I have to confess, I’m not a beer drinker, but there’s someone in my household that loves it, so I had to figure out the truth. Is beer really healthy? Why are the ingredients not listed on the label? Which brands can we trust? Which brands are trying to slowly poison us with cheap and harmful ingredients? All of these questions were going through my head at once at lightning speed. So a year ago, I started to research what was really in beer and after questioning several beer companies, reading books about food science, and talking to experts, the information I discovered was downright shocking.
I see it all the time. Someone who eats organic, makes the right choices at the grocery store, is fit and lives an extraordinarily healthy lifestyle but then drinks beer like it is going out of style.
Caring about what you eat doesn’t necessarily translate into caring about what you drink and this is a HUGE MISTAKE.
Before we get into what exactly is in beer that you should be worried about, let’s talk about how body reacts to alcohol in general.
Alcohol is metabolized by the body differently than all other calories you consume. Alcohol is one of the only substances that you consume that can permeate your digestive system and go straight into your bloodstream. It bypasses normal digestion and is absorbed into the body intact, where it goes straight into the liver.
Your liver is your main fat-burning organ. If you are trying to lose weight or even maintain your ideal weight, drinking alcohol is one of your worst enemies. The liver is going to metabolize alcohol first vs. the fat you want to get rid of – making weight loss even harder. Additionally, one of the primary functions of the liver is to remove environmental toxins from your body – if it is overtaxed with alcohol, the normal removal of these toxins becomes extremely diminished and can result in rapid aging, loss of libido, and other diseases.
The one thing that has gotten me before and I’m sure many of you – is the health marketing claims on alcohol products making drinking them seem like a good idea and an added “benefit” to your health. The low alcohol content of beer makes it appear as an innocuous beverage and something people throw back without even thinking about it. Who hasn’t seen those studies that say a beer a day is great for you (I want to ask who ever stops at just one beer?)?
So, inherently, alcohol by itself is not a healthy person’s best friend – but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Beer, especially American beer, is made with all sorts of ingredients beyond the basic hops, malt and yeast. There are numerous other ingredients used to clarify, stabilize, preserve, enhance the color and flavor of beer.
When you drink beer, there is almost a 100% chance that you don’t know what you are drinking (unless you quizzed the beer companies like I did). The ingredients in beer are not required by law to be listed anywhere on the label and manufacturers have no legal obligation to disclose the ingredients. For regular beer, calorie levels and percent alcohol are optional and for light beer calories are mandatory but alcohol levels are optional.
Michele Simon, a public health lawyer, author of Appetite for Profit, and president of Eat Drink Politics told me the reason that beer companies don’t disclose ingredients is simple: they don’t have to.
“Ingredient labeling on food products and non-alcoholic beverages is required by the Food and Drug Administration. But a whole other federal agency regulates beer, and not very well. The Department of Treasury – the same folks who collect your taxes – oversees alcoholic beverages. That probably explains why we know more about what’s in a can of Coke than a can of Bud. You can also thank the alcohol industry, which has lobbied for years against efforts to require ingredient labeling.”
I figured if the beer companies aren’t required to tell us the exact list of ingredients, I needed to investigate this for myself and asked them the pointed questions until I got the truth.
First of all, I was able to obtain a baseline list of “legal” additives allowed in beer from the book “Chemicals Additives in Beer” by the Center of Science and Public Interest. This list allowed me to ask specific questions about each beer I investigated. For example – beer sold here in America can contain several of the following ingredients:
-
Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) – alcohol is already addictive with some people, but with MSG?! Holy smokes.
-
Propylene Glycol (an ingredient found in anti-freeze)
-
Calcium Disodium EDTA (made from formaldehyde, sodium cayanide, and Ethylenediamine)
-
Many different types of sulfites and anti-microbial preservatives (linked to allergies and asthma)
-
Natural Flavors (can come from anything natural including a beavers anal gland)
-
High Fructose Corn Syrup
-
GMO Sugars – Dextrose, Corn Syrup
-
Caramel Coloring (Class III or IV made from ammonia and classified as a carcinogen)
-
FD&C Blue 1 (Made from petroleum, linked to allergies, asthma and hyperactivity)
-
FD&C Red 40 (Made from petroleum, linked to allergies, asthma and hyperactivity)
-
FD&C Yellow 5 (Made from petroleum, linked to allergies, asthma and hyperactivity)
-
Insect-Based Dyes: carmine derived from cochineal insects to color their beer.
-
Animal Based Clarifiers: Findings include isinglass (dried fish bladder), gelatin (from skin, connective tissue, and bones), and casein (found in milk)
-
Foam Control: Used for head retention; (glyceryl monostearate and pepsin are both potentially derived from animals)
-
BPA (Bisphenol A is a component in many can liners and it may leach into the beer. BPA can mimic the female hormone estrogen and may affect sperm count, and other organ functions.)
-
Carrageenan (linked to inflammation in digestive system, IBS and considered a carcinogen in some circumstances)
During my investigation, I couldn’t get a single mainstream beer company to share the full list of ingredients contained in their beer. But I did get some of them to fess up to the use of these ingredients in writing so I’m going to share this information with you now.
Carcinogenic Caramel Coloring
Newcastle, a UK brand, confessed to using what I would consider one of the most controversial food additives. Toasted barley is usually what gives beer its golden or deep brown color, however in this case, Newcastle beer is also colored artificially with caramel color. This caramel coloring is manufactured by heating ammonia and sulfites under high pressure, which creating carcinogenic compounds. If beer companies were required by law to list the ingredients, Newcastle would likely have to have a cancer warning label under California law because it is a carcinogen proven to cause liver tumors, lung tumors, and thyroid tumors in rats and mice.
Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
Many of the beers I questioned contained one or more possible GMO ingredients.
