Medieval beer purity law has Germany's craft brewers over a barrel

When is a beer not a beer? When German authorities say it violates a 500-year-old decree, but some brewers are fighting backOpening the lid of a huge brown boiling vessel, Stefan Fritsche flings a handful of hop pellets into the frothy whirl of liquid. Elsewhere in his brewery, a malt grinder rumbles away, a lab technician is busy testing new flavours and crates of Schwarzer Abt (Black Abbot) beer bound for far-flung places are being lifted on to a lorry by a forklift truck.But the air of indust