Heineken - Netherlands

Via Luis: "Heineken sponsors rodeos and events of this kind."

"All of our products are vegan, including our Newcastle Brown Ale. We do not use isinglass in any of our products."

"We are happy to inform you that all of our beers... are suitable for vegans. We do not use any animal materials or materials derived from animals in our products or during production."

"Producten die in Nederland geproduceerd zijn, zijn veganistisch. Voor producten die in het buitenland geproduceerd zijn, kunnen we deze garantie niet geven; dit omdat wij de gebruikte lijm voor de etiketten niet voorschrijven. Inhoudelijk is het product dan identiek, maar het zou kunnen zijn dat de etiketten dan met beenderlijm of iets soortgelijks op de flessen worden geplakt. Wij kunnen daarom geen uitspraken doen over buitenlandse brouwerijen." [Googel translation: "Products that are produced in the Netherlands are vegan. For products produced abroad, we can not give this guarantee ; this because we do not require the adhesive used for the labels. The content of the product than identical, but it could be that the labels than with bone glue or the like to be stuck on the bottles. We can therefore not comment on foreign brewers."]

Elder pointed out a crab leg commercial: http://youtu.be/O_25H_FDGXE

"basically we do not state that any of our ciders are suitable for vegans/vegetarians as although the majority of our ciders do not have any animal derived ingredients there is a possibility of carryover from some of our ciders that do."

Company email (April 2012): "We don't use finings or any animal products such as gelatin for filtration of cider or for juice produced by ourselves or our suppliers. Some of our ciders use Cochineal. While the majority of our ciders do not use Cochineal as they are produced in the same site as some of our ciders that do and they share processes and equipment (i.e. carryover), therefore we do not claim that any of our ciders are vegetarian." [Ciders using cochineal]: "at present it is only Bulmers Original."

"Our beer can be referred to as vegan. All ingredients are natural and from plant sources. No materials of animal sources are used. We don't use products of animal origin in the refining and filrating process. All our beer is filtered through kieselguhr filters (the calciferous skeletons of diatoms). When we first received questions from our vegan consumers, this lead us to investigate: is a diatom a single cell animal or is it a plant? The American dictionary of biology says : Diatoms contain chlorophyll and are photosyntetic. In older classifications they are identified as primitive plants. Because they are indeed plant-like in many respects, it is still common practice to use the term "plant". (Biological Science; Keeton; 3rd ed. (page 14)) According to this description of the diatom, we can conclude that the cell is considered as a plant. This makes it possible for us to call our beer vegan."

Company Email: (Jan 2011) "Nos produits ne contiennent aucun ingrédient d'origine animale."

Note from Michael: "Responses from Heineken UK to my query, which is not entirely consistent with a previous response. They previously stated that all Amstel was o.k., but the caveat regarding “carryover” sounds like that published on the ingredients lists of vegan foods here, i.e. “may contain......”, which the Vegan Society finds acceptable on the basis of allergy awareness according to EU rules on labelling."