I began scouring the internet to see if anything else worthy of my derision  was out there.  Nope nothing else happened so I’m going to have to talk about Musk…

This is my review of Ommegang Keep it Crunchy Granola Stout:

What you may not be aware, is an ingredient that makes Vanilla extract fail to meet requirements for Vegetarian/Vegan cuisine:  Castoreum.  What is Castoreum?

It is the glandular extract from adult beaver.  Here is a link to eBay (where else?) on the off chance you need to purchase one for yourself!  Beavers use the musk from this gland mostly to mark their territory.  I cannot speak to how the secretion is interpreted by a beaver’s olfactory sense, but humans apparently find it to be pleasant.

So much so, it sometimes happens to be an ingredient in artificial vanilla extract:

Castoreum is labelled by the FDA as “generally recognized as safe.” And because of that, companies aren’t legally required to disclose when they use castoreum, often instead referring to it as “natural flavorings” in ingredient lists. But there’s a big chance that you’ve never had castoreum in your food, and likely never will.

Due to the nature of where it’s produced, castoreum is hard to extract and involves anesthetizing the beaver and “milking” its glands. Because of this, according to Fenaroli’s Handbook of Flavor Ingredients, only roughly 300 pounds are produced annually.

While its probably not in food, this did drive me to check in my pantry for such ingredients.  To the surprise of absolutely nobody here, the vanilla I buy happens to come from Mexico.



What does this mean?  Sin Gluten means it is gluten-free.  The rest of this means: Water, ethyl alcohol, propylene glycol, vanillia, natural vanilla extract, caramel coloring, and potassium sorbate (as preservative).

Just wait until they finally tell us the truth about Girl Scout Cookies.  No, they aren’t made from Girl Scouts…but they do contain soybean oil, which is one of the evil eight!

 

Granola Stout?  A bunch of vapid, smelly hippies making beer again?  Squirting their essence from anal glands all over the brewery? Thankfully, no.  Bear in mind one of the key ingredients in granola is oats.  Here is Alton Brown’s recipe.  This is in essence an oatmeal stout, so it is nothing unusual other than Ommegang’s marketing.  This beer is other wise good, a bit dryer than I anticipated but that works for a stout.  6.5% abv.  Would buy again. Ommegang Keep it Crunchy Granola Stout: 3.9/5