BMC will not, but Craft Brewers should list their ingredients

[Bucky_Brewer]

To me it all boils down to this:

Either you're the guy who says: "What my customers don't know won't hurt them."

Or you're the guy who says: "I care about the things that are important to my customers enough to inform them about what I put in my beer so that they can make an informed decision."

Either you care if some of your customers are vegan or you don't. Either you care if some of your customers are anti-GMO or you don't. Either you care if some of your customers are anti-propylene-glycol-in-their-beer or you don't. Etc.

Now me, as a customer, I would much rather buy from people who respect the things that are important to me than from people who go by the motto: "What my customers don't know won't hurt them."

No, I don't need to know what variety of hops is being used or a list of the malts to make an informed decision about a beer purchase, but by-golly I would like to know if there's genetically modified corn in it.

 

[Fuzzymittenbrewing]

To me it all boils down to this:

Either you're the guy who says: "What my customers don't know won't hurt them."

Or you're the guy who says: "I care about the things that are important to my customers enough to inform them about what I put in my beer so that they can make an informed decision."

Either you care if some of your customers are vegan or you don't. Either you care if some of your customers are anti-GMO or you don't. Either you care if some of your customers are anti-propylene-glycol-in-their-beer or you don't. Etc.

Now me, as a customer, I would much rather buy from people who respect the things that are important to me than from people who go by the motto: "What my customers don't know won't hurt them."

No, I don't need to know what variety of hops is being used or a list of the malts to make an informed decision about a beer purchase, but by-golly I would like to know if there's genetically modified corn in it.

That's part of my point. Really, your gonna sit there worried about "evil" Monsanto corn (when there is no evidence to show dangers) and keeping toxins and chemikillz out of your body, but have no problem with the alcohol itself. Its being anti something just to be anti something.

 

[Jeffinn]

Meh asking for ingredients list is pretty silly. Why? So the crunchy hippy guy who has a imaginary sensitivity to GMOs can make sure acceptable ingredients are used when at the end of the day alcohol is a carcinogen anyway.

+1 to this. The alcohol will kill you before the ingredients do.

 

[EJay]

To me it all boils down to this:

Either you're the guy who says: "What my customers don't know won't hurt them."

Or you're the guy who says: "I care about the things that are important to my customers enough to inform them about what I put in my beer so that they can make an informed decision."

Either you care if some of your customers are vegan or you don't. Either you care if some of your customers are anti-GMO or you don't. Either you care if some of your customers are anti-propylene-glycol-in-their-beer or you don't. Etc.

Either way, 'the guy' should be able to make these decisions, provided they are not deceitful, and the consumer can decide with their wallet. No need for the gov't to tell either one of them what to do.

When I give away beers for xmas, for instance, I DO list ingredients because I DO care about my 'custumers' so to speak. I just don't want to be forced to.

 

[EJay]

You've obviously never pulled a water report in Seattle nor visited many breweries here.

Gee, I was about to play the "Seattle water" card and you beat me to it. Then I see you're also in Woodinville

Great post.

I did actually treat my water for the first time in my last batch - just a tad bit of CaCL to increase hardness, since the water here (from Tolt river, anyway) is terribly soft. Not certain if it made a difference.

I'll list it if i ended up making a label for it at all

 

[xfjfyuj]

Agreed, this type of regulation would help craft brewers i feel. Its working in the food industry.

 

[Imperator85]

I think the reason that BMC doesn't mention their ingredients is because there are an alarming number of ingredients being used in addition to the expected water, barley, corn, rice, yeast, and traces of hops.

I read somewhere once that one of the BMC beers uses a flavoring that mimics the taste of formaldehyde because that flavor was once imparted into the beer long ago via their method of making the cans. So once they stopped using formaldehyde they developed a flavoring additive to imitate the flavor so customers wouldn't notice a change. True or myth? I'm not sure.

If you don't know if it is true, then don't repeat it. If you have facts to back up a claim, please cite them. There can be trace amounts of formaldehyde/formalin in any fermented beverage as it is a product of methanol (produced in fermentation) being oxidized. It's also produced in many biological processes beyond fermentation.

 

[lowtones84]

I feel like the issue will take care of itself. If somebody is adamant about not drinking GMO products (or whatever it may be), they will seek out that information for themselves. Breweries who don't provide that information readily will not be selling to those individuals. People who just want to drink good beer as long as there is nothing obviously dangerous in it won't care about it. Typically breweries who use all organic ingredients for their beers (or one beer in particular) make that pretty obvious on their labels, which makes it appeal to a certain crowd.

I just know that if I ran my own brewery, I would answer any questions customers had. But as others have said, being forced to list ingredients for all new beers would tie brewers' hands with more ridiculous bureaucracy. Oh, you want your fall seasonal, gypsy brewed, non-GMO, dry hopped, brett aged (want to start listing and testing all of the "bugs" for sour/wild beers?) organic spelt saison to be ready for October? Better brew it in February so we can test it, do all of the paperwork, and process it in time to be legal to drink by then.

