Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Goddammit! That's why I drink whiskey.  I just don't know if those damn Commie brewers are poisoning my precious bodily fluids with fluoride!

BEERS WITHOUT FLUORIDE!


General Ripper is right. Fluoride is removed from water by the distillation process. But it remains in beer after the brewing process. (Though we must remember that raw whiskey is cut with water after the distillation process.) 

One reason I moved to rural Maine was to avoid fluoridated drinking water. I've been drinking from a deep pure well for 28 years. I try to buy my beer from brewers who use non-fluoridated water when I'm not consuming my own.

Most brewers don't say much about their water sources. I have emailed a few brewers to determine the source of their water and if it is fluoridated. Many will answer. You can also look up the locations of breweries and then look up the city and there are easy to find lists of fluoridated towns and cities on line. I suspect some brewers in fluoridated towns may have private wells but that is conjecture. I am very fond of local Maine beers but some of the best are brewed in Portland which has been fluoridating the Sebago Lake water that goes to the city water supply since 1997. I limit my consumption of those beers. The fact is, three quarters of the population of the United States is being subjected to fluoridation in the water sent to their homes. The percentage of fluoridated beer is probably at least that high.

 A list of towns and cities in the United States and their fluoride status can be found at the Anti-Fluoridation Data Base.  Look at your bottle of beer and check where it was brewed.  It that city fluoridated? It is likely your beer is too. Perhaps your brewer has a private water supply. Some do. To be fair I would  send the brewer an email or contact them on their web site and simply ask about their water source. If they do not answer your question it is likely they use public water, and therefore their beer contains fluoride if they are located in a fluoridated town or city.  

Beers brewed with fluoridated water henceforth will be graded F on the Beers Without Fluoride Facebook page which has just been created by myself. 

 It is understood that most water supplies have a small amount of naturally occurring fluoride. Some have more. Adding extra fluoride to public water supplies is a concern to many. This dangerous poison in turn enters food and beer offered to the public. The purpose of my humble Facebook  page is not so much to discuss the dangers or benefits of fluoride. This page is for the people who have made up their minds about it and have elected to avoid it and therefore want this information in order to make an informed decision about their beer consumption. 

If you are careful to drink only bottled water yet you chug down a couple (or more) Bud Lights each and every night brewed in St. Louis  at .6 PPM fluoride what have you achieved? Not only are you drinking a beer brewed with GMO corn (Ugh and Ugh), you are also consuming beer made with fluoridated water.

Some water supplies are high in natural fluoride and most have some. Some people think that natural fluoride in water may not be as harmful as the chemicals added to public water. This may be so and their arguments make some sense but that is a question for another time. 

Vermont has a relatively low fluoride rate of about 57% of the population and there are good brewers there 'though most aren't available out of the region. Magic Hat produces excellent beers and it is usually available in Maine but they brew in one of Vermont's few fluoridated towns, South Burlington. Their Magic Hat Winter Seasonal has logged in at an atrocious .9 PPM fluoride.

This site seems to be tracking Fluoride Content of Various Beers. You will find an extensive (yet incomplete) list of beers and the status of the water they use to brew. 

How can they call beer made with fluoridated water "organic" in good conscience?

Peak Organic Brown Ale (a tasty beer indeed) is brewed by Shipyard in Portland, Maine under contract and it comes in at a rather high level of fluoride (.6 ppm). I have toured the brewery and they are a great beer making firm, yet they use fluoridated water in this supposedly organic brew. Some of the brewers in Portland, Maine  were already in operation in 1997 when the city began fluoridation. I never heard any of them opposing fluoridation at the time.


Similarly, Wolaver's in Vermont produces a  delicious array of so-called organic brews in fluoridated Middlebury.  Their Oatmeal Stout has been measured at a whopping .9 PPM fluoride at ffbeers.com. I contacted Wolaver's on their Facebook page and they admitted they were somewhat at the mercy of  the public water supply. I suggested that they might want to drill their own wells and they replied that they had looked into doing that and would study it again. I hope they do and then they could truly call their beer "organic." With both Wolaver's and Magic Hat with .9 PPM fluoride, it seems that when a Vermont town fluoridates, they really mean business at the water department. Is someone getting a kickback from the fluoride salesman?


You can bet that back in 1776 Sam's tankard did not contain beer made with fluoridated water.


The excellent Sam Adams products are also high in fluoride (.6 ppm) and are brewed in Boston which has a great protected water source in the Quabbin reservoir which is  then ruined with fluoride and excess chlorine (to my nose at least). Sam's gets an "F" as a result.  If I owned a brewery I would only use privately sourced well or spring water.  

Portland, Oregon did vote NO!


This article from the May 2013 issue of Bon Appetit magazine indicates that people responded in the negative when a local brewer supported fluoridation, claiming it wouldn't affect the taste of the beer. The referendum to fluoridate the excellent water supply of the city was defeated by the people last May. 


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