The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians
bbc.co.uk
bbc.co.uk
"Nobody really wants to advertise that they filter their beer through dead fish"
Well that would be because they don't. Isinglass has a long history of use in beer and wine, and is a refined collagen. If you don't want animal products in beer, awesome, go for it. The slightly hysterical language is unnecessary though.
-- edit -- Another technique sometimes used is to fine with beef gelatin... Not sure how widespread this is commercially, but it seems relatively popular with homebrewers. Vegetarians do need to be careful with beer.
A long history before modern manufacture of crappy commercial beers?
“I well remember for many years it was not expected, nor was it thought possible [for porter] to be made fine and bright, and four and five months was deemed to be sufficient age for it to be drunk at. The improvement of transparency has since been added to it by means of more and better workmanship, better malt, better hops and the use of isinglass.”
[1] http://tempestinatankard.com/2013/11/21/of-isinglass-and-oth...
But still when people are talking about the beginning of "modern manufacture of crappy commercial beers" I think it's safe to assume that they are at the very least talking about brewing after the discovery of the role of yeast in brewing and the control that that offered to the process, which is still 100 years after the quote I gave was made.
Vegetarians may wish to be careful with beer. Some vegetarians aren't ideological/religious about it, and some that are draw lines in different places.
> Another survey from the USDA, also conducted by phone, put the [proportion] of vegetarians who’ve eaten meat in the last day at about two-thirds.
I where a vegetarian for 12 year, without having any real reason, other than I felt like it. Even at my most drunk I could always remember that I didn't eat meat.
Two-thirds... damn that's stupid. "I really want to be a vegetarian, because fluffy cows, but OMG cheese burger". Some people are weird.
It's worth noting that good results can be achieved with proper temperature control and irish moss, isinglass is not always needed. Also many/most keg beers are filtered rather than fined.
"Its stance means Marble is one of a handful of breweries to be approved by the Vegetarian Society, something that's earned it a loyal following."
'Handful' is completely meaningless in this context. How can a brewery fit into a hand? The actual list is also quite long and by no means exhaustive: http://www.vegsocapproved.com/ProductCategory/Details/126?pa...
Especially when you consider a lot of craft breweries are using vegetarian friendly techniques for clarifying their brews.
> 2: a small quantity or number <a handful of people>
How can a person fit into a hand?
Alternatively, when were you given the power to decide what words should mean in a language you claim not to be familiar with?
I'm making two points, it's a poor choice of word, as it is conceptually poor, even bordering on nonsense. It's also clearly the wrong word as evidenced by the long list I provided.
English, like almost any natural language, is rich in metaphor. If that's not your cup of tea, fine. But it's probably worth learning to roll with the punches, just the same. Is this really the hill you want to die on?
It's also a shame that you and the other poster are focussing on this rather than the fact that the statement is plainly wrong. There are clearly more than a 'few' veggie-friendly brewers.
So what you've cited in support of your argument in fact militates pretty strongly against it, because a hundred or so breweries isn't a very large subset of all those in the UK - according to CAMRA, that's a total of 1424, which puts the fraction on your list somewhere around seven percent. That's a little strong for my taste, but still a good beer. It is also, one might dare say, a relative handful.
This is a better list, which puts the number at closer to 50% if you use the filter 'England' and then toggle between Vegan and Everything: http://www.barnivore.com/beer?vfilter=All
I think people reading this article will come away with a view that only 5 or 6 breweries in the UK are producing vegan friendly beer, and that' clearly not the case. Lots of breweries are doing it. It's probably fairer to say 1 in 2 beers are vegan friendly
It seems strange listing both "malt" and "barley". Malt is just partially sprouted barley (or occasionally other grains). In most beers all the barley is malted. Some beers do contain both malted and unmalted barley, for example Guinness, but unmalted barley can make beer cloudy so it's usually only used in dark beers.
However, it is not considered an ingredient, and so does not need to be listed on the bottles.
Also, it may not be considered an ingredient so much as a tool or technique...
I've only done homebrew - but I can't see how a powder, moss or tablet can be removed again once it has mostly dissolved.
But when I used gelatin it set the yeast sediment into a jelly-like layer at the bottom of the fermentation vessel, so when I bottled I'm not sure there was really any in the finished product. The same may apply here.
I think the point of all of them is to encourage sedimentation, and thus they shouldn't be significantly present in the finished product
In the UK with Real Ale, especially cask ale it's used because it's unfiltered and has lots of live yeast and sediment which needs to settle at the bottom of the cask.