- High Fructose Corn Syrup (Guinness – unable to provide an affidavit for non-GMO proof)
- Corn syrup (Miller Light, Coors, Corona, Fosters, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Red Stripe)
- Dextrose (Budweiser, Bud Light, Busch Light, Michelob Ultra)
- Corn (Red Stripe, Miller Coors Brand, Anheuser-Busch Brands)
Most beers brewed commercially are made with more GMO corn than barley. Many of the companies I contacted dodged the GMO question – however Miller Coors had a very forthcoming and honest response. They stated “Corn syrup gives beer a milder and lighter-bodied flavor” and “Corn syrups may be derived from a mixture of corn (conventional and biotech.)”, admitting their use of GMOs.
Pabst Blue Ribbon responded saying their corn syrup was “special” and “made of carbohydrates and some simple sugars like dextrose and maltose. The sugars are fermented into alcohol and CO2, and the carbohydrates, both from the corn syrup and the malt, remain in the beers as flavor, color and body components.”
Dextrose and maltose can come from a variety of substances that are sweet, but likely are derived from GMO corn because it is super cheap for a company to use corn instead of fruit or other non-GMO sources. With cheap beer – you are not just getting a cheap buzz, you are getting the worst of the worst. Just like with cheap fast food – if you don’t invest in your beer – you will be drinking a lower quality product like Pabst Blue Ribbon that is made from GMO Corn and Corn Syrup.
In 2007, Greenpeace found unapproved and experimental GMO Rice strain in Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser, Bud Light) beer. Anheuser-Busch responded saying their US-grown long-grained rice “may have micro levels” of a genetically engineered protein called Liberty Link, but added that the protein is “substantially removed or destroyed” during the brewing of beer sold domestically. Don’t you think it’s hard to trust any beer company that gets caught using experimental food made in a laboratory? GMOs have not been tested long term on human beings and one of the main pesticides (Roundup) they spray on GMO crops are linked to inflammation, cancer and other diseases.
High Fructose Corn Syrup & Fish Bladders
Speaking of trusting companies, let’s get one thing straight, Guinness beer is no longer owned by the Irish, they are now owned by a large beer conglomerate called Diageo and manufactured in over 50 different countries. No matter how many St. Patty’s Day celebrations you’ve had with this dark stout, it’s time to stop because they use high fructose corn syrup in their beer (4/2/14 Update: Guinness Beer claims they do not use high fructose corn syrup any longer, but refuses to disclose ingredient affidavits or full of list of ingredients.) But, Guinness beer also contains isinglass, a gelatin-like substance produced from the swim bladder of a fish. This ingredient helps remove any “haziness,” solids, or yeast byproducts from the beer. Mmmmm… fish bladder sounds delicious, doesn’t? The sneaky thing this beer company does like many of the companies mentioned here today is create an illusion of using the best ingredients when in actuality what they tell you publicly on their websites is a complete farce. On Guinness FAQ’s – they have a question that states: “What are the key ingredients in Guinness” and the answer doesn’t reveal the whole picture – it only states “Our key ingredients – other than inspiration – are roasted, malted barley, hops, yeast and water.” What BS, right? You have to call, email, question and know the right things to ask to even have a chance at getting the truth. This is insanity.
So What Beers Are Additive and GMO Free?
If you enjoy the occasional beer and wish to maintain your healthy lifestyle, choosing one without GMOs and additives is ideal. Unfortunately, most of the mainstream beers available have additives, but luckily, there are a few that don’t. For example, Sierra Nevada, Heineken, and Amstel Light (7/31/13 UPDATE: It has come to my attention that Heinken USA has changed their formula to use GMOs – I called their customer service line 1-914-681-4100 to confirm and asked for the list of ingredients – the man told me “water, yeast, malted barley and hops” – then I asked if their beer contained any genetically engineered material and he confirmed “YES,” but wouldn’t tell me what ingredients are genetically engineered. They recently changed their formula after my initial research that started in late 2012.) (8/1/13 Update: Heineken reached out to me personally to say their customer service department made an error in telling me and others who called their beer has GMOs. I met with a head brew master and have viewed affidavits from the company and confirmed Heinken and Amstel Light do not contain GMOs – they apologize for the confusion.) appear to be pretty clean (but these companies still wouldn’t disclose the full list of ingredients to me. They did say they use non-GMO grains, no artificial ingredients, stabilizers or preservatives).
German Beers are also a good bet. The Germans are very serious about the purity of their beers and enacted a purity law called “Reinheitsgebot” that requires all German beers to be only produced with a core ingredient list of water, hops, yeast, malted barley or wheat. Advocates of German beers insist that they taste cleaner and some even claim they don’t suffer from hangovers as a result.
An obvious choice to consider is also Certified Organic Beers. They are required by law to not include GMOs and other harmful additives. Organic beers also support environmental friendly practices and reduce the amount of pesticides and toxins in our air, support organic farmers – which is a huge plus. (To this day, the beer drinkers in my family haven’t found one they love so if you have suggestions, please let us know in the comments!)
Craft & Microbrews Beers – For certain local craft and micro beers, you can ask those companies for a list of ingredients and many of them will be up front with you. However, companies like Miller Coors are slowly closing in on craft beers and buying them up one by one… like they did when they created the unique popular variety called Blue Moon (the beer you drink with an orange) and Anhesuer-Busch did this with Rolling Rock and Goose Island Brewery. Make sure your favorite craft and microbrew is still independently owned and controlled before taking a sip.
In the end – if you decide to drink beer, you are definitely drinking at your own risk for more reasons than just the crazy ingredients that could be in them. The key point to remember is – if you like to drink beer and want to be healthy, drink it infrequently and quiz the beer companies for the truth. Find a beer that you can trust and stick with it.
For your reference, here are some important questions to ask your favorite beer company:
-
What are the ingredients in your beer – all of them from start to finish?
-
Are any of your ingredients GMO?
-
Do you use any soy, corn, or rice processing ingredients? (Examples include: dextrose, corn syrup, etc.)
