Great Lakes Brewing (US)

Company email (March 2025) "Almost all of our beers here at GLBC are vegan friendly, including Conway's Irish Stout. As you might know, beer is traditionally brewed with four main ingredients: water, malted barley, hops, and yeast. The most common additional ingredients in beer recipes tend to be fruits or spices. The exceptions in our packaged beers would be Christmas Ale, which uses honey, and Cookie Exchange Milk Stout, which uses lactose. "One other exception would be some pub exclusive beers. Some of them use lactose as an ingredient for fuller body, so you’ll want to avoid that beer (and the “Milk Stout” style generally) as the lactose sugar is an animal product. There are also some pub exclusive beers that you’ll want to refrain from, such as the Oyster Stout. If you’re ever at the brewpub and are curious if a pub exclusive is vegan or not (the beer name will usually give it away), just ask your server and they’ll fill you in." Carl notes (November 2019) "I just wanted to give you a heads up that the Gose used for this years 2019 and possibly for further years ahead contained yogurt (probiotic dairy yogurt) in order to act as a souring agent during the kettle rather than having an open fermentation and possibly causing issues with numerous fermenter tanks." Company email (September 2017) "The majority of our beers are vegan friendly! There are some exceptions such as Christmas Ale which contains honey, Hop By Numbers in our spring variety pack which contains lactose, and certain pub exclusives such as Shuck-It Oyster stout." Company email, April 2011 Thanks so much for you inquiry. We do not use any of the filter aids that you’re talking about here at Great Lakes , so our beers are definitely vegan friendly! I would be careful as you begin your exploration into the beer world as there are many craft brewers that do use them. I would be especially careful if you go to a place that is serving cask-conditioned beer. This is a very popular way to serve beer these days but the use of finings is very common with these beers. We do a cask here at Great Lakes on occasion and do not use any, so if you’re looking to try one, keep an eye out on our website. Thanks again! I hope you find some of our beers to your liking! From Greer: "I called them directly and asked to speak to their Brewmaster, and they transferred me to some fellow named Mark. He confirmed that they DO use honey in their Christmas Ale, but seemed perplexed when I asked if any other animal ingredients were used in the clarifying process. I then said, "Gelatin? Isinglass?" His retort was, "Um...no? We use a synthetic clarifier called PVPP" (which stands for polyvinylpolypyrrolidone, which also acts as a stabilizer)."