All beer, including cask, leaving Purity Brewing Company’s Warwickshire farm location is now suitable for vegans.
Photograph: Purity Brewing
Since 2005 and the launch of Pure UBU and Pure Gold, Purity has set about widening the appeal of cask beer. And in recent years, it has noticed an exponential growth of veganism.
Paul Brazier, head of marketing, said: “The UK has seen a growing trend of health-conscious consumers, looking for healthier alternatives to their regular products they would normally purchase.
“Here at Purity, we’ve seen a growing demand for gluten free, organicm and vegan beers, which led us to launch a gluten free speciality range in 2019. It was only last January we relaunched Bunny Hop as a gluten free vegan hazy pale in cask, to offer an alternative to isinglass-fined traditional cask and meet a demand from cask consumers.”
During last summer, head brewer, Flo Vialan, took steps to ensure all bottled products were vegan friendly, to complement the full range of vegan friendly keg and canned beers.
Flo said: “Our keg, can, and most recently bottle products are all vegan friendly, unfiltered and brewed without the use of isinglass finings. This got us thinking, as a business built on accessibility of modern-day beer, we wanted to ensure everyone could enjoy our full range, including cask.”
Alongside the majority of the brewing industry, isinglass finings, a gelatin derived from the swim
bladders of fish, have been used as a process to aid the conditioning and clarity of beers. The use of isinglass is a process that’s been common practice in the UK for hundreds of years. Traditionally,
all cask beers have been designed to be served without a haze, and the use of isinglass has been key to
this.
Making cask beer as accessible as possible
In early lockdown, Purity set about changing this. Following some initial trials and research into credible alternatives, the team found a way to remove this animal bi-product from the brewing process.
Flo added: “Essentially, we have switched to a vegan-friendly fining agent, Super F. This will ensure all of our cask beer will continue to have the same appearance they have had since Purity was founded back in 2005.
“The new finings will work to the same principle as the previous finings, the change will not impact
quality, flavour or aroma. However, whilst tapping and conditioning remains the same, it will take a
little longer (up to three days) to completely drop bright.”
Brewery chief executive, Paul Halsey, added: “We’re truly excited about our move to be one of a few
entirely vegan friendly breweries in UK. When Jim and I set about building Purity, our aim was always to
make quality cask beer as accessible as possible.
“With the changes in consumer lifestyle, this move is a real positive change for the brewery and supports our Pure Quality and Pure ECO values we set out back in 2005.”
