Why is isinglass supposedly a problem?

If you mean "bad" in that it can harm you, no. If you mean bad in offending a moral position, sure.
If you are going to question this on a site devoted to drinking alcohol I'd say your concerns are misdirected

 

I reiterate my post from your last thread about chilling out and just drinking the beer.

If you aren't vegan yourself, you have nothing to fear. if you're worried about your health you should just stop drinking altogether tbh. Alcohol is inherently poison. Fish bladders are the least of your worries.

 

Isinglass, one of the purest forms of collagen found in nature, is derived from the dried swim bladders of selected fishes, most notably the sturgeon. Isinglass carries an overall positive charge in an acidic environment like that found in finished beer. It reacts strongly with negatively charged yeast cells and negatively charged proteins. It has the added benefit of removing foam-negative material such as lipids. In fact, isinglass is considered foam-forming; that is, it can assist in head formation and retention. Once the isinglass and the adhered matter fall out of solution, it produces a dense and stable sediment that is not easily disturbed.

It falls out of the beer with the trub There will only be a minuscule, and by that I mean almost nothing left of the fish. Unless you have a moral problem with animal parts worrying about isinglass in an alcoholic drink is, well, .........

 

I've never seen anything about Mercury in relation to Isinglass. The articles that have been posted from time to time about 'hidden ingredients' in beer will use Isinglass as an example specifically for vegans. And, not too long ago Guinness switched from Isinglass to a more vegan-friendly fining agent so that they wouldn't lose those customers.

You probably aren't going to come across it too much with American craft beer anyway; Biofine seems to be predominantly used, and it is non-animal based. The main benefit of using Isinglass is that in cask ale it will keep the precipitates from being stirred up again as a serving is drawn- much better than any other fining agent. But with packaged beer, none of that even gets into the bottle or can anyway, so all they need is something to speed up settling. Either way, they are processing aids, and you aren't consuming them.

 

Don't focus on the chemistry classes as they won't get you what you want to know. Start looking into the Food Science literature where folks who have already learned their chemistry are concerned with determining the levels of various substances in the food and beverages we consume. While sometimes their work is about aromas and/or flavors, sometimes it is about the presence of various undesirable substances. Because of its economic importance there are a lot of researchers focused on beer, etc.

 

http://veganbros.com/why-isinglass-is-vegan/

 

Op, after looking at your 3 threads you have going right now,I'm worried about you. Being healthy is great, and we all could give some extra thought to the things we put into our bodies. That said, I think you are putting too much anxiety into your thinking. If you drink 2-3 beers a day or less, as it sounds like you do, you are fine. There are plenty of laws that would MOSTLY preclude the kind of harmful effects you are worried about. Do you get in a car and drive to work everyday? That is statistically much more dangerous to your health. Relax and have a beer!

 

I don't know what species are used to make isinglass these days, but if it's cod, that's a low-mercury fish according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

Sturgeon has more, but depending on the species, you can still have up to four servings a month according to their guidelines. I've got to imagine that a miniscule amount of isinglass in a beer has a minuscule amount of any fish component in relationship to an actual serving of fish -- but what do I know?

Personally, I wouldn't worry about it. Truth is, you can't live completely free of toxins in a polluted world. Best thing to do is support environmental policies that keep nasty shit out of the environment in the first place. (I read the other day that Sierra Nevada is a zero waste business. Maybe check them out.)

If you are super concerned about mercury in your beer, just abstain. Of course, most brewers don't use isinglass anyhow, and you can always homebrew.

 

China seems to have a leg up in the diatomaceous earth realm. I think.

 

I mean I get all of what you're saying, but you are seriously stressing yourself to death. I made the alcohol is poison point because you're way overthinking drinking beer. If you are so terrified of additives and what some jackass on the Internet writes about the very minute things that go into mass brewed beer, then beer drinking is not for you. I'm honestly not trying to be shitty but this is the third or fourth thread in the casual section of a dedicated beer forum you've posted asking about the exact same thing. If you take the risk of drinking, you should seriously, SERIOUSLY. Stop worrying about it this much.

At the absolute very least, you're bumming the rest of us out. Please chill.

 

Is this a goof??

 

Hmm. Maybe OP is on to something. A beer that has the characteristics of Harp Lager...brewed w/the strictest adherence to the German beer purity law and not using any fining agents or filters that use scary animal parts. Could there be a market for such a beer? I certainly don't want any liquid I consume to have passed through these creepy little skeletons....and a nice clean/mild lager is just what I've been craving recently.....not sure why I thought this was a goof thread.

 

As mentioned elsewhere, the dose is the poison . Alcohol in small doses actually decreases mortality rates , a few pints of session ale every week is good for you.
Arsenic in small doses is not a poison. It was the fashion at one time to dose ones' self with it to improve the complexion.The user became more and more tolerant to the substance until able to swallow a normally fatal dose without a problem though there were long term unpleasant effects.
In the doses you and I will encounter arsenic is not a thing to worry about.
I once went on a course about risks and it was a real eye opener. You cannot live a life without risk and often you balance one against the other.Live in a brick house and there is radon to consider, move to a wooden house and it may catch fire.There just is no secret to living for ever.

 

I think to summarize what everyone is saying, beer was always, and still is, the answer to the problem of consuming bad things, not the cause of it. The list of bio agents that are dangerous and can be found in drinking water, both from wells, and from city reservoirs, is extensive, as it always has been. This is why folks drank beer back in ancient times to protect themselves from those organisms, which can't live in beer. Ethanol is the main, and perhaps only, toxin anyone ever needs to worry about in beer. I am reminded of what a sky diving friend of mine once opined when I asked him if he didn't think skydiving was dangerous. "Yes," he said, "It is. I have to drive a car to get to the airport." Hopefully you get the wisdom in that remark.

 

No, no. Isinglass Fear is a real thing.

 

Fermented beverages have likely and ironically helped "preserve" our species.