Vegan Beer Brewing

A few of my forthcoming blog entries for VeganMoFo 2011 will document my attempt to brew some beer.  I've been muttering about brewing beer for several years, but I never seemed to get around to doing it.  Many of my beloved friends grew weary of these mutterings and collectively shipped me a home brewery for my birthday this year.  It is now time for me to stop muttering and to start brewing.

The first thing I need to do is to figure out what's vegan and what's not.  Most beer, in general, is vegan.  There are many beers that use animal products in their clarification and filtering processes, but your average home brewer is not going to employ them.  (If you're curious about the vegan-friendliness of your favorite mass-produced beers, check out www.barnivore.com.)  So far, my home brewery contains two questionable products: BTF Iodophor and Super Grunge Remover (sodium carbonate).  My cursory Web research suggests that both of these products are pretty simple chemicals with no obvious animal origin, but I e-mailed the manufacturers for the final word.  If they turn out to be non-vegan, I can fall back Five Star Star San. Here's an e-mail exchange I had with the manufacturer:

Hi!

I'm interested in using your Star San product for home brewing. However, I prefer to use products that are:

100% cruelty free (not tested on animals)
100% free of animal by-products (no animal-derived ingredients of any kind)

Can you confirm that this product meets my criteria? 

Thank you!
Stephen

To which Jon Herskovits responded via his iPhone: 

All the ingredients in star San are on the GRAS (generally recognized as safe) list. This means they don't need bunny testing. You are good to use all five star products.

Jon Herskovits

Sent from my iPhone

"Bunny testing" sounded a little patronizing, so I thought I would press for more information:

Thank you very much, Jon, for your response.  Could you also respond explicitly to my other question, about whether your products (Star San specifically) contain animal-derived ingredients?  (I intend to share this information with readers of my blog, by the way.)

I really appreciate your time,
Stephen

To which I finally got a satisfactory, if terse, response:

No they are not animal derived.

Sent from my iPhone

 Thank you, Jon!  I feel bad about pestering him while he's on the go, but it's worth it to move forward with confidence in this long-overdue endeavor.

I ran a half marathon!

I can't say that it was easy, but it was a lot less impossible than I imagined.  The first two miles made it clear just how long the race was.  "I only have to do this six and a half more times," I  thought.  But one mile bled into the next and eventually I passed the halfway point.  I was grateful for the pacer groups, who were clusters of runners with times posted on their backs like "3:00" and "2:45."  If you ran with them you would finish close to their posted times.  I passed 3:00 pretty early on, but I didn't see 2:45 until the very end. The last three miles were by far the most difficult, as my quads were numb and my heart rate was over 190 bpm.  (Is that even possible, by the way?  I wonder if my monitor is accurate.)

I'm proud that I raised $740 to combat animal abuse.  I'm also proud that I finished my first half marathon. And while I didn't enter the race with any competitive aspirations, I'm proud of my performance:

• Finish time: 2:42:23
• Placement: 7338 (out of around 12,000) 

How does a vegan celebrate finishing his first half marathon?  He eats a mushroom, olive, and broccoli stuffed vegan pie from Paxti's, accompanied by some delicious Sierra Nevada Tumbler Ale.  And then he takes a 16 hour nap.

I'm going to run a half marathon!

I believe that, as a vegan, I should appear to be healthy. I would love to sit on my couch all day and drink beer and eat chips, but should I ever shamble out of my womb-like dungeon and into daylight, people on the streets would point a me and shout, "Look at that soft and pasty vegan! See? Vegans are so unhealthy!" In reality, I would be unhealthy simply because I'm lazy. But I doubt that I would be able to explain this to my tormentors, so it's easiest to just be healthy.

I have discovered one old weird trick to appearing healthy: being physically fit. Once very couple of years I string together a series physical activities that I call "exercising," and I try to incorporate these activities into my life's patterns. Invariably, my laziness will prevail and I will end up back on the couch with my friends Beer and Chips. About four months ago, as another period of exercise was looming on my horizon, I passed by the PeTA booth at the San Francisco Green Festival.  A friendly representative was promoting the Bay Area PeTA Pack, a group of people who were going to raise money for PeTA's undercover and rescue operations by running the San Jose Rock and Roll Half Marathon.  This seemed like the perfect way for me to get off my ass and help some animals out at the same time.

I have been running ever since, and the Half Marathon is tomorrow. Franky, I'm terrified. I ramped up my training slowly to avoid injuring myself, and never ran more than about 5 1/2 miles in a single session. I'll have to run more than twice that tomorrow. Fortunately I can always walk a bit if I need to. All I have to do is make it to the starting line by 8AM, and cross the finish line by noon. I think I can do that, especially because I know that my friends and family support me, and that the money we raised will help some animals.