# Ingedients in American beers **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** beer\ **Created:** [January 30, 2013, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854 "2013-01-30T23:58:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/21 "2013-01-31T17:56:19Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > Sort of a hijack - but ages ago in college, one of the guys in the dorm was rich (and I mean, really rich family) and said his money came from great-grandpa (a chemist?) who invented a way to put something in American beer that put a “head” on the beer when poured. Apparently the beer here looked, and tasted, really flat when poured until grandpa’s concoction was added. I believe some brewers use foaming agents to enhance the head. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/22 "2013-01-31T17:56:52Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > Sort of a hijack - but ages ago in college, one of the guys in the dorm was rich (and I mean, really rich family) and said his money came from great-grandpa (a chemist?) who invented a way to put something in American beer that put a “head” on the beer when poured. Apparently the beer here looked, and tasted, really flat when poured until grandpa’s concoction was added. Then he was descended from Joseph Priestly, because what puts a head on beer is carbonation. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/23 "2013-01-31T18:21:32Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > Sort of a hijack - but ages ago in college, one of the guys in the dorm was rich (and I mean, really rich family) and said his money came from great-grandpa (a chemist?) who invented a way to put something in American beer that put a “head” on the beer when poured. Apparently the beer here looked, and tasted, really flat when poured until grandpa’s concoction was added. > [@](#): > > Anheuser-Busch claims that Budweiser contains only natural ingredients: water, barley malt, rice, hops, yeast, and tannin, an anticloudiness agent that is mostly removed from the final product. They say there’s no chicken hearts or anything else. On the other hand, Miller, Anheuser’s chief competitor, uses quite a bit of chemical goo. We can prove this by performing the following easy ‘n’ fun test for the presence of foam stabilizers. Get two clean beer glasses, and into each put one drop of milk diluted 70-to-1 with water. Then pour Bud into one glass and Miller into the other. Unless the manufacturers have changed their formulas in the last couple weeks, the head on the Bud will die like a dog within two minutes (which it should–even a tiny trace of milk is deadly to beer foam), whereas the one on the Miller won’t, indicating the presence of false drugs. > > The preceding exercise in handy home chemistry is supplied by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer group based in Washington, D.C., that recently made a not-very-successful effort to get manufacturers to voluntarily reveal their ingredients. I don’t mean to single out the Miller company, but you may be interested to know that Miller Lite contains propylene glycol alginate, water, barley malt, corn syrup, chemically modified hop extracts, yeast, amyloglucosidase, carbon dioxide, papain enzyme, liquid sugar, potassium metabisulfite, and Emka-malt, whatever that is. I would venture to say that light beers as a class tend to have more additives than others, simply because they’d be totally flat and tasteless otherwise. > > For more info on this subject, see Chemical Additives in Booze, available from the Center for Science in the Public Interest, 1755 S Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20009. > **[Does Budweiser beer contain … chicken hearts?](https://www.straightdope.com/21341507/does-budweiser-beer-contain-chicken-hearts)** ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/24 "2013-01-31T18:48:30Z")
A-B may make crap-tasting beer (it’s the rice), but they don’t dump garbage into their beers either. Just one more reason to drink craft beer from a local brewery. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/25 "2013-01-31T18:52:20Z")
Most of those ingredients are pretty straightforward: Amyloglucosidase is an enzyme of some sort, most likely used in the mash to get the very most starch converted to sugar. Papain enzyme is a proteolytic enzyme meant to break down protein haze in the beer. Potassium metabisulfite is likely used in their mash strike water to reduce phenolic flavors from husk material. Carbon dioxide… they use that for force carbonation, just like almost every large-scale brewer and soft drink maker. Propylene glycol alginate - that’s your heading agent. Sounds like a fairly innocuous seaweed derivative used for thickening. All of which are things you can buy at your friendly neighborhood homebrewing store in some form, so it’s hardly like they’re super-secret megabrewer tricks. Basically you can do all that stuff through careful brewing, but it’s both a lot harder to do, and harder to do consistently. Miller’s not doing much of anything all that weird here. CSPI needs to calm down and go back to whining about chinese food and fast food. My guess might be something to do with 2 row vs. 6 row barley, if it’s something that’s consistent with the US megabrews, and not with US craft brews or European brews. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/26 "2013-01-31T19:00:40Z")