-
Do you add any natural, artificial flavors or colors to the beer? (Examples include: yellow #5, caramel coloring, red #40, MSG, natural flavors)
-
Are there any additional preservatives, stabilizers and/or clarifying agents added to your beer during processing? (Examples include: propylene glycol, Calcium Disodium EDTA, anything ending in “sulfite” like sodium metabisulfite, Heptylparaben, isinglass)
If you know someone who drinks beer – share this post with them.
These ingredients are no joke. We must inform and protect each other from these industrial chemicals, untested and potentially harmful ingredients and it starts by sharing your knowledge with the ones you love.
Bottoms up!
Food Babe
So glad you pointed out how the big international beer manufacturers produce chemical filled crap in their large mega-swill refineries!
But as a health nut, host of the Self-Sufficient Homestead podcast and owner of the Texas Big Beer Brewery, I need to make it clear, that the thousands of new small craft breweries in the U.U. are not all using the chemicals listed in the article. The only ingredients we use to brew our beer are barley, hops, yeast, water and in our Big Texas Blonde, which is a Belgian style blonde ale we add a little Belgian Candi Syrup to lighten the body and give it that rich Belgian Ale flavor. We make our own Belgian Candi Syrup and we use 100% pure cane sugar. As far as the alcohol overloading your liver, I always try to keep my liver cleansed so it works properly and can keep up with all the chemicals that are in everything. As a rule I try to avoid ALL prepackaged food products and I always check out the label when I buy any. I have no problem drinking craft beer, because most craft brewers are trying to produce the best products they can. Our beers were just approved by WholeFoods and Sprouts Farmers Market and they are focused of healthy products. We have to verify our ingredients are in compliance and on their list of excepted ingredients every three months. Please do not lump the small craft brewer in with the Huge International Beer REFINERIES! We practice the craft as it was perfected hundreds of years ago.
Cheers 🙂
Fat fingers, I meant U.S. not U.U. 🙁
How FAT was your finger U is at the mid-right – S is at bottom left…someone needs exercise!
It took more than 24 hours for somebody to post a literal response to a figurative comment. You bit the hook 😉
Hey John, what do you use with the cane sugar to invert it to candi sugar? Di-ammonium Phosphate or Potassium Bitartrate (or some other acid)?
lemon juice
Good to know! Where can I get your beer in central Illinois?
Sprouts just opened up by me, what are the names of your beer?
Guinness: “Thank you for taking time to contact Guinness. Your feedback is important to us. All Guinness Draught enjoyed in the United States comes from the home of Guinness – St. James’s Gate in Dublin. While the Guinness Beer produced in some markets may use non-GMO Sorghum and sugar syrups, we can confirm that there is no high fructose corn syrup and no GMOs in any Guinness Beer distributed in the United States. Once again, thank you for contacting Guinness.”
How many PPM’s of fluoride are in these brews??
We reverse osmosis purify all our water, because I do not want industrial waste like fluoride in my beer. I drink my beer too!
If you do another post on beer, can you please check into New Belgium brewery? They are a leader in sustainability in terms of water waste, wind power, bicycling, etc. It would be interesting to know if their green philosophy can also be found in the beer ingredients. Thanks for the information!
I contacted New Belgium Brewing to ask about their ingredients and additives in Fat Tire beer. Here is their response:
Fat tire is simply Malted barley, hops, yeast, water. For some of their other beers, the list may include roasted barley, malted wheat, malted rye, oats, spices (whole ground powder forms such as coriander, orange peel, coconut, curry, ect) fruit juice, sugar cane.
GMO? – none
Soy, corn or rice processing ingredients? No
natural, artificial flavors or colors? None, all flavors and colors are produced by the above list of ingredients.
Any additional preservatives, stabilizers or clarifying agents? No
So…Fat tire and the rest of the New Belgium Brewing beers are safe and all natural. Drink up!
I make my own beer and drink a lot of bluemoon. I don’t care whats in it. I just like the taste. At least it won’t give you breast cancer like bottled water can. If you don’t like it that’s fine, but don’t try to ruin it for everyone else.
Ruin it for everyone else? Are you crazy? This is a life changing post and you say silly stuff like that?!? No one in their right mind would chose to continue consuming poison once they know it is poison. Thank you FB, you rock my world. Now to find an alternative…
This rocks your world? Wow, low expectations. What’s your phone number?
Great response Kevin, great response! Had the wife and I rofl.
HAHAHA
Actually, high alcohol consumption (of any kind) has been known to cause breast cancer.
“No one in their right mind would chose to continue consuming poison once they know it is poison.”
Guess that’s why big tobacco is going under….oh wait.
wrong… people continue to smoke in todays world, knowing full well it can kill them. people smoke crack. people shoot heroin. people eat lots of sugar. everyone knows that all of these things are bad for you and can hurt you severely in the end. yet they still continue to do it.
and i am going to continue to drink my beer..
I totally agree. I try to eat organic and I finally got my husband off Bud Light after showing him this article and another showing the PPM’s of flouride. .6PPM in Bud Light. Sierra Nevada .1PPM
Actually, even very low, less than moderate drinking increases risk of breast cancer. This has been shown by many studies which you can just Google. If you are drinking a lot of beer, you are increasing not just your breast cancer risk, but many different types of cancer. And that is before you get to any effects the GMO ingredients or additives may have. Not just that, but you may also be in denial with an addiction problem. Alcohol is very tough to quit.
Every time I have witnessed a throw-down regarding fluoridation of the domestic water supply in this country, I keep hearing from the conspiracy folks how it is all a government plot to keep the populace subservient and apathetic, and none of them ever gets around to the simple fact that there are numerous locations in this country where natural fluoride levels in the domestic water supply are high enough (well beyond what is allowable for fluoride treated water) that dental staining is endemic. One of those geographic areas is the Texas panhandle, and if anyone thinks those folks are apathetic (especially politically), they need to visit the area, and express a few liberal opinions. Taking that risk should abolish any notions that might be held about apathy from drinking fluoridated water.
