Originally posted at Green Options.

Cheers! Have a refreshing sip of an organic beer. Except it’s not organic, but it says it’s organic. But it’s not. What?

The USDA, which certifies organic products, announced a controversial proposal in May which would allow “38 new non-organic ingredients in products bearing the ‘USDA Organic’ seal. Most of the ingredients are food colorings derived from plants that are supposedly not ‘commercially available’ in organic form.” However, included among these is hops, a critical ingredient in beer. The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has raised issue with this “Budweiser exception” and with only a 7 day public comment period, it seemed our organic beer would become not. However, within that short period and with no formal announcement consumers united and filed 1,264 comments.

From the Beer Activist, the rationale of the exception being made is that these 38 ingredients are 1) “minor” ingredients in their products, and 2) not commercially available in organic form.

1. Hops are not essential to the character of beer? Before I even knew what a hop was I knew it was what made beer beer. Not to mention beer cannot be legally labeled as such without hops.

2. Organic hops have been available commercially through such companies as Seven Bridges Cooperative for quite some time. And in a beautifully quick response to demand just a couple weeks ago, Anheuser-Busch began “brewing our nationally available organic beers with 100-percent organic hops.” Why? Because the USDA was stalled, and 100% organic was required before this proposal. Rather than be forced to pull their line of beer A-B suddenly sourced the hops they had previously claimed did not exist. A great push forward for organic hops farmers which is now threatened by this new proposal.

The OCA announced last week that the USDA has extended the comment period by two months, which means there is time to act! In order to preserve the integrity of organic certification, follow these steps and make the USDA remove hops from the list of ingredients:

ACTION STEPS:

1. Click here to file your opposition via the Organic Consumers Association website.

2. To read all 1,264 comments submitted during the original seven day comment period, go to www.regulations.gov, scroll down and click on “Advanced Search.” In the “Agency” pulldown menu, select “Agricultural Marketing Services.” Skip all the rest of the fields until the bottom, where you need to type “ams-tm-07-0062″ in the “Keyword” box and select “any word”. Then hit “submit.” It’ll only give you 14 results, but if you click on the hyperlinked “document ID” “ams-tm-07-0062″ you’ll get all 1,264 comments.

3. Grab a glass of your favorite organic brew and raise a toast to its continued organic status!

As I posted earlier, Chris O’Brien at the Beer Activist has quite possibly the greatest motto of all time Drink Beer. Save the World. ‘Thank god!’, you proclaim, ‘I had several beers last night!’ If it worked liked that, I know of many who could don Clark’s red cape. Unfortunately it takes more than throwing one back, but you don’t have to break ground for your new brewery (although not a bad idea!) to make a difference.

In the book Fermenting Revolution, Chris details a 24-point action plan on how to accomplish the save the world bit (assuming you already have the beer drinking bit well-rehearsed and under control). For a review of the book, check out Green LA Girl.

I’m sad to admit I haven’t read this, yet! Which raises a question, what is the best place to buy a book? Is it better to order directly from the website and face the evil shipping-demon and unlocal business-goblin? Or better to have a local bookstore order this book, if possible, and still have to go to retrieve it?

And as long as we are all a’pondering, what is the best beer to drink, as fellow savers of the world? Brady and I are brewing the second beer baby, nestled comfortably in the corner of our living room. But as we wait the bubble-lullaby to stop, what is the best brew to quench our thrist in the mean time? We have a wonderful local option, Free State Brewery, and fortunately a handful of restaurants have these on tap. There are many that also carry the Kansas City Boulevard Brewery, which is always a tasty option. However, neither is organic nor fair trade. So, until we have the Alicia Brady Brewery running full tilt with fairly traded, organic and locally grown options, which is the best way to go?

And what do you drink after a hard day of world saving?