A Beer By Any Other Name...

What’s In My Beer? A fair question indeed. I’m really not sure about the labeling regulations or what a product called beer can legally contain. There are some interesting things to consider.

So, what of some of the beers that I’ve mentioned on this site? The first one that leaps to my mind is He’Brew. I know that I make fun of their pun based marketing but their transparency with regard to their brewing is pretty amazing and worthy of respect. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that they are kosher – I wouldn’t know - but you can literally read the recipe in its entirety on their website. Each beer has a link that gives you a downloaded spreadsheet with the exact ingredients and brewing times. My hat’s off to you, Shmaltz!

I checked some other of my favorite craft brewers and didn’t find anyone with quite this much openness but there is some interesting information. Sierra Nevada and Flying Dog both list the ingredients of their beers. They don’t give exact amounts but there’s enough information there for the intrepid homebrew to work up an interesting clone.