You pointed out a good fact there, natural fluoride doesn’t have the same effect as the stuff made in a laboratory or the type added to the water supply which is a byproduct (waste) from other industries.
I have never heard of “natural” fluoride. So please send me the information and its sources that detail the natural state of fluoride. No matter what the derivative, fluoride is always described as being “inorganic.” However, it is most definitely a waste product of aluminum manufacturing, which, along with aluminum itself and aspartame, is believed to be one of the chief contributors in the growing incidence of Alzheimer’s. Forget fluoride’s dumbing down effect, most Americans are on SSRIs so the damage has already been done. If any of you wish to read a block ad placed in “The New York Times” in its Nov. 14, 1963, issue, in which a consortium of NYC doctors pleaded with the city council not to fluoridate city water, please contact me at the name above, but all in small case letters, at hot mail and I will send you a pdf I made from the ad.
K.T. I attempted to send a message to you directly as you requested and it was undeliverable. I used [email protected] as you specified. I’d like to continue the conversation but I’m at a loss as to how. My FB search at the listed alias was equally unsuccessful. Let me simply say this, the word fluoride comes from the name of the element fluorine. The suffix “ide” indicates that fluorine is combined with one other element to form a compound. If you consider the elements iron, aluminum, oxygen, sodium, etc. to be “natural”, then fluorine must be considered that way too. As to “inorganic”, all the elements in the periodic table of the elements are inorganic, that doesn’t mean those elements cannot be a part of an “organic” compound. The old (far as I know still used) definition of “organic” is “compounds that contain carbon”, inorganic compounds contain no carbon. Notice I am using the word “compound” and a compound is a mixture of two or more elements, so carbon, as carbon, is an element, hence inorganic. That can get a little confusing. You mention a 1963 pdf of a NYT open letter by some doctors as something you consider significant. Please consider this; if, God forbid, you discovered tomorrow that you had cancer, would you want to be treated by doctors using methods from 1963, or methods from 2013? Guessing what your answer may be, let me suggest that you regard the open letter of 1963 the same way.
It’s very tiring to read the comments from armchair experts who make a few biased observations and don’t bother to go beyond that. Then they make their pronouncements for all to hear, and again don’t bother to confirm them with anyone who actually knows something about the subject. With the internet at your fingertips, there is no excuse for this. Do some research and don’t post propaganda influenced junk. There is plenty of good science against water fluoridation and plenty of pseudoscience for it. It also was sold using propaganda developed by Edward Bernays. Water Fluoridation is truly a grand conspiracy to make money off of industrial waste, and has absolutely no benefit for tooth decay, in fact it hurts health. See fluoridealert.org.
Kudo’s to you:))
Some serious histrionics in this article.
Is high fructose corn syrup made from GMO corn really any different than high fructose corn syrup made from non-GMO corn? Isn’t corn already GMO because it was genetically modified from maize?
I suspect that unless you drink gallons of beer a day, you have little to worry about from “carcinogenic” food coloring.
Gelatin from fish bladders? Is that any worse than gelatin from horse hooves?
This all really seems to be much ado about nothing.
Not gelatin, isinglass is used to remove excess yeast or something of the like. Not really that big of a deal, it’s been used for a really long time.
Artificially coloring Newcastle is laughable, one more reason to remind friends to stay away from that garbage.
Most concerning is HFCS whether GMO or not in any beer. What is the matter with people? Learn to enjoy something that doesn’t need added sweetener.
But, David, you cannot make beer (or anything else that is fermented–like, say, bread dough) without sugar to feed the yeast. HFCS is just a less expensive substitute for cane sugar, the yeast doesn’t care (within certain limits) what kind of sugar it gets so long as it is sugar.
And the vast majority of this sugar comes from the fermentable sugars in the barley, not HFCS. HFCS might be less expensive than cane sugar, but I’m not aware of any breweries that use it in production. Just because something is on the list of approved ingredients doesn’t mean it’s in the beer you drink. For example, ethylene glycol is on the list because all refrigerants are required to be on the list. It’s not an ingredient in any beer. It’s used to keep the tanks cold. This post is all histrionics and very few facts.
Agreed.
German beers will give a monster hangover, I promise.
They make some of my favorite beers, but they will more likely give a hangover. Drink them in moderation.
I find most ales to give much less of a hangover.
Great German beers include Warsteiner, Hacker-Pschoor and others.
Enjoy!
Don’t forget that fine German brew — Meisterbraü!
Don’t forget that fine German product — Meisterbrau!
While you’re at it, also ask them what the water source is that they use, and if it is municipal and fluoridated, what filtration do they use? If not, you are getting about 0.75mg (3/4mg) of fluoride per 12oz bottle, or 4mg for a 6 pack.
I’ve investigated this, and I’ve confirmed the following beers are either brewed with a non-fluoridated water source, or use a filtration method that removes it. These are: Stella Artois, Yuengling, Leinenkugel, Heineken, Molson Canadian, Labatt Blue (NOT Ice) and Ithaca. I’m sure there are others, but this is my “safe” list when I do drink beer. I guess I need to do some more research on GMOs and other additives.
Thanks Bill, love those brands! except Heineken….
Go to http://ffbeers.com to check on your beers flouride PPM
I hate beer, but my husband loves it and we just recently discovered Omission.. We bought it [at Whole Foods] because it is gluten free, not sure about all the other stuff though. My husband no longer has a bad stomach reaction to beer though!
I wasn’t aware that Blue Moon is owned by Miller Coors until this article so thank you for that. Is there a healthier substitute for Blue Moon?
If you heard the whole story about how Blue Moon actually came to be what it is today it is no different than any of the successful craft beer brewers out there now.
Drink what you like…
Try any hefeweizen made in Germany (Weihenstephaner is hands down the best), or even Sierra Nevada’s. Expect citrus notes with a slight hint of banana.
