UNUSUAL BEER MANUAL HAS BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS IMPLICATIONS
by Michael Ravnitzky , [email]mikerav@mindspring.com[/email]

A beer making ingredients manual available from the Bureau of Alcohol
Tobacco Firearms & Explosives contains information substantially useful in
the manufacture of biological weapons agents.

The report, entitled ADJUNCT REFERENCE MANUAL, discusses the enzymes and
growth enhancers and other ingredients that may legally be used in beer
making -- and just maybe for more nefarious purposes. The manual, about
374 pages in length, was created in a joint effort by the BATF and the Beer
Institute. It was last revised in 1998. The manual is relied upon as a
guide to additives and ingredients by the government agency that oversees
commercial brewing.

Copies of the report are available upon request from the BATFE, and have
been released by BATFE to at least one reporter under the Freedom of
Information Act. Under the FOIA statute, once an agency has released a
report to one individual, it must release it to anyone else that asks.

BEER CALLED THE KEY TO MAKING BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

Brewing has been called the industrial process most similar to biological
weapons [BW] agents manufacturing; much of the technology used in commercial
brewing can be transformed quite readily to make biological weapons. Every
country in the world makes beer.

In Japan, the biotechnology industry began as an outgrowth of the beer
brewery industry, according to a 1998 interview with Col. Henry Fein, M.D.,
an army biomedical expert.

An ABC News report quoted Dr. Jay Davis, former head of the Defense Threat
Reduction Agency, and leader of the Baccus project to determine how easy
terrorists can make biological weapons, "It's the same sort of process that
would be done in a brewery. The same sort of process that would be done
probably making 500 different kinds of cheese. You start with a small amount
of biological agent and you feed it and let it grow."

The manual discusses how dozens of components serve which functional
purposes in accelerating the efficient growth of resilient biological
cultures; the same steps needed to make BW.

Of course, making these materials into a military grade weapon generally
requires a weaponization conversion process, but the items found in any beer
brewery will get you much of the way there.

SURPRISING INGREDIANTS ALLOWED IN BEER

The manual also reveals that most commercially-produced beer utilizes a
large variety of materials such as colloidal stabilizers, nutrients, foam
stabilizers, anti-gushing agents, antioxidents, processing aids,
preservatives, colors, and fermentable adjuncts.

The most surprising allowable ingrediants: so-called colloidal stabilizers
- actually bacteria and molds: aspergillus niger, aspergillus oryzae,
bacciluss coagulans, baccilus lichenformis, bacillus subtilis, bacillus
stearothermophilus. Also allowed in beer: urea.

Also noteworthy is that certain molds and bacteria are allowed in beer
making, but the allowable amount is confidential. Examples include Rhizopus
Oryzae - deemed to be safe for conversion in beer at a confidential level;
Aspergillus Niger, deemed to be safe for clarifying in finished beer at a
confidential level.


To get a copy of the manual, simply send a written request for

THE ADJUNCT REFERENCE MANUAL

to:

Dorothy Chambers
FOIA/PA Officer
Chief, Disclosure Division
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives
Department of Justice
Washington, DC 20226
(202) 927-8480

In the letter you should agree that you will pay up to $30 for costs
associated with the request, if necessary - that's approximately how much it
will cost to run off a copy - but you can also ask for a waiver of fees if
you need the manual for newsreporting purposes.

The manual is also available from

The Beer Institute
122 C Street NW Suite 750
Washington, DC 20001