Why are some beer and wine not vegan?!
http://www.veganconnection.com/veganbeer...
here is a list
Answers: Because some beer and wine, just like white sugar, is filtered through something called bone char, and it is made from cow bones.
http://www.veganconnection.com/veganbeer...
here is a list
Maybe I don't understand what "vegan" means but no beer or wine contains any animal products.
The only reason I can think of is that some beer and wine making "recipes" call for the use of honey. Or maybe like the previous poster said, they use bone char filters though I do not know of any wine maker who uses it.
One reason they aren't vegan is that they are sometimes filtered through isinglass, which is made from the swim bladders of sturgeons.
Because animal ingredients are used in the process of making some of them, often as clarifying or anti-foaming agents. Some beers, for example, are fined (clarified) with isinglass which comes from the swim bladder of fish. While there is no fish in the final product, it would not be considered a vegan beer. There are extensive lists on several websites of beers, wines and spirits that use no animal ingredients at any point in the process.
In order to improve a wine's clarity it usually undergoes a process called fining.
Fining agents that are used in the production of wine include:
bentonite, gelatine, casein, chitosan, enolophin/kieselsol,
polyclar, egg albumen, isinglass, carbon, sparkolloid
Of these, the following are derived from animal products:
Gelatine - 100% animal derived gelatine. Produced from cooking / controlled partial hydrolysis of fibrous insoluble protein collagen found in bone, tendons, skin and connective tissue.
Albumen - egg whites, usually dried or frozen.
Casein - sodium or potassium caseinate which is the primary protein in milk. Both are obtained through the precipitating action of acid on milk.
Isinglass - made up of collagen fibres derived from the air bladders of certain fish, usually the swim bladder of the sturgeon.
Chitosan - derived from the shells of shellfish and crustaceans.
Most other answerers have answered the basic question of using isinglass and similar products.
I would just add that, in answer to one other point raised, that being vegan is about not using / exploiting animals for our own ends. It is not about whether animals products like isinglass are soluble and remain in the final drink, but that animals products were used and by extension a creature, being, animal etc had to be killed to obtain the islinglass or other product. Being vegan is a lifestyle, not just a diet.
I am a former chef and while this may have been true but now a days most are fined or filtered through filtering paper or clothes made of pure cotton.
But there are some beer made with a live yeast that do not get filtered or fined or strained, they are some of the best Belguim beers, I have drank a few, Duvel is one and even Hoogarten is a wheat beer and is unfiltered. Most domestic beers are not as well made, I even had one in Belguim with a wild yeast formed form the air and particales in the atomosphere, no chemical in it at all, if you want to find wine that are not done like that look to Kosher wines because of rabbinacal law they cannot be filtered like this.
Bonechar???? Wow...some people are completely insane if you are taking your mis-informed lifestyle to this extreme.