The dark side of biodiesel

Farmers leap at the chance to grow corn to power cars, but no one thinks about the ramifications for beer lovers (sob,sob)....

Biofuel crops pushing out barley, raising beer prices
By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER
The Associated Press
AYING, Germany -- Like most Germans, brewer Helmut Erdmann is all for the fight against global warming. Unless, that is, it drives up the price of his beer.

And that is exactly what is happening to German brewers as farmers abandon barley -- the raw material for the national beverage -- to plant other, subsidized crops for sale as environmentally friendly biofuels. Barley prices have doubled in two years.

"With the current spike in barley prices, we won't be able to avoid a price increase of our beer any longer," Erdmann said.

"It's absolutely outrageous that beer is getting even more expensive," said Volker Glutsch, 37, gulping down the last swig of his half-liter dark beer at lunch at the Prater, one of Berlin's biggest beer gardens. "But there's nothing we can do about it -- except drinking less, and that's not going to happen."