This Mushroom Fiber Could Help Make the Beer Industry Completely Vegan

Monday night football has arrived, which means that one game night beverage is sure to show up on the menu: Beer. Contrary to widespread assumptions, not all beer is vegan, with many brewing companies using animal products in the finishing process. Just in time for football season, food technology company Chinova Bioworks launched a research initiative to prompt a new vegan mushroom-based fining technology. Teaming up with the New Brunswick College communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick (CCNB), the company developed a proprietary mushroom fiber that will replace animal-based fining agents.

Similar to wine, the fining process of the alcoholic beverage often uses animal products including pig’s stomach enzymes and lobster shell chitin. Chinova’s new white button mushroom fiber, entitled “Chiber,” will remove the need for conventional animal-based fining agents in the beer-making process. Typically, beer only contains four key ingredients including water, grains like wheat or barley, hops, and yeast. Some brewing companies also add a fining agent derived from animals during the production and filtering process. Chinova aims to redesign this process across the industry.

“People are searching for vegan and plant-based options for every aspect of their lifestyle, so we are committed to innovating and providing sustainable solutions based [with] our white button mushroom fiber technology,” Chinova Bioworks co-founder and COO David Brown said. “Alcoholic beverages, particularly beer, are plagued with the use of animal-derived and synthetic ingredients, and we believe we can make a big impact here with Chiber.”

Across the beer industry, companies practice the fining process to create a clearer and brighter appearance. The fining process is similar to the wine fining process, making some wines not vegan. The fining ingredients include carmine from cochineal insects, pepsin from pig stomach, and isinglass from fish bladders. Chinova’s Chiber will provide the entire industry with a plant-based alternative to keep beer vegan when an unnecessary animal-based fining agent can be avoided.

The sustainable and animal-free product has been in development for nearly five years. Chinova Bioworks launched in 2016 aiming to fill a gap in the food and beverage industry and provide clean-label ingredients to replace typical preservatives and artificial additives. The mushroom-based fiber is currently used as a natural food preservative, but the company decided to test it in the fining process. Currently, the Chiber agent is showing to work nearly eight times faster at settling yeast than typical fining agents. Following the successful tests, the company is hoping to distribute the Chiber product by early 2022.

The company also claims that the Chiber fining agent can leave behind residual antimicrobial benefits, keeping the final product fresher for longer. The fining agent is expected to carry similar qualities as its initial preservative ingredient.

“Chiber is a natural fiber extracted from the stems of white button mushrooms and provides the same benefit as other dietary fibers,” CEO and co-founder of Chinova Bioworks Natasha Dhayagude said in April when discussing the initial food preservative testing. “While Chiber’s main use is to enhance the quality and shelf life of food and beverages, it also provides nutritional value to consumers at the same time, as it is a fiber. Chiber is the first ingredient of its kind to have both preservation and nutritional benefits.”

Chinova is entering the brewing industry at a time when many companies have become dedicated to producing sustainable and plant-based products. Irish beer giant Guinness announced that it would remove the fish-based isinglass from its filtration process in 2017. The otherwise vegan beer used the isinglass as a fining agent, similar to many wine companies.

Multiple alcoholic beverages may appear vegan at first glance, but many brands practice fining filtration with animal-derived products. Even though many wine and beer brands are moving away from ingredients such as isinglass, many have failed to abandon the animal-based fining agents. Vegan-friendly beer brands include Bud Light, Carlsberg, Corona, Heineken, Coors Light, and many more.

To be certain that about vegan wine, beer, and liquor brands, check out this all-encompassing guide.

Seven-time Grammy Award winner Carrie Underwood has been hailed for her “enormous” vocal range. When it comes to her diet, Underwood’s a fan of breakfast burritos and lots of tofu. She doesn’t shy away from the carbs, either. According to Cheat Sheet, one of her favorite snacks is a toasted English muffin with peanut butter.

Singer, songwriter, and “The Voice” coach, Blake Shelton, 43, has been working to stay fit recently with help from his long-time love, Gwen Stefani, who is a vegetarian and told him to get off the meat if he wants to feel fitter and lose some weight. Shelton has been trying to keep up with Stefani's impressive fitness level, according to an interview Stefani gave this fall. The former No Doubt singer and Hollaback girl is a longtime vegetarian, eats a mostly vegan diet, and is super fit-- and at 50, looks younger than her years. A source told Gossipcop, “Gwen’s told him the way to lose it is to stay the hell away from meat and bad carbs.” We're rooting for him!

The best-selling female country music singer in history isn’t buying any expensive steak dinners after a performance. The “Queen of Country Pop” has sold more than 100 million records but says she keeps her meat-free diet simple. She is both vegetarian and eats very little dairy -- though at times has said she does eat eggs.

Americana singer and songwriter Annette Conlon is also a passionate vegan. She started “The Compassionette Tour,” in an effort to bring compassion, social consciousness, human interaction, and animal issues to a mainstream audience.

The Man in Black is synonymous with country music, even nearly two decades after his death (1932-2003), probably in part because of the biopic about his life starring vegan actor Joaquin Phoenix. Ask any die-hard country music fan (or your dad, for that matter) and they will tell you that Johnny Cash was one of the best-selling musicians of all-time. His scores of hits include “I Walk the Line” and "Hurt" "A Boy Named Sue" and dozens of others. Cash himself was believed to have lived meat-free later in life to help combat some health issues. At Johnny Cash’s Kitchen and Saloon in Nashville, you can also load up on the meat-free dishes as the restaurant boasts a fully stacked veggie menu that includes greens, sweet potato mash, and fried okra.