they launched the beer in February. "My father and I were talking about how much we love it here and we asked ourselves what we could do to stay around as long as possible. We asked ourselves what products are the healthiest and then thought about mixing them," he said pouring a beer. Working with researchers in nearby Berlin, the beer fanatics created a specially bred seaweed, took local hot spring water, their beer and added flavonoids, a naturally occurring substance with anti-bacterial powers. "Beer is and always was the healthiest drink," said Fritsche. "Our beer has double the anti-oxidant effect of other beers."

Germany has 1,268 breweries and is still the world's third largest beer producer but consumption has dropped almost 20 percent over the last 14 years to 117.5 litres per head. Anxious to stem the downturn in sales, brewers have resorted to tactics previously unthinkable for a country that prides itself on its Beer Purity law of 1516. They have begun mixing beers with non-alcoholic drinks to appeal to younger taste buds.

But Fritsche's battle to call his mixes beer has been frowned upon by agriculture bodies charged with enforcing the purity law, which states the term can be used only for drinks made with four ingredients -- barley, hops, yeast and water.

"We have 5,000 beer brands in Germany so you really can't say that those four ingredients don't provide for a wide range of beers," said Erich Dederichs, managing director of the German Beer Brewers Association lobby in Bonn.


18 June, 2004