The Price of Purity
Reading my July edition of Beer Advocate magazine, I found a spectacular example of how difficult it can be to live up to one’s ideals. While I am not a vegan, I know a few people who are and I respect their choice to live such a lifestyle, whatever their reason(s) for doing so. I am well well aware of the fact that many vegetarians or vegans avoid products containing gelatin, but until today I had never heard of isinglass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isinglass
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/geraint.bevan/Vegetarian_beers.html#Adnams
http://www.gonchong.co.uk/vegbeer.html
Fascinating stuff. From what I garnered reading BA and surfing the web it appears virtually none of the product is left in the beer that is bottled or kegged, just like virtually none of the yeast is left in a filtered beer. But if you are truly concerned with avoiding animal products…wow. What a price to pay.
Josh “I never actually killed the rabbits, I simply held them while they were clubbed” Sewell
on July 9th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Very interesting and something I did not know about. So, for clarification, isinglass is some used as some sort of filter? Please clarify…thanks!