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The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

bbc.co.uk

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Re: The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

#21

Post by dagw »

coldtea wrote: post #7
Nursie wrote: post #4

The skewed view given in the article is hilarious. "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…

> Isinglass has a long history of use in beer and wine, and is a refined collagen. A long history before modern manufacture of crappy commercial beers?

Here's a quote from 1760[1]:

“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...

Re: The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

#22

Post by talldan »

Nursie wrote: post #4

The skewed view given in the article is hilarious. "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…

Some of the language in the article is a bit strange:

"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.

Re: The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

#23

Post by thaumasiotes »

talldan wrote: post #22
Nursie wrote: post #4

The skewed view given in the article is hilarious. "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…

Some of the language in the article is a bit strange: "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... Espe…

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/handful

> 2: a small quantity or number 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?

Re: The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

#24

Post by netnichols »

Nursie wrote: post #4

The skewed view given in the article is hilarious. "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…

My thoughts exactly. I laughed out loud a couple of times at the hysteria permeating this article.

Re: The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

#25

Post by thaumasiotes »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #13
Nursie wrote: post #4

The skewed view given in the article is hilarious. "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…

> Vegetarians do need to be careful with beer. 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.

As cited in http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/11/why-drunk-v...:

> 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.

Re: The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

#26

Post by talldan »

colinramsay wrote: post #2

In the UK there's a definite sentiment that a cloudy pint is a bad or off pint. I've seen a few breweries that specifically label their beer as "unfined" to make sure people know what to expect. I do find the slight distaste of fish bladders in this article a bit baffling though.

Not sure I agree with that. There's the same attitude pretty much everywhere, its not any more prevalent in the UK. Lager the whole world over has the same sort of clarity.

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.

Re: The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

#27

Post by talldan »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #23
talldan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the language in the article is a bit strange: "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... Espe…

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/handful > 2: a small quantity or number 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?

Am I not allowed to criticise language usage?

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.

Re: The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

#28

Post by dublinclontarf »

CannisterFlux wrote: post #3

Is this something unique to British-brewed beers? According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isinglass "Isinglass finings are widely used as a processing aid in the British brewing industry to accelerate the fining, or clarification, of beer". I cannot recall ever seeing anything like this on the ingredients lists of cans from other countries (e.g. French or Spanish beers), but maybe it doesn't count as an ingredient…

Large scale commercial beer producers user filtering, and in the case of lagers it doesn't matter because the beer is left to settle for quite some time.

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.

Re: The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

#29

Post by dublinclontarf »

MrLeftHand wrote: post #12

I hope they are OK with dead animals being used to fuel their cars, made into plastics to pack their stuff, producing the electricity to power their house and all the stuff in it. 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 someth…

Careful when leaving the house, you might step on a bacterium or a spore.

Re: The fishy ingredient in beer that bothers vegetarians

#30

Post by talldan »

creshal wrote: post #20
talldan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd be strange for it not to be an ingredient. As far as I understand it's added directly to the wort prior to fermentation.

Yeah, but it's completely removed before bottling. Is a spoon an ingredient?

How is it removed? Here's some details on brewing with Isinglass: http://byo.com/malt/item/645-fining-your-beer-techniques

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.

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