If you want to stick strictly with witbiers, Hoegaarden’s is a widely available one that offers much more complexity than a Blue Moon for roughly the same price. Again, you’ll get citrus, but with a touch of spice (clove? cardamom?).
Thanks Andrew! Going to see if I can locate Hoegaarden in my area… love the spice.
Hoegaarden is owned by ABInBev (makers of Budweiser, among others), as is ShockTop. If you’re after a “non-corporate beer,” your best bet is to search locally.
Your husband probably has cileac disease. The stomach issue would have nothing to do with the beer ingredients other than the gluten contained in the barley, wheat & rye. I make a gluten free beer for my sister by adding an enzyme that breaks down gluten to non harmful proteins. It has all of the other ingredients but stopped her “stomach” problems.
Check out Hoegaarden (Wit Beer). To me, Hoegaarden is FAR superior to Blue Moon, which I only drank once due to taste preference (not that it’s a mass-produced beer, which I found out later, and thus sealed it for me).
Hoegaarden isn’t organic and not sure about what ingredients, but I would assume it would likely be better health-wise than any domestic mass-produced beer (coors, AB, etc).
Don’t be dissuaded that it is owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev. InBev bought AB and not the other way around – it is not an AB product and it is not produced in the US. It is from Belgium.
$8.99-$10.99 a six pack. VERY enjoyable beer.
Just saw someone recommended Hoegaarden recently. Am on mobile and didn’t see that. Well, at least you have a couple recommendations for it. haha
The ownership of Blue Moon doesn’t make it less “healthy.”
You guys are the left’s version of climate change deniers. Cite your sources. You are destroying the scientific method with your sensationalist articles that lack wouldn’t pass muster in any even semi-serious academic or even edu-tainment journal or magazine.
WTH are you talking about, this isn’t a scientific journal (u actually trust all the info those smh). She is merely disseminating information about the unhealthy ingredients that go into mass produced products.
Is someone forcing you too take in this information?
When did “disseminating” become synonymous with “making up”?
Yet, most of the ingredients listed will never be found in a mass produced beer.
My husband likes Guinness, so he contacted them directly and they plainly said, “Regarding your inquiry, we do not use high fructose corn syrup in Guinness Beer anywhere around the world.”
I’m not trying to discredit you. I don’t even like beer, and I’m big on staying away from things like high fructose corn syrup and such. However, I’ve read too much online that wasn’t true, so I was just curious if all your sources are thoroughly checked.
I’d also like to know the source saying Guiness contains HFCS. I can’t find any articles online stating that it does, outside of this page.
No brewer uses HFCS.
That’s bc no breweries use HFCS. This article is full of misinformation.
It’s amazing to me how many people completely missed the entire point of the beer post. Cheers!
We’re probably all a bit obtuse so didn’t understand!
You’re right, but here’s what some of us did because of the article:
We wrote some of the beer companies mentioned requesting a full ingredients/additives list.
Heineken responded in a timely fashion–and hopefully truthfully–that they use only natural ingredients, no additives or GMO grain. They listed a ton of things that are not in their beer.
Amstel did not answer. Perhaps that was website glitch, which is why I’d rather send a registered letter.
Anheuser Busch, a company presently being sued for watering down their beer, was not so forthright, answering. “I’m sorry we do not have a formal ingredients list that we’re able to send out.”
Uh, well, how about you compose one to display some kind of transparency.
Cheers to that! 🙂
It’s difficult to see the point when the bulk of the article contains so much misinformation.
Missed the point? The point is that the artical is filled with Lies and misinformation.
It seems that the point of the article was to not ingest harmful ingredients by drinking beer. About the only item that was correct was the comment about alcohol which isn’t even an ingredient but a byproduct. The only 2 other items that were on the list that were close to making sense were the finings (usually added pre fermentation – aka ‘wort’) which do not remain in the final product (beer) and the foam stabilizers.
Most large breweries do not use finings as they all have filters to remove the yeast and any other particulates.
Some breweries use stabilizers, but most have no need for them because the brewing process and ingredients stabilize the foam naturally.
Things like MSG and gylcols would ruin the flavor of beers, so no one would purposely add them.
As for HFCS, most breweries would not use this as there is too much fructose and it would make the beer taste cidery. Brewing sugars tend to be glucose based whereas wine sugars would be more fructose based. The HFCS will also not be a component of the final product, as it will be fermented into alcohol and CO2. There will be virtually no simple sugars left in the beer.
It’s too bad that the “research” that was done did not involve any chemistry, biology or brewing science.
You meant to write: “All of these questions were going through my head at once at lightning speed.” But spell check failed you and you got by with “lightening,” a word with a different meaning.
Thank you so much! I had my last Coor light. Guess I either quit or find an alternative … Where in the world can you get small quantities (1) of a bunch to try them?
Hi Maggie – a lot of places now sell single beers and you can make up your own 6 packs. (Whole Foods and Total Wine in my area) Plus there are several wine shops that sell really good quality beer in singles. Check it out – there are probably more options than you realize. Good luck!
Careful w/ those wine shops. The wines basically all contain added sulfites! *gasp!
I am with Curt on this one…hilarious how she has a picture of herself drinking wine at the end…might need to attack the thing you like next to see what is in it…
It was a joke.
Mill St. Organic beer is so good! I’m not sure if it’s of strictly Canadian availablity but it is one of the best beers I’ve had- and organic!
Fish Tale Organic beers from Washington state are fantastic, as well as all of Nelson Brewing Co. Beers from Canada but what should be reiterated is Drink Local and Drink Craft I work with many Craft Breweries internationally and I promise you that if you call any of them up they will happily give you a top to bottom list of what goes in to their products.
Highly highly highly recommend http://www.peakbrewing.com/ for organic, I don’t even usually bother with organic foods, and their beer is fantastic.
