German beer contains shocking amounts of glyphosate contamination

German Beer – Glyphosate Testing Results:

Hasseröder Pils – 29,74 μg/l (ppb)
Jever Pils – 23,04 μg/l
Warsteiner Pils – 20,73 μg/l
Radeberger Pilsner – 12,01 μg/l
Veltins Pilsener – 5,78 μg/l
Oettinger Pils – 3,86 μg/l
König Pilsener – 3,35 μg/l
Krombacher Pils – 2,99 μg/l
Erdinger Weißbier – 2,92 μg/l
Paulaner Weißbier – 0,66 μg/l
Bitburger Pils – 0,55 μg/l
Beck’s Pils – 0,50 μg/l
Franziskaner Weißbier – 0,49 μg/l
Augustiner Helles – 0,46 μg/l

The World Health Organization’s cancer agency IARC declared glyphosate a probable human carcinogen in 2015, while the labels of the German brewers promise the highest quality: “Brewed according to the German Purity Law”.

The famous Reinheitsgebot is celebrating around its 500th anniversary.

Glyphosate is also considered a DNA-damaging (genotoxic) agent. By contrast, the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and the European authorities EFSA and ECHA consider glyphosate to be “probably not carcinogenic”.

However, the assessment of the BfR and the European authorities is heavily criticized by numerous scientists and civil society organizations for their lack of working methods.

The evaluation of glyphosate is also discredited by internal emails from Monsanto, which became public through a lawsuit in the United States. These so-called “Monsanto Papers” suggest that the company has manipulated scientific studies to influence the regulatory classification of the substance.

Largely undisputed is that glyphosate is toxic to aquatic organisms and has a negative impact on biodiversity. Due to the high use of glyphosate in agriculture, insects and birds are lost to food sources and habitats.

Glyphosate is the world’s most widely used pesticide and its residues can unfortunately be detected in many foods.

The leading Austrian environmental organization GLOBAL 2000 examined nine popular Austrian beer brands: traces of glyphosate were found in about half of the Austrian beers, even though the percentage was much lower than in the German beers.

Values ranged from 4 to 7 micrograms per liter [μg/l]. The detection limit was 2 μg/l. There is no limit for beer as a processed product, but the precautionary limit for drinking water is 0.1 μg/l, which is well below the detection limit of the laboratory commissioned by the Austrians.

The German Brewers’ Association, reacted by calling the study by the Munich Environmental Institute “not credible”, but admitted that low residues of glyphosate could not be prevented.