Guinness - not vegetarian friendly!!!

rubadub

oblivious wrote: »

Its finings (isinglass), from fish swim bladders they used, so do lot of brewers. It does not stay in the beer as it binds to proteins and precipitates them out, thus clarifying the beer,which does not come through in the final product.

Yes, it settles the yeast down to the bottom, and it is separated. Beers are usually filtered too. There might be trace amounts of animal products in beers. But in any factory making meat products alongside veggie ones there might be trace amounts. Just like so many products now have the "might have trace amounts of peanuts" in them.

There must be somewhere to draw the line. What if the machine operator in guinness used up 2 pairs of leather gloves per year, they are effectively used to produce the guinness and traces of the worn leather could get in the beer. As much as the trace amounts of fish in the beer. Is this a problem?

Is it the actually eating or the use in production that matters. If it is use in production at any stage then if you trace back most products origins their will be animal products used somewhere along the way.

What if bloodmeal was used to fertilize the ground in which the grains are grown to produce beers which do not use the fish product?

Nature Boy

The Chessplayer wrote: »

Chap it's a pint of guinness. For god's sake, get it into you and relax!

I wasn't even talking about Guinness, either were you!

Don't you know how Boards works? We never stay on topic!

Peanut

UK supermarkets for teh win :cool:

Nature Boy

Think the M&S sell stout that's veggie...

Peanut

Yep I think all of the M&S beer/stout/cider is veggie, probably vegan too.

The label of the m&s stout says "made in Eire", so it could be rebranded O'Haras stout from the Carlow brewing company. I think Dunnes stock their beers & they should be veg. also.

I think Guinness gave a really lame answer as to why they used Isinglass, something like 'there's no alternative'. Perhaps the alternatives do affect the final taste or texture a bit, but they're clearly talking crap to some extent at least.

kraggy

I've actually been doing some research into this in the last few days and emailed Murphys and Guinness to see if there are any plans to find an alternative to isinglass. They both said no.

I've looked it up and there isn't a cost-efficient substitute at the moment. Some amateur brewers and some professional have tried other things but they don't do the job as well, or so I've read from various forums.

But I'd like to know how O'Haras et al manage to make theirs. It's not quite as nice but it's still decen stout.

Peanut

I can't understand how the cost can be that much increased.

If virtually all of the beer in M&S for example uses alternatives (ok all 4/5 of them), I don't think it's much of an argument. Well M&S are generally more expensive than your average store, but it doesn't explain the wide range of other brewers using non-animal alternatives, such as Grolsh, Heineken, Carlow brewing, Becks, Shepherd Neame etc.

I suppose it boils down to, there is an added cost that could be justified if the product is a "premium" drink in the first place - it's going to cost more anyway, so the target customer isn't going to be as price sensitive.

But Guinness are selling to a wider market, so they need to drive the price down lower. Still, it doesn't really explain how Heineken can mass produce veg.-friendly lager, unless there are some added difficulties in the clarifying process for stouts, which could be the case.

Peanut

The Chessplayer wrote: »

Chap it's a pint of guinness. For god's sake, get it into you and relax!

You should be grateful that we're not discussing whether whiskey matured in sherry casks that might have used animal-based clarifiers is veg or not :-p

oops :-p

armageddon_pony

Nature Boy wrote: »

I drink Guinness and still consider myself to be veggie. You have to draw the line somewhere. If you were to cut out everything that involves animal creulty in any way you'd probably make your life very unliveable (not sure if that's a word!).

hahaha.. its the typical talk of conformist kids who actually dont give a damn bout animals..
im vegan and i cant see any difficulties with this diet.. except form many benefits..
make up your mind wether you do it for animals or just for yourself...

rubadub

armageddon_pony wrote: »

hahaha.. its the typical talk of conformist kids who actually dont give a damn bout animals..
im vegan and i cant see any difficulties with this diet.. except form many benefits..
make up your mind wether you do it for animals or just for yourself...

Do you draw the line anywhere? Bloodmeal used in the growth of barley/hops? Animals in adverts?

Nature Boy

armageddon_pony wrote: »

hahaha.. its the typical talk of conformist kids who actually dont give a damn bout animals..
im vegan and i cant see any difficulties with this diet.. except form many benefits..
make up your mind wether you do it for animals or just for yourself...

As rubadub said. I'm sure there are plenty of things you eat where an animal has been harmed somewhere along the way. Maybe I'm wrong and if i am then you must have a very tough life.

Tar.Aldarion

No need to be so abusive armageddon_pony, everybody has their views. Be more respectful in future please.

Personally, the whole point of the way I live is to minimise the damage I do to animal life, of course we will do some, but why not try to minimse it?
I will only eat things that animals died to creat if I need that thing badly.
Eat to live, don't live to eat. An animal may die whilst a field is being reaped, that is an example that most people can not avoid, what would we eat to stay healthy?
However I try to cut out the needless stuff like M&Ms and Guinness etc as they are just a luxury I am indulging in at the expence of an animal.
Just try to live as well as you can is my advice.