I do find the slight distaste of fish bladders in this article a bit baffling though.
In fact, the UK has a stronger craft beer and real ale scene than many other countries, so I'd say there are a lot of people here willing to drink a cloudy glass.
It's much more likely that the continued use of Isinglass is due to tradition, and no great desire to change an existing product/process.
I've tried serving a cask wheat beer which was rejected purely by appearance in the past.
Mind you, things have been changing rapidly in 5/6 years and many breweries make their tasty products without isinglass (or vegan-friendly alternatives+). Some choose to be fairly close to pin bright and others less so - depends on many things like more flocculant house yeast, etc.
I can say that around 5 years ago, a brewery made the decision to switch to being unfined for flavour - and their products were cloudy then onwards. It was difficult to 'sell' then, but now it's a commonplace. And yes, a pub did an informal experiement: flavours were altered with the addition of isinglass but from a general public opinion was divided in which they preferred (almost 50/50)
+ not necessarily equivalent. Some products are introduced during the brewing process, not after
In wine they also use egg whites to filter it, my dad get some kind of allergic reaction from these too so we stick to vegan wines in our house.
Never heard people being offended by killing plants for food, cutting trees grinding them into paper or just to have it as a decoration for holidays.
I do agree, if it's only for aesthetics we could actually leave it out and not kill something for just having clear beer.
In the end everything is made up from the same starstuff as humans, a squirrel, even the rock in the dirt and the dirt itself. Some of it is considered living the others not.
Why do I always feel a bit of hypocrisy when it comes to these topics?
Use of isinglass requires killing new fish to extract their swim bladders. Meanwhile, nobody is killing animals to turn them into oil.
Besides, it'd only be hypocrisy if they're judging others. Simply saying "I'd like my beer free from fish bladders" isn't, even if you think the reason is ridiculous.
The hypocrisy lies in the valuing lives of certain beings over others.
Or when vegans have carnivorous animals as pets. Feeding them with canned guts and other leftover parts of animals. And whining about fish bladders in beer.
I will state that from an energetic standpoint it would be great, if the whole world would go vegan. I have no objections.
But I don't like people going mental on fish bladder whilst they are still polluting the environment as the others and have to have a rage fit about literally everything.
Oh and lastly, we don't have to drink beer. Alcohol was needed when humanity didn't have clean water and we needed alcohol to disinfect it. Now we have all the water we want. From the tap, or bottled.
You are not required to drink alcohol, at all.
Oh and why aren't they considering the huge impact we have on the environment just by growing crops for beer. A social, useless beverage. Like the fish are the only ones who suffer cause of this.
All and all, I'm fine removing fish bladders from the filtering process, but wont get a hissy fit if they continue to use it.
We used this technique for quite a while now and people are shocked.
What about this part: Brewery owner Tim Bosworth, a long-term vegetarian who went vegan two years ago, said he was shocked when he first learned about the ingredient.
Really? A brewery owner finds out how he makes clear beer?
And he is shocked? Just imagine how shocked he will be when he finds out how much damage he makes to the environment by brewing beer.
And this: "It's kind of disgusting to think about, even to people who eat meat, and it's something that's not talked about," he said.
It is not. I for one, think if you kill an animal you might as well utilize all of it. Skin for clothing, meat for eating, bones for tools and jewelry, swim bladder for beer cleaning. That animal shouldn't die for nothing.
But for the third time. I agree to get rid of the fish bladder, because we have substitutes for it, which might be even better. But let's not grab one particular problem with the whole brewing industry and the rising alcohol consumption issue.
I might be wrong, maybe starting the change through our beer will lead us to a balanced natural lifestyle.
Nobody said he firstly learned about it after becoming a brewery owner.
The rest of your points are just disagreements, which are certainly valid, but don't point to hypocrisy or "people going mental".
I still feel they are making a big problem out of it just because some people have different eating habits.
For example that fish bladder comes from fish. That fish was probably killed for it's meat. So even if you're not using fish bladder in the beer clearing procedure, that fish will be killed and that part thrown away. Than you use some kind of substitute which has to be grown, or manufactured. That needs land, energy etc...
In short you will have a bigger impact on the environment, because the fish will be killed anyway. And now you have to produce extra filtering agents for the beer, because you will lose customers who like clear beer.
And all of this for a couple of vegan beer drinkers.
Well done.