Propylene glycol alginate is used as a foam stabilizer, potassium metabisulfite is used for killing off wild yeasts (even by some homebrewers), Emka-malt is some kind of sugar-related agent, judging by a government document I found, might be a food coloring. Edit: Too slow… ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2013, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/27 "2013-01-31T19:18:39Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Basically you can do all that stuff through careful brewing, but it’s both a lot harder to do, and **harder to do consistently**. This is the key. It’s not all that hard to brew “naked,” but it’s a bitch to do it consistently, especially at the volumes of product the mega-breweries churn out. Toss in the fact that their beers are so light that there are no flavors to hide behind and you can see where the megas will take advantage of chemical additions wherever possible. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/28 "2013-02-01T00:14:23Z")
Nice that laws like the (German) Rheinheitsgebot exist…beer should be made with water, malt and hops…only. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/29 "2013-02-01T00:26:38Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Nice that laws like the (German) Rheinheitsgebot exist..beer should be made with water, malt and hops..only. I assure you that most of them violate that rule by also adding yeast. It also eliminates many delicious Belgian varieties which add candi sugar (basically rock candy sugar) to up the alcohol content while giving a lighter body, or coriander and orange peel (essential to many witbeers), honey, or fruits (lambics), not to mention alternate bittering/preserving herbs such as heather or juniper, which were used before hops gained prominence. ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/30 "2013-02-01T00:26:39Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Nice that laws like the (German) Rheinheitsgebot exist..beer should be made with water, malt and hops..only. It’s a nice law, but it’s not my Law. Wheat is good in beer. Cinnamon, on occasion, is good in beer. And many other Rheinheitsgebot breaking ingredients. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/31 "2013-02-01T00:27:09Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > Nice that laws like the (German) Rheinheitsgebot exist..beer should be made with water, malt and hops..only. No yeast? That’s gonna be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/32 "2013-02-01T00:28:17Z")
I fought the Rheinheitsgebot and the Rheinheitsgebot won, I fought the Rheinheitsgebot and the Rheinheitsgebot won. ---
**Author:** ![lance\_strongarm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/87869e/32.png) [@lance\_strongarm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lance_strongarm)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/33 "2013-02-01T00:30:14Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > I assure you that most of them violate that rule by also adding yeast. > > It also eliminates many delicious Belgian varieties which add candi sugar (basically rock candy sugar) to up the alcohol content while giving a lighter body, or coriander and orange peel (essential to many witbeers), honey, or fruits (lambics), not to mention alternate bittering/preserving herbs such as heather or juniper, which were used before hops gained prominence. And weissbier/Weizen, made with wheat and barley. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/34 "2013-02-01T02:47:49Z")
Not to mention all those wonderful Combo beers like Orange Wheat and Pumpkin Ale. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/35 "2013-02-01T03:46:25Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Not to mention all those wonderful Combo beers like Orange Wheat and Pumpkin Ale. I don’t know why brewers insist on putting pumpkin in beer, as it does nothing for it, so far as I can tell. Most of them taste like you dumped a bunch of cinnamon and nutmeg into a perfectly good beer, or the ones with actual pumpkin flavor taste, well, vegetable-y, which is not a flavor I look for in beer. But, otherwise, I agree with you. If you followed the Rheinheitsgebot, you wouldn’t have a good portion of those wonderful Belgian beers. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/36 "2013-02-01T03:48:51Z")
> [@lance\_strongarm](#): > > No yeast? > > That’s gonna be interesting. The Rheinheitsgebot law was before they knew what yeast was, so it’s not mentioned in the original text. Beer will spontaneously ferment from yeasts that naturally occur on the grain themselves (and in the air, too, to a lesser extent.) ---
**Author:** ![Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speak_to_me_Maddie)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/37 "2013-02-01T03:55:37Z")
This thread is making me thirsty. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/38 "2013-02-01T05:10:15Z")
Added in the last 5 min boil. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2013, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854/39 "2013-02-01T05:26:04Z")
> [@arielorchid3\_gmail.com](#): > > I’m trying to find out what is the ingredient that makes me sick in the American beers. I can drink imported beers, but what ever it is has caused me to have a medical condition. If I could find out then maybe I can eliminate this in my diet completly. I"m thinking its a preservative or… sonething Incidentally, if you don’t mind beer snobbery, [Beer Advocate](http://beeradvocate.com/)is a pretty good web site if you want to find out more about beer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ingedients-in-american-beers/648854.md?page=1)