the dining mongers problem

[Peter Corlett]

On 13 Oct 2006, at 17:32, McGlinchy, Alistair wrote:
[...]
> You mean you can get non-vegitarian beer. Cool. Where?

Actual beer, as opposed to mass-produced pisswater, tends to be non- 
vegetarian due to the use of isinglass as finings. Isinglass is  
derived from the swim bladder of certain tropical fish, and finings  
are stuff you drop into beer to stop it being cloudy.

There *are* vegetarian finings, and some brews are using it, although  
these tend to be beers with no other merit that they need to find a  
USP somewhere. Even so, as a confirmed carnivore, I'm not quite sure  
what's so special about isinglass that they use it despite there  
being vegetarian alternatives that apparently do the job.