Belgian and German beers are the most stringent due to historical regulation. Just as France has the highest quality and regulation of wine in the world (if you speak any French at all you will see that any French wine sold in the world has an approval seal from a local control agency), Germany and Belgium subscribe and abide to tradition and regulation in the production of their beers. The highest quality beers in the world are from there without question. In fact, most beers in the world are based in brewing theory and recipes from these countries. Americans like to think that their microbrews are innovative or high quality, but most of them imply use ingredients borrowed from Belgium and German brands. That’s why so many microbrews in the us have monk or abbey or Belgian in their names. Just like new Belgian brewery from Colorado. The problem is, new is bad. Monks started brewing beer thousands of years ago in Belgium and that experience translates into exceptional knowledge. Americans are just starting out and the only reason some of them taste decent is borrowing of those other countries traditions. Everything is polluted in America so this article shouldn’t be a surprise. I have been living in Asia for past few years. Markets in Japan literally have no additives, preservatives, artificial flavors, or sugar in anything. You have to look very hard to find unnatural ingredients. This is a function of attitude, discipline, regulation, and awareness. When I go to a convenient store or market in the us, its all fake. Beers in America add tons of supplements and artificial components to try to produce a better beer, but they are still inferior to thr natural products of Germany and Belgium.
I can’t speak for Germany or Belgium because I’ve never been there. But I lived in Japan for three years, and their markets are full of food with unnatural ingredients. I would say even worse than the U.S., and I am no supporter of the U.S. food system. However, craft beer in the U.S. is typically high quality and pure. You are wrong in most everything your wrote. Educate yourself and learn to read Japanese. “Regulation” and “awareness” in regards to natural and healthy food in Japan does not exist, generally speaking. Just go eat a Tokyo Banana or anything found in a convenience store. Not to mention all the radioactive food being served in school lunches.
I don’t know if you are a beer drinker or just do not like the U.S. Your state that Belgium and German beer have been brewed under strict historical regulation, though this may be true of German beers (as of late some breweries are lobbying for relaxing of regulations because of the EU or vice versa) Belgium beers have brewed for centuries without strict regulations. Since German breweries are only allowed to use Malted Barley or Wheat, Hops,Water and Yeast as indicated by the Reinheitsgebot Law, Belgium breweries are free to use what ever local taste demand. Like whole fruit,plants,spices, different kinds of grain and wild yeast strains. The Belgiums brewing like this has become a tradition and have raised it to an art. But sadly in the last 25 years both countries have had large corporate brewers try to change the landscape. Buying out small breweries and closing them or flooding the market with mass produced larger beer. Though their mass produced larger beer is better than here in the U.S., its still not as good as locally made craft beer. So this is where the U.S. craft beer comes into play, you lament that U.S. craft beer mimics the older beer making culture. Guilty as charged, but what you fail to realize or even know is that without the American craft industry making the diverse styles based on old world recipes those styles would have died off. What you would have been left with would be a yellow fizzy larger or a even lighter fizzy wheat. It is true that some craft breweries import malt,hops and yeast but it is also true that some German and Belgium breweries import American malt and hops(not so much yeast). Maybe in Japan your not getting some of the best American craft beer being made I don’t know. I will tell you that I’m getting some pretty good Japanese craft beer in my town, the beer from Kiuchi Brewery. Check it out, but first understand its beers are based on the European model and some use American hops and only one uses Japanese hops. There are many fine breweries in Japan, please check them out and also hold them to the same high standard you assume is lacking in the U.S.
The following is from an Japanese beer blog site:
“Japanese beer legislation allows using additives such as rice, corn, sorghum vulgare, potatoes, starch and sugar. Among them rice or corn is generally used for producing cornstarch, which is then added into the beer. The amount of additives used for beer must not be over 50% of the content of malt, in other words, malt as the main constituent of beer must not be less than 2/3 of the total contents (with exception of water). Thus if the content of malt is less than 2/3 of the total or that there are other substances added which is not mentioned as additives in the legislation, the brewed product can’t be called beer but is classified as happoshu (low malt beer)”
So you see things are not always black and white. Since the world has become a smaller place based of corporate consolidation, it is harder to know where something is made and what are the ingredients. My suggestion to everyone is to drink locally made beer and to question how our food is grown. I’m sorry to be so long winded but I wanted to set the record a little straighter. Who knew there was so much disinformation out there…
The misinformation in this reply, is as bad as the misinformation in the entire article.
Belgium and Germany have regulations in place that regulate and limit ingredients and processes in the production of beer. This is similar to the high quality of French wine. Every French wine that you will see sold in the world has an approval seal from a local control agency. Germany and Belgium subscribe and abide to tradition and regulation in the production of their beers. The highest quality beers in the world are from there without question. In fact, most beers in the world are based in brewing theory and recipes from these countries. Americans like to think that their microbrews are innovative or high quality, but most of them imply use ingredients borrowed from Belgium and German brands. That’s why so many microbrews in the us have monk or abbey or Belgian in their names. Just like new Belgian brewery from Colorado. The problem is, new is bad. Monks started brewing beer thousands of years ago in Belgium and that experience translates into exceptional knowledge. Americans are just starting out and the only reason some of them taste decent is borrowing of those other countries traditions. Everything is polluted in America so this article shouldn’t be a surprise. I have been living in Asia for past few years. Markets in Japan literally have no additives, preservatives, artificial flavors, or sugar in anything. You have to look very hard to find unnatural ingredients. This is a function of attitude, discipline, regulation, and awareness. When I go to a convenient store or market in the us, its all fake. Beers in America add tons of supplements and artificial components to try to produce a better beer, but they are still inferior to thr natural products of Germany and Belgium.
I own a homebrew shop and we can avoid most of these. I am not exactly sure how dextrose is a problem unless it is GMO. I will point out since the author is pictured with wine with most likely does have a Sulfate (Potasium Metabisulfile) like she mentioned and isinglass (fish bladders). There are lots of things you may not like to hear of in your food, but that doesn’t make them all bad. How about some fresh Italian Parmesan? Made with an enzyme from a calves stomache.
