‘Pure’ German Beers Shown to Contain Trace Amounts of Weed Killer

The Reinheitsgebot, a German law that guarantees beer’s purity, was written 500 years ago. The food-safety regulation is so old that, under the original version, beer could be made only with barley, hops, and water. It was updated later to include yeast, a vital ingredient that wasn’t scientifically understood until the French chemist Louis Pasteur first described the process of alcohol fermentation in the 1850s.

Now it appears that the Reinheitsgebot may have to be updated again, as an additional ingredient has been found in a number of German beers made according to the historic purity laws. The Munich Environmental Institute says that 14 German beers contained trace amounts of glyphosate, by far the most widely used weed killer in the world. It’s the same herbicide the World Health Organization’s cancer research group said was a probable carcinogen last year.

This likely does not mean that drinking German beer will give you cancer, that brewers are adulterating their “pure” brews with weed killer, or that the Reinheitsgebot is a sham.

In short, the Munich Environmental Institute found glyphosate—in small amounts, but more than the 0.1 microgram allowed in drinking water—because it went looking for it. If there were testing regimens in place, it would be widely found in other foods too. Monsanto first put the weed killer on the market under the brand name Roundup in 1970, but its use has skyrocketed since the 1990s, when crops genetically engineered to withstand glyphosate debuted. A recent study published by Environmental Sciences Europe found that 75 percent of all glyphosate use has occurred in the last 10 years, with 2.4 billion pounds sprayed in the U.S. between 2004 and 2014.

RELATED: How Much of the Most Common Weed Killer Are You Eating? The FDA Doesn’t Know

But for much of that time, glyphosate was marketed as a safe alternative to similar herbicides and was treated much the same by regulators. Meanwhile, it has shown up in breast milk, in the urine of children—more so when they eat conventionally grown fruits and vegetables rather than organic—and, if and when regulators or watchdogs look for it, in products like beer.

The announcement from WHO, made last March, was based on existing research that looked mostly at agricultural exposures to glyphosate—we’re talking about people who routinely work with large amounts of Roundup and by accident may come in contact with amounts of glyphosate far larger than what someone would ingest in a lifetime of drinking German beer. But there’s more to the WHO declaration than underlining a probable occupational hazard. It highlights that we know very little about what risks come from routine low-level exposure to pesticides like Roundup.

As Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment said in a statement responding to the glyphosate report, “An adult would have to drink around 1,000 liters [264 U.S. gallons] of beer a day to ingest enough quantities to be harmful for health.” But that’s less a definitive risk assessment than one based on research focused on occupational exposure. It’s not clear that exposure is safe at lower levels—there isn’t enough existing research to determine either way.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration hasn’t even been testing for glyphosate residues—although it will soon begin to—and the Environmental Protection Agency has not updated its risk assessment on the chemical since the 1990s.

But if trace amounts of glyphosate showing up in German beer makes you rethink your drinking habits, remember that WHO considers alcohol a carcinogen too—and not just a “probable” one.