So there's another fear mongering and inaccurate "What's in your beer" meme being passed around facebook again. This one with the title of "8 beers which you should stop drinking immediately." It's made up of pretty much the same ignorant understanding of beer making and beer ingredients, the consumer laws that ALL brewers have to follow as to what they can or cannot but in their beer (regardless of brewery size) and the same questionable sources such as the Center for Science in the Public interest. It's also based on the FALSE premise that somehow the big Macro breweries use different ingredients than the small independent craft brewers and homebrewers use in their beers. Or are somehow not bound by the same laws as the rest of the brewery industry. So this falsehood feeds even many home/craft beer fans who are biased to think that big beer is "evil" and small brewers are holy.
Last year, author Maureen Ogle, author of "Ambitious Brew: the story of American Beer" and "In meat we trust" asked several professional brewers, and one "lowly" homebrewer (me) to research and write up a rebuttal to these fear based, and ignorant pieces. It was such an honor to be included in the ranks of some of the most talented stars of the professional brewing industry to contribute to such an important work.
In whatever endeavor I'm involved in, be it ministry, or brewing, or cooking, or vintage base ball, I try to impart truth and integrity in what I do. And I try my hardest to know the truth about the things I talk, write or preach about, or else they don't come from me. What I create, I stand behind....Unfortunately not everyone does so, and that's why one of things I have chosen to do is shine the light of truth into the darkness of ignorance and fear. And point out the false hoods when I see them. Sometimes that is the unpopular stance to take.
Friends, not everything you read or pass around is true. And not everything out there, no matter how serious it may sound like, is put together with the best intentions, or from the best sources. These pieces feed into the same anti-science fear and ignorance that many people have, be it on the left or right side of the political spectrum. Both sides have their boogeymen... The Left fears GMO's or anything that sounds artificial or chemical or weird, (forgetting that everything in this universe has a scientific, multi syllable, and scary sounding name) including things that we consume every day such as Dihydrogen Monoxide (the water we drink) or Sodium bicarbonate (baking soda,) and Saccharomyces cerevisiae (the yeast in your bread or your beer.) Or anything that comes from big business. The Right fears evolution, or stem cell research, or climate change. Both sides fear vaccines and floride in drinking water.
All of this feeds into the anti-intellectual fear of science and of big words. And no matter which side you fall on, pieces like foodbabe's and this latest piece of scare mongering feeds on this fear. And sadly feeds what Maureen Ogle so rightly calls the "Dangers of Dumbassery" the blind belief in whatever we read or see, without taking the time to do our own research, to think for ourselves.
I'm not telling you what to believe, or what you should put in your bodies. But before you blindly pass on either of those other pieces, I ask you to first read and consider what we wrote, people who actually make beer, either for a hobby or for a living, people who make 5 gallon batches and 5 million gallon batches for the "Big Boys" and everything in between. People who actually know what goes in the beer you drink, the laws pertaining to the beer you drink, and what things are put in your beer, and what scary sounding things might be a part of the brewing process, that doesn't actually touch the beer (like cooling agents that flow around the OUTSIDE of the tank, that work much like the similar chemicals in the cooling tubes in your car's air conditioning or your own refrigerator.)
I believe that the only way to meet the darkness of ignorance is with the light of truth and the light of knowledge. And this piece we took a month to put together was written for that purpose to shed light where it is darkest.
I guess I really just ask that WHENEVER you see something, especially something "fear mongering" (though you might not see it as that, you might think you're being helpful, but in reality you are sowing fear) that you take the time, even 5 minutes do do a little research on google, or one of the urban legends pages like snopes, to see what the counter arguments are, or what the sources of whatever it is comes from, Or if it's simply a myth or lie.
The world needs your brains, not your button pushing skill. The world needs you spreading light and love, and not fear. The world needs you spreading truth, and not ignorance. The world needs you to make informed decisions, not based on one source. The world needs you to think for yourself.
rg
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