Are there any beers out there that do not contain carrageenan? My daughter is highly sensitive to the nasty C, as we call it. I have seen her have terrible, debilitating reactions to this unnecessary additive. Wish they would list ingredients!
Thanks,
Carageenen is undetectible, or seen at exceedingly low levels in finished beer that uses it as a clarifier in the kettle.
You’re mad, man. You’re supporting a company which gobbles up small breweries and destroys their brands, all while shoveling low quality swill into the mouths of macro drinkers.
Every dollar you spend on Blue Moon is a dollar toward inferior Macro beer. A dollar toward GMO, big business, big agriculture. It’s also a dollar against artisan food and beer.
Don’t do it, man. Taste test some local craft witbiers (the style of beer that Blue Moon is a very lackluster example of). If you somehow think the Bluemoon is the best, have a friend arrange a blind tasting for you, where you don’t know which one is which. I bet BM loses. I bet you’ll switch brands.
BM is just a lackluster example of a Witbier, an 100’s of year old style of beer from Belgium. The style involves large amounts of wheat in addition to the traditional barley, and is spiced with curacao orange peel and coriander traditionally.
Go to your local craft beer store, or even Bev Mo, and ask for any witbier besides Blue Moon or Hoegaarden. Ask for a microbrewed Witbier, and buy that. Almost any halfway decent small production Wit will be better than either BM or Hoegaarden, both of which are owned by Big Beer companies (AB and Miller-Coors) and are watered down, lifeless products.
There are lots of great organic beers. I love Eel River IPA here in CA. Go to a health food store or Whole Foods and try some different brands.
Great article on beer and GMO’s. What about Mexican beer? Are they OK? GMO free?
You can analyze just about ANY food product and come up with something to stir up controversy. Have you even seen the chemical breakdown for the ingredients that comprise the makeup of a raw potato???
After a few beers who even cares what’s in it.
Thanks for the great article! A lot of good (and eye-opening) information. I’m pretty studied in the dark auras surrounding the food industry, but haven’t given beer the same attention.
ORGANIC BEER RECOMMENDATION:
I’ve had a few different ones, but the one that stands out and is one of my favorites – organic or not – is
St. Peter’s Organic English Ale.
Allow those of us who have given it attention to clear the issue up: This article is a crock of garbage.
If you are looking for a great tasting Organic beer try Mill st original organic!! Brewed in Toronto Canada. Great taste without all the harmful crap .
This allegation about Guinness distressed me. So, I contacted them. Their response:
“In response to your inquiry, we do not use high fructose corn syrup in Guinness Beer anywhere around the world.”
Where did you get the notion otherwise, FoodBabe?
Thanks
Thanks for the info! Very useful. Did you discover anything about Sam Adams?
Did you check Samuel Adams beer? It is supposed to be the only American beer they allow in Germany or something like that because of Sam’s adherence to their purity law
Would you add Hard Cider to your list of items to investigate…Thanks…BTW Angry Orchard is my favorite
Sounds like a lot of propaganda, but written pretty good (for people who doesn’t know what exactly beer is). Haven’t seen a single nice brand making a beer on the list (except of the Guinness, for which by the way I haven’t seen any good proof of manufacturer’s using something wrong – just some accusations by the author).
I don’t know about some of you, but I have always loved German Hefeweizen style beer. Here is the list of top Hefeweizens according to rate beer. Out of this list, I can confirm I’ve only had 2 ( http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/franziskaner-hefe-weissbier/1088/ and http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/weihenstephaner-hefe-weissbier/1156/) out of 25. Looks like I have some sampling to do. THANK YOU FOOD BABE FOR OPENING PEOPLE’S MINDS! I am a big fan!
http://www.ratebeer.com/Ratings/TopBeersByStyle.asp?StyleID=7
When I have a beer, my beer of choice, is Hacker-Pschorr, , I have type2 Diabetes so I don’t really drink any more, so when I do have one (only one) it’s this beer and this is why; Hacker-Pschorr crafts its beer according to the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot or Beer Purity Law, one of the strictest food regulations in the world. Barley, hops and water are the only ingredients allowed in beer.
I hope this is true, and I’m sure other Bavarian brewers abide to this standard,
All I know is you can taste the difference, this is beer.
I love this eye opening post. I love Blue Moon too but now will look closer at the companies I support. Thanks for your work and wisdom!
So patronize your local microbrewery. You can visit it and find out for yourself what they put in their kegs.
Oh thank you for this! If it weren’t for your blog, I wouldn’t know what to eat or drink! Please keep telling me and everyone else what to put into our bodies because we can’t possibly figure it out for ourselves!
Why are you here reading if you did not care???
This is why companies are against labeling because most rational people would not use products with harmful ingredients
I would like to state that the article is a little off on Propylene glycol being used in anti-freeze. If they researched what Propylene glycol is used for, it states it is used LIKE an anti-freeze in the pharmaceutical industry. NOT in your car antifreeze. You don’t want your gel-caps freezing.
This post is nonsense. We all know how much crap the big mega-brewers dump into beer. That’s what happens to ANY food/beverage when the prime motivator for making it is profit and not passion. No legitimate craft brewer would even think of using that stuff in the brewing process because A) none of it is necessary and B) they would me DEAD in sales terms if they got caught. In the photo, you’re drinking wine, THE most heavily sulfited beverage in the world. Fortunately, well over 90% of all American wineries have quit using sulfites already because, with proper sanitation, sulfites aren’t necessary.
