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I don't know if I agree that it is a grey area. No matter how soft your water, you will have some levels of calcium, chloride, magnesium, sulphate, etc. If all you are adding is salts that are already present and you are not even changing the levels to ones which exceed those found in nature, it's not "additives". All you are doing is mimicking the water produced by geology other than your local geology. The water treatment your tap water goes through is far less natrual than that which happens in a brewery.

And in a similar way adding carbon dioxide to a beer is ok as it could be in it anyway? But Nitrogen is off?

My problem with the addition of nitrogen is one of taste, or lack there of in the resulting beer.

I believe that breweries should be able to add whatever food safe product they like, but I also think they should have to list their ingredients.

Finings and such are referred to as 'process aids' which means that there is no trace of them in the finished beer and brewers do not have to declare them on the bottle.

As for other chemicals, larger brewers use a number of methods to control the property of beer during production. The question is how many of these compounds end up in the final beer. For example a brewer might add a foam enhancer to make the beer look good in the glass and then use a foam reducer during kegging to make things easier. These compounds must end up in the finished beer, and personally, I'd rather not consume them. Same goes for haze reducers and anti-oxidants. I would imagine it's save to say that not one of the micros in Ireland uses these type brewing aids and for that reason their beer can be declared 'chemical free'.

As for the addition of mineral salts and such, like Sean said, most brewers treat water to match a particular profile from geological region. You would not say the beer was full of chemicals if the beer was brewed with water from the original source.

[quote:3u67c46y]As for the addition of mineral salts and such, like Sean said, most brewers treat water to match a particular profile from geological region. You would not say the beer was full of chemicals if the beer was brewed with water from the original source.
[/quote:3u67c46y]

I agree, by the way. I don't think I made my point very well earlier, but the argument [i:3u67c46y]could[/i:3u67c46y] be made that brewing salts is a form of chemical additive. I wouldn't agree with the argument, but it could be made.

So a brewer can get their water, camden it then add calcium. Then do the usual beer making process. Add finings almost all of which will drop out. Then serve the beer infused with nitrogen. This beer has had no chemical additives added to it? <!-- s:? --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_confused.gif" alt="" title="Confused" /><!-- s:? -->

I do not have a problem with chemical additives btw.