 

[BigJack]

No brewer should bow down before the awesome wall of ignorance that is the Food Babe. She puts out more manure than a dairy farm.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2014/06/23/the-food-babe-is-to-food-as-jenny-mccarthy-is-to-vaccines/

 

[grrickar]

Most beers I brew it is because I found them, tried them, liked them but cannot easy get them anymore. If they came to my house and showed me how to make it they wouldn't lose a dime, because for one reason or another the local distributors don't carry them.

Soda companies are the same way - they make a decent product, and then they stop for one reason or another...

 

[brewguyver]

+1 to this. The alcohol will kill you before the ingredients do.

Unless you're deathly allergic to peanuts or shellfish and those are in your beer. In this case, it won't.

Then again, most of those beers already have PEANUT or OYSTER screaming off the label.

 

[Aileen]

Personally, I love it when I see a list of ingredients for any beer I drink. One of the reasons I originally started brewing was that I was diagnosed with an illness that's basically a delayed allergic reaction to certain foods (eosinophilic esophagitis). One of the foods I shouldn't eat is wheat, which is obviously a pretty common ingredient in beer. Eating wheat won't kill me, but it does slowly constrict my esophagus, and it causes pain.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

My only issue is logistics. I mean, my ingredients list for the beer I brewed yesterday (in order of largest quantity to lowest, which is the traditional way):

Water
Malted Rye
Malted Barley
Hops
Malted wheat
Yeast
Yeast nutrient (inorganic nitrogen, organic nitrogen, magnesium sulfate, thiamine, folic acid, niacin, biotin and calcium pantothenate)
Calcium chloride
Gypsum (CaSO4)
Epsom Salt (MgSO4)
Lactic acid
Baking Soda (NaHCO3)

And yet I consider my beer to effectively have malt, hops, yeast and water. Everything else in there is either a water treatment or yeast nutrient, and is process-related. But I'd probably have to list them.

 

[biertourist]

Meh asking for ingredients list is pretty silly. Why? So the crunchy hippy guy who has a imaginary sensitivity to GMOs can make sure acceptable ingredients are used when at the end of the day alcohol is a carcinogen anyway.

Awesome; spit coffee out my nose; hope you're happy.

You almost nailed this; the only change I'd make is that the crunchy hippie would call their imaginary sensitivity to GMOs an "allergy".

 

[biertourist]

quote super long giant post here

Awesome. I'm surprised at how much we ended up agreeing on. Except for that whole free market economy thing; it's an idealized non-existent pipe dream. The goal of large companies is to restrict a free market and make sure it's not free any more. -The market just keeps getting freer and freer until you're free to chose whatever light lager you want to drink: B, M, C -the ultimately product of a "free market".

In order to keep a free market free, competition needs to be protected; regulatory controls on the big guys and a less constrained market for the little guys; that's an actual free market and it produces far more jobs than the type of market that we call a "free market".

No running water and electricity; your brew days must take forever. ;-)

Yes, I'm great at derailing threads...

 

[biertourist]

My only issue is logistics. I mean, my ingredients list for the beer I brewed yesterday (in order of largest quantity to lowest, which is the traditional way):

Water
Malted Rye
Malted Barley
Hops
Malted wheat
Yeast
Yeast nutrient (inorganic nitrogen, organic nitrogen, magnesium sulfate, thiamine, folic acid, niacin, biotin and calcium pantothenate)
Calcium chloride
Gypsum (CaSO4)
Epsom Salt (MgSO4)
Lactic acid
Baking Soda (NaHCO3)

I spit into a jar and mailed it to an allergy testing center, they said I'm allergic to inorganic nitrogen; I also read a really great blog that said that any time you see "organic nitrogen" on a package that means it was produced from cow ****.

I don't want cow**** in my beer. That's why I just drink wine from a box; there can't be any bad chemicals in wine; it's for fancy people and there's a picture of a vineyard set upon rolling hills on the box.

Everyone also knows that calcium pantothenate is processed from the anal secretion of northamerican river otters, too... You're just as bad as Budweiser!

Is that certified non-GMO rye? Because I'm allergic to GMO rye, too; it gives me hives and stomach pains. -It's because they DNA spliced the rye with genes from ecoli so basically you're giving yourself ecoli every time you eat it, then it can continue to change your DNA after you eat it and that's where cancer comes from.

And biotin is produced by multinational Pharmaceutical companies who are just trying to keep us all sick. Do you know how much time I'm going to need to spend with my singing bowl to get my chi right after just READING about your beer?!? [ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpw53tN6h8E[/ame]


*Tongue firmly in cheek*


Adam