I don’t know how many vegans were at the Dine Out last week, nor do I know how many Diners Out partook of Broad Ripple Brewpubs delicious beers for fear of violating their dietary model. But for what it’s worth I thought I would offer a few comments.
First, for the non vegans/vegetarians that might stumble upon this blog and wonder what all the hubbub is about here is a quick rundown.
Yeast is not the problem. All beers contain yeast. Many beers use some sort of filtration system that removes most of the yeast but that wouldn’t satisfy most vegans if they had a problem with yeast. If yeast were an animal then merely using yeast would be problematic, even if it weren’t ingested. But, yeast is not an animal, it’s a fungus.
Rather, the problematic addition to beer would have been isinglass. Isinglass is a cheap and plentiful source of collagen and brewers and vinters use it as a clarifying agent, that is, it helps naturally occurring organic material to coalesce and precipitate out of the beer or wine. British beers, especially British real ales (the ones served from casks), use it almost exclusively. And the Broad Ripple Brewpub makes British beers and always has two cask ales on tap. I feared the worst.
Isinglass is made from fish swim bladders and of course vegans would have a problem drinking beer made with fish.
But, I asked our server that night and she asked the bartender who apparently knows from brewing methods and he said that they don’t use isinglass in their brewing.
Nobody was sure what they did use, and if somebody knows, be sure to chime in, but my speculation is that they use Irish Moss which is a form of seaweed. But I’ll continue to poke my head in on the subject until I know for sure.
