German brewers warn Angela Merkel against fracking

German brewers have warned Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government that any law allowing the drilling technique known as fracking could damage the beer industry.

The Brauer-Bund beer association is worried fracking for shale gas, which involves pumping water and chemicals at high pressure into the ground, could pollute water used for brewing and break a 500-year-old industry rule on water purity.

Under the Reinheitsgebot, or German purity law, brewers have to produce beer using only malt, hops, yeast and water.

“The water has to be pure and more than half Germany’s brewers have their own wells which are situated outside areas that could be protected under the government’s current planned legislation on fracking,” said a Brauer-Bund spokesman.

“You cannot be sure that the water won’t be polluted by chemicals so we have urged the government to carry out more research before it goes ahead with a fracking law,” he added.

Germany is Europe’s biggest producer of beer and has the third-largest consumption per head after the Czech Republic and Austria.

It is home to more than 1,300 breweries which produce about 5,000 different beers, enough for a drinker to try a new beer every day for nearly 14 years.

With pressure mounting from German industry to at least look into the option of tapping its shale gas reserves, Mrs Merkel’s centre-right coalition is working on a law setting out the conditions for exploration that would protect certain areas.

Opposition parties would probably block the law in the upper house of parliament, making it unlikely there will be any legislation passed before ­national elections are held in September.