Were beers in the USA required to be fortified with vitamins in the past? Seems like I recall being told that they were (to prevent certain diseases among severe alcoholics).
Not that I’ve heard of, although beer is naturally pretty high in B complex vitamins, so maybe that’s where the idea came from.
Schlitz was fortified with vitamin D in the '30s.
http://www.old-time.com/commercials/1950’s/Schlitz.html
I don’t think that’s true… From what I’ve heard, there’s plenty of B vitamins involved, but they mostly end up in the by-products that get turned into vegemite or whatever.
Ascrobic acid is added to some beer to act as an anti-oxidant. Ascorbic Acid is also commonly known as Vitamin C. It isn’t there as a supplement. You see it in quite a few other foods for the same reason.
Depends on the beer, I suppose. Unfiltered ones will have a significant amount of yeast still in, and will still have a relatively high amount of B vitamins.
According to this, beer does have some vitamins anyway.
Back in the 60’s & 70’s my Pop really liked Fox Deluxe beer. He let me drink a couple every now and then, but damn if I can remember if it was any good or not.
Anyway, the labels did brag that there was "Vitamins B & G in every drop".
What’s vitamin G?
Gravy.
gusto.
if beer didn’t have vitamins it would make it weird to pour it on your cornflakes for that ‘get up and go’ breakfast.
It’s what they used to call riboflavin.
I don’t know about beer fortified with vitamins, but I’ve looked into the content of B-vitamins in beer. Overall, it seems to be a modestly good source of some vitamins, but nothing spectacular.
Relative to its calorie content, beer is a fair source of several of the B-vitamins. For a person getting 2000 calories a day, a single can of beer would provide 7.7 percent of his calories. It should contain at least that percentage of the RDI to be considered a good source of any nutrient. A can of beer will provide levels of some B-vitamins slightly higher than that: niacin (9.1% of the RDI) and B-6 (8.2%). Some of the B-vitamins are found at levels somewhat lower than 7.7 percent: folate (5.3% of RDI) and riboflavin (5.2%). Some others are found at levels that are little more than negligible: pantothenic acid (1.5% of RDI), thiamine (1.2%) and vitamin B-12 (1.2%).
Vitamin and calorie content of beer from the USDA (search for “Alcoholic beverage, beer, regular, all”).
RDI data from Wikipedia
Most countries have laws against fortifying some junk foods with vitamins (or at least, advertising or publicising it). You don’t want parents feeding their kids Fortified-Cola on the theory that “it’s just as good as milk!” just because it has 2 vitamins added. (I often wonder hwo Sunny D gets away with this). Certainly, the last thing any government wants is that people think drinking beer in large quantities is healthy or a replacement for a healthy diet.
So if the food naturally has some attributes, then that’s OK. But adding them and in any way advertising it on the lable is a no-no. Besides, under food labelling laws - is it still “beer” if it has added vitamins? If you cannot mention added vitamins on the label, but must list all ngredients, it’s kind of a catch 22.
Nutritional supplements are only essential* to keep specialist “health” food shops in business.
*Special (ie not general population) cases notwithstanding.
As I tell everyone when faced with my homebrew, all the vitamins are in the sludge.