Glyphosate in German Beer: New Testing 

Germans are serious about the quality of their beer. While there are countless beer brands, the level of quality is not the same for every brewer.

A recent study by ÖKO-TEST (the German equivalent of Consumer Reports) found trace amounts of glyphosate in beer for 12 of the 50 German beer brands they tested. Only the organic brands showed no detectable levels. 

You can read details from the ÖKO-TEST study here, but it's in German, so you might need a translation tool like Google Translate. Keep reading here as we analyze the findings. 

Meanwhile, in July of 2020, a second Canadian grain processor restricted the processing of oats sprayed with glyphosate as a desiccant (drying agent)  in their facilities due to the impaired quality of the oats. The presence of glyphosate in beer, made with various grains often sprayed with glyphosate as a desiccant, would indicate a potential decrease in the quality of the product.

New Test Results Show What Popular Beer and Wine Brands Have in Common:

Monsanto’s Roundup

March 15, 2018 , Mission Viejo Ca- It has been a rough few years for the alcohol industry, but change is a-brewing. In 2015, Los Angeles CBS news broke the announcement of a lawsuit against 31 brands of wines for high levels of inorganic arsenic. In 2016, 12 California wines tested were all found to be positive for glyphosate herbicide.  In 2016, beer testing in Germany also revealed residues of glyphosate in every single sample tested, even independent beers. Vinters and brewers alike began noticing the growing demand for organic. Just this week, Anheuser-Busch announced that their brand Michelob has launched a new beer Ultra Pure Gold made with organic wheat. What do these events all have in common?

Monsanto’s Roundup. 

How are they connected? If you remember, French scientist Seralini et al released shocking findings in January of 2018 that all the brands of the glyphosate-based Roundup they tested, over a dozen, had high levels of arsenic, over 5x the allowable limit. Roundup used in vineyards and sprayed on grains used in beer as a drying agent is appearing to be one of the major contributing factors of arsenic (and of course, glyphosate) residues in our wine and beer.

Today Moms Across America is releasing new findings of glyphosate in all of the most popular brands of wines in the world, most of which are from the US, and in batch test results in American beer. The findings were at first, confusing. But one thing that was clear was that the beer and wine industries must and in many cases are, moving away from Monsanto’s Roundup in order to avoid contamination by this chemical herbicide, a known neurotoxin, carcinogen, and endocrine disruptor, which causes liver disease. Despite Monsanto’s impassioned appeal of “irreparable harm”, CA federal Judge Shubb allowed glyphosate to remain on the CA Prop 65 carcinogen list in a ruling out just two weeks ago.

WINE

Click here for full pdf report of wine testing.

BEER

Click here for full pdf report of batch beer testing.