Vegan Alcohol
Not all alcohol is vegan friendly. And not all vegans drink alcohol. If you are straight edge or tee total you might want to skip this section. However if you do take the occasional alcoholic beverage this section desperately needs your input. I've heard rumours of a vegan pub in Bristol. If you've been there please let us know what its like (even though its not actually Wiltshire, us Wiltshire folk have been known to travel for a night out now and again). Guinness is not good for you as a vegan because its manufacture involves fish innards. Some wines are going to be ok but you want to avoid the ones whose manufacture involves isinglass from fish, blood, egg white or casein from milk. Luckily some supermarkets make this easy- the Co-op and Sainsbury mark which of their wines are vegan on the bottle. Unfortunately in the latters case, this info isn't on every bottle so it can take an extremely long and irritating time to identify the one bottle in all the millions of cruel ones that is cruelty free. You're therefore better off going to the Co-op. Karen says there are at least 10 clearly labelled vegan wines in every Co-op store. Yay! The a'Beckett's vineyard just outside Devizes produces wines all of which proudly carry the Vegan Society sunflower logo. Check them out by clicking on the Vegan Vineyard link in the right hand titles menu. Wadsworth Brewery is based in Devizes and NONE of their products are suitable for vegans. All contain isinglass (fish bladder). At present they have no plans to produce anything suitable for vegans. Polite letters or emails may encourage them to consider the potential sales they could make to local vegan customers and their family and friends. (contact them at Protected email address) If you're lucky your favourite drink will be listed in the Animal Free Shopper (8th edition is latest available from the Vegan Society). The Vegan Society produces the Animal Free Shopper to help you identify products which have no animal ingredients. However if its not listed it doesn't mean its not vegan but you'll have to then find out information from the manufacturer or distributor. Let us and the Vegan Society know about what you find out. Also the 'is it vegan' website might have the info you need. A new site is http://barnivore.com/ that has an incredible amount of detail regarding all kinds of vegan alcohol worldwide Check out the links section under Information and Support. Westons the Somerset cider makers used to identify their organic range as vegan. However they have now removed the vegan labelling due to lack of space. They swear that their recipe has not changed. Again polite emails may encourage them to re instate the vegan friendly labelling. Address your comments to Protected email address Finally there's always the DIY option. Anyone got any good recipes or tips on home brewing or wine making?
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Audit
Story posted by on 2008-03-24 15:38:14.
Story last updated by on 2010-10-12 12:39:27.