I notice the name of the blog is “FOODbabe”. You seem completely unconcerned about the mistaken impression that someone might logically get from reading this sort of unfocused diatribe and now you’ve forced a LOT of hard-working, small, independent American brewers to answer a TON of asinine questions, all because you wanted to be “controversial”. What if I used my blog to claim that that FoodBabe was paid by AB/InBev to write this in order to serve their ongoing schemes to destroy craft brewing and reclaim what they see as “their” beer market? There’s at least as much falsehood in that statement as in your post, which is to say very nearly completely. It used to be, in this country, that when uninformed people popped off on a subject they know nothing about, they were simply ignored. Now they write blogs and make ridiculous claims that legitimate craftspeople wind up having to answer for. Your naked manipulation of facts would be funny if it weren’t so offensive.
[citation needed]
I hope you understand that there are sulfates used in wine making, since you’re drinking wine in that pic below the article.
If you as if there are preservatives in a beer, you’ll get a yes every time. Hops are preservatives. I can stop at one beer.
I usually have only one with dinner! One good beer a day is good enough for me.
Fish bladders are only used in small amounts and the beer is drawn off the top of the cloud of proteins leaving all that behind. Same with Irish moss.
Corn syrup is just alcohol after fermentation. The only sugars left should be dextrins derived from malt, unless saccharine or the like is used. “Beers” with the latter have always been labeled.
Please do more research and be more familiar with the processes and ingredients before you generalize and go postal on beer.
One rule of thumb. If someone is drinking the mega swill. They don’t care and they will make their own bed.
OMG I just found out yeast puts things in beer besides alcohol!!! A list here: carbon dioxide, diacetyl, ethyl acetate, iso-amyl acetate, glycerin, trans-2-nonenal or 3-methylbut-2-ene-1-thiol. They’re CHEMICALS so they must be bad.
OHNOES!!!
Wolavers Organic beers are always top notch!
This article is deceptive at best, and mendacious at worst. Isinglass, a fining agent made from the swim bladder of fish, has been used to clarify traditional British and Irish beers for centuries. It causes solid particles in the beer to clump together and sink to the bottom of the tank, thus little of any fish particles wind up in the beer you drink. And even if it does, so what? The beer still tastes good to me. Pair it with a nice salmon roll. Likewise, you don’t actually drink BPA unless your beer can is seriously defective. If it actually leeched into the beer, as the author suggests, it would not be used to line cans.
I’m not sure why corn sugar is being blasted like a dirty word, since there is absolutely no evidence to show that it’s any worse for you than cane sugar when consumed in moderation. Like all of the other horrible, scary additives being bashed here, for it to have any real affect on your health, you’d have to consume so much beer that you’d die of alcohol poisoning way before the *gasp* artificial caramel coloring and GMO corn got to you.
That said, if you wanna bash the corporate beer giants for lying about their processes, by all means have at it. They are notorious for cutting corners to pump out the most beer for the least money. Your best bet is to stick with craft beer or, better yet, brew it yourself. Just don’t try to scare innocent people about the horrors of GMO corn.
Misleading and poorly researched and sensation seeking. CSPI is not a credible resource as they fabricate most of their research or inflate their finding looking for headlines.
I see you enjoy sulfur laced wine.
I feel this is like one of those “everything you read on the internet is true bits”
“Propylene Glycol (an ingredient found in anti-freeze)”
This is used in their chillers and not as an ingredient in beer…anywhere.
“First of all, I was able to obtain a baseline list of “legal” additives allowed in beer from the book “Chemicals Additives in Beer” by the Center of Science and Public Interest.”
It is ironic that CSPI has “science” in their name, since I’m pretty sure there aren’t any real scientists on staff…maybe scientologists. If CSPI had their way alcohol, salt, saturated fat, caffeine to name only a few would literally be outlawed in society. I suggest doing some research into their organization…some pretty radical stuff. Be careful where you get your research Food Babe….
Please do more research Food Babe….
First off thank you so much for providing this wealth of information. I am amazed that some of the “Beer Giants” filled you in on their secrets.
With that said, I need to add a few comments. First off I am a brewer (former commercial, present craft, home) and have been for over a decade. I have to tell you some of these additives are not bad and are part of the brewing process. Irish Moss, Fish Bladder, Whirlfloc, etc are fining agents that clear up the beer and help with removing/separating unwanted proteins from the boil kettle prior to the fermentation process. These brew-houses typically have a PhD chemist, or highly trained Brew Master on hand to help formulate the recipe/process, so that none of fining agents make it to the final product. In fact, most or all of this will settle with the trub after the fermentation is complete and never makes it to the brite tank or finished product.
Brewers typically add buffers to harden or soften the water depending on the style of beer they are making, but I do not see that on their labels. I do not see the out cry and public concern that MgSO4, CaCl2, CaSO4 ,Ca(OH)2, etc are added. You know why? Because it is what gives a specific beer its unique profile. Just like corn syrup and the like are added to cheap beer. It’s how they keep it cheap!!!!
Next, or shall I say lastly, no self respecting beer drinker is downing mass quantities of the big commercial brews (Bud, Miller Coors, etc). And if they are they probably have habits that are far worse than the beer itself.
My suggestion to you is to learn the entire brewing process, perhaps take a few tours of a brewery and sit down with a brewer and re-tool this article. You may find that half the stuff you tried scaring the crap out of people with is actually part of the brewing process.
Like another poster said, stick to craft beer and do it in moderation. I am willing to bet the air you breath is worse than some of the chemicals in the beer you (admittedly) do not drink.
Hey Food Babe, there are shocking ingredients in every thing you consume. Don’t believe me? Read the shocking ingredients in the wine that you love so much.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/5027710/Wine-ingredients-including-fish-and-charcoal-should-be-listed-on-the-bottle-say-regulators.html
Don’t even get me started on the acceptable levels of rat in cereal!
Propylene glycol is a colorless syrupy liquid with a faintly sweet taste that is used as a moisturizer in food, cosmetics, and medicines. You make it out to sound like a bad thing. Go grab a bottle of body wash or shampoo, i’m sure you’ll find PG in there as it is used for scent.