So, your mame’s been telling you that you may not go to Germany for Oktoberfest and binge drinking with your friends from yeshiva as the beer in Germany’s not kosher? Have I got good news for you!
Simcha is a new brand of kosher beer, but it’s neither produced in Israel nor the US, but in Saxony, a federal state of Germany. It’s a beer of the pils variety, with an alcoholic strength of 4.9%. More varieties of beer are to follow. The production is supervised by Rabbi Yitzhak Ehrenberg from Berlin.
So, you may go binge drinking in Germany (legal drinking age for beer, wine and champagne is 16 there) and even tell your mame you’ve been attending a simcha. All you need now is a more convincing alibi than “going upstate for the weekend” when you’re actually heading off to Atlantic City, but shhhhh, I won’t snitch.
 (P.S.: I’d like to know who was expecting a different topic after first reading the headline…)
David, I was wondering the same. German beer may only consist out of water, malt and hop, so there technically, are no treif ingredients there anyway. As far as I could find out, the rabbi checks that the grain used is organically grown as well as that the beer may not get in touch with any wine derivates during bottling and that no niddah women are involved in its production.
Very nice, except beer is generally kosher without a heckscher. Call me suspicious, but it sounds like there may be an initiative to require a heckscher for all beer. This seemingly good news might just be the rabbi getting his nose in the tent, so to speak.
I was, naturally. 🙂