To Beer Or Not To Beer

Wait, what? Shut the f$@% up. Why have a blog post about beer on a vegan site? Surely beer is just water, yeast, malt and hops?

Well my friends, I’m here to let you know that this is not true. Some beers have ingredients from animal products or are processed by filtering through animal products. But fear not. After trawling through the inter webs for information and giving up many many hours for “field research”. I’ve collected a bunch of information and tips to help you through it. 

If, like me, you’ve become vegan and had the shock of your life when you found out that some beers contain animal products then read on. 

Let’s start with the basics. 

The easier beers to remove from your consumption list are those with animal products ingredients in them. This seems like a no brainer but beers that are advertised as honey beers, guess what, contain honey. Some are easy to detect by the name, such as Matilda Bay Beez Neez Honey Wheat Beer. Others will be a lot more subtle. 

The other common ingredient is Lactose, which is added to quite a few stout beers to add a creamy sweeter taste to the beer. Sweet Stout, Milk Stout and Cream Stout all historically were manufactured with Lactose. As Lactose does not get processed during the making of the beer, it is left behind so that you get that sweet (full fat milk like) taste.

Now to the not so obvious. Things that are added during the processing of the beer. 

Ever wonder why some beers are cloudy and some beers are clear? As mentioned previously, yeast is one of the main ingredients in beer making as it’s essential for the fermentation process. After the fermentation process, yeast cells hang around creating that hazy look to the beer. 

Finings are used to clear out the yeast  and therefore the cloudiness for some beers. Traditionally, finings have included ingredients like Gelatin or Islinglass, which, as we know, are animal by products. However, this is where things get murky (pardon the pun). As part of the finings process, the ingredient used is left behind along with the cloudy yeast. As it doesn’t end up in the end product, it doesn’t end up on the ingredients list. Shock horror. Well, now you know. 

“Okay. Thanks for scaring the bejesus out of me. I don’t think I will drink another beer again!” Please don’t do anything so drastic. Just take a common sense approach. Here’s some beers that I still enjoy, here in Australia. After all, on a 40 degree day, whilst sitting on a beach, it’s still a great way to stay hydrated.  

Asahi, Guinness, Hahn, James Squires, Little Creatures and James Boag’s beers to name a few. For a full list of vegan friendly beers then use the links below.

For those socialites, definitely keep your eye on the local events as well. Back in June, Little Creatures held a “4 Reasons to be a Vegan’ Beer Dinner” as their contribution to WA Beer Week. This weekend you can enjoy a pint or few at the Fremantle Beerfest. It’s running from Friday 8th Nov through to Sunday 10th Nov. 

So. Plenty to think about and even more to go out and try. Just enjoy yourselves. And remember to always drink responsibly. 

Sources of Info

https://www.peta.org/about-peta/faq/which-beers-are-suitable-for-vegans/

http://www.barnivore.com/beer/all

https://veganexperience.wordpress.com/favourite-vegan-beers/