Vegetarianism and beer a yeasty flavour. Finings are used to clear the beer of yeast – there are a variety of agents used as finings, including silicon dioxide, gelatin, polyclar, and isinglass. Isinglass is the most common fining used to clear cask ale. Isinglass is produced from the swim bladders of fish, usually sturgeon, though also those in the polynemidae, sciaenidae and siluridae families; as it is an animal product, cask ale cleared with isinglass is not considered vegetarian. A brewer may also use some form of animal product in the later stages of beer processing, such as glycerol monostearate, which is used
Swim bladder primitive species, there is only a single sac. It has flexible walls that contract or expand according to the ambient pressure. The walls of the bladder contain very few blood vessels and are lined with guanine crystals, which make them impermeable to gases. By adjusting the gas pressurising organ using the gas gland or oval window the fish can obtain neutral buoyancy and ascend and descend to a large range of depths. Due to the dorsal position it gives the fish lateral stability. In physostomous swim bladders, a connection is retained between the swim bladder and the gut, the pneumatic