Today we’re on week two of my weekly tips of ingredients to avoid and how to avoid them.

This week’s ingredient is known as Isinglass. It is commonly used for the clarification of certain wines and beers.
Isinglass is a substance obtained from the swim bladder [a gas-filled sac used to control buoyancy] of certain fish.

When certain beers are being brewed [mostly cask conditioned beers, or real ale] isinglass is introduced into the beer to bind the yeast into a jelly-like mass. This causes the yeast to settle to the bottom of the cask, clearing up the beer. If left alone, beer will clear naturally, but of course these days, time is money, and so isinglass is one way to speed up the clarification process.

Often, isinglass is not mentioned in the ingredients label. This is due to the fact that the majority of the substance is removed from the beer before bottling, and so, is often not seen as an ingredient. This can make avoiding isinglass a little more difficult.

A good way to make sure you aren’t consuming unwanted animal products when you drink beer, is to try to buy non-cask beers. Beers that are destined for kegs, bottles or cans are often pasteurized [being sterilized, usually using heat] and filtered. The yeast in these beers tend to settle naturally, without the use of isinglass.

These days there are also many vegetarian alcoholic drinks available. by purchasing these, you can really be sure that you’re not going to get any nasty surprises by way of ingredients.

That concludes this week’s tip. Thanks for reading!

Til next week,
Tehillah.