Bayernbiere Bought and Drunk

"Biercocktail" might work for these "craft" beers... Maybe Germany needs their own ("Craft") Brewers Association to decide such things

 

I think that the Deutscher Brauerbund needs to step up on this. A slippery slope for sure.

 

Can a German speaker help clarify exactly what Camba says the problem is? What I (think I) understand:

1) Because of the Milk Sugar (and Oatmeal flakes?) it cannot be sold as beer.
2) Because the beer is not mixed after the fact, calling it a Gemischtgetränk is considered misleading for the consumer.
3) It can therefore only be called a "beverage".

#3 seems to be the limiting factor here? Does this mean they cannot sell their product in a Getränkemarkt? Obviously the beverage contains alcohol, but Getränkemärkte sell Beer and Soda alike so I guess I don't get why they have to cease production.

And do I have it right that they are looking into producing it in a neighboring country and then "importing" it back into Germany? Why would that be OK, are imported beers not held to the same standard as German-made beers? I thought as long as they didn't called it an RHG compliant beer then they would be OK.

@einhorn can you speak to the business end of this?

 

In a nutshell, beer brewed in Germany is subject to ordinances defined under the Lebensmittelrecht, which states that beer brewed with these ingredients is not technically beer (probably due to the lactose) which then makes it not verkehrsfähig (suitable for sale). Beer brewed outside of Germany can be called "beer" in Germany if the brewery is following the (food and beer) laws of the country in which it was produced. A simple example is brewing with rice in or candy sugar in Belgium and still being able to call it beer in Germany.

This is/was a huge part of EU law integration back in the 80's, and encompassed almost all food industries.

 

"Lactose" of course, lol I'm an idiot. Thanks for the explanation. So they have to brew this beer somewhere else and import it back into Germany. Oh Deutschland. I wonder if other craft Brewers will run afoul of the Amt because of this.

 

I wonder what Stone's (@StoneGreg) strategy will be for their new Berlin brewery?

Maybe they will brew their beer of Stone Coffee Milk Stout somewhere else (one of the US breweries) and import it to Germany? Or maybe solely brew and sell Lebensmittelrech compliant beers in Germany?

Cheers!

 

In short, we'll brew whatever the heck we want to brew. We simply won't label it "bier." That's fine, because in our 18+ years in business we've never labeled any of our beers "Beer." Of course, most of our beers we expect to brew in Berlin would qualify to be labeled as "Beer/Bier" in Germany as our classic Stone beers pretty much all fit within the antiquated and outdated and out of touch so-called 'purity' laws.

 

But this doesn't address the issue at hand: producing a beverage that is not verkehrsfähig (suitable for sale) under the current German Lebensmittelrecht. If I am understanding things correctly, such products have been deemed to fall in neither the approved category of "bier" nor in that of "Biermischgetraenk." So simply attempting to sell such products as, effectively, "not bier" is not sufficient to bring them to market under current German law.

 

Good to know that someone can still make different beers using water, barley malt, hops, and yeast -- no matter how "out of touch" that may be.

 

Camba has (presumably) been selling their Milk Stout for a while now - how did it get approval in the first place I wonder?

 

Good question. Perhaps this is primarily a publicity stunt to make the beer more desireable. The old (antiquated?) tried-and-trusted "craft" marketing tool...

 

Ugh, let's hope that's not it...it doesn't strike me as such, but what do I know...

 

I'm betting this falls under the "kein Kläger, kein Richter", aka no one asks, no one tells, or simply flying under the radar for so long. As I have mentioned before, the alcohol industry is under almost zero control (in regards to tied house laws, gastronomy contracts, etc) but if you mess with Lebensmittelgesetze (food laws, probably closest to the FDA), you have the tried-and-true Beamten on your ass.

No worries, it's just silly laws and stuff.

 

My wife loves their milk stout... she's a stout lover in Germany and that's not much fun rally.

i hope they find a way to start making it again asap!

 

I just sent this link to our Lebensmittelrecht Instructor for his input. I'll report back what he says.

The way I understand it is, they could just call it an alcoholic beverage and sell it without a problem. They can't call it "bier" because it doesn't fit into the confines of the Vorläufigen Biergesetzes. They can't call it a "biermischgetrank" because the base beer of a biermischgetrank must be brewed in accordance with the Vorläufigen Biergesetzes. Here's a link to the Vorläufigen Biergesetzes: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bierstdb/BJNR701350931.html

If it is brewed in another EU country that allows it to be called beer, then they can sell it in Germany as "Bier". But, then the label won't have the name of a German town on it....

 

If it's that simple (and I don't necessarily doubt that it is), then why make enough of a big deal out of it to post on the Webpage? Kinda smacks of the old "craft" David vs. Goliath marketing tactics. But we'll see, I suppose.

 

I'm going to assume you're being facetious here, this is not the attitude I recall Germans having towards their laws!

The most obvious choice to me would be Austria, but then I thought about it - do they also have something like the RHG?

Well, they do need to inform their consumers, I guess. Plus, they seemed pretty upset about it, what with the "Internationale anerkannte Bierstil" (internationally recognized beer style) in bold in their announcement. By publicizing the issue maybe they can get the laws changed in their favor. No downside to putting it out there.

 

Yea, if it's truly turning out to be a difficult and/or complicated legal matter, I can sympathize. But if it's just a matter of calling it something else (as MattRiggs surmised), I don't see why they would make such a big deal out of it -- especially seeing as how they call their other non-RHG styles "Biermischgetraenke." I suspect it is a more difficult issue, so maybe your take on it is more accurate. Dunno yet....

 

I'm interested in seeing how it plays out, that's for sure. Simply re-labeling the beer is one thing, but if Germany's FDA-equivalent is saying that adding lactose makes the beer itself unsuitable for sale, then that's a big problem.

 

I don't remember they ever calling their Milk Stout "bier" - I'm pretty sure the label just says Milk Stout.