Beer, Wine & Spirits Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for alcoholic beverage aficionados and those interested in beer, wine, or spirits. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
In researching beer as it relates to the Jewish dietary laws, I came across this page, which states that most unflavoured beers are OK. Even imported beers are given a wary thumbs up, however the page repeats a curious warning that
Beer from New Zealand must be presumed Dairy unless stated otherwise.
What's special about New Zealand beer that we would assume that it contained dairy or dairy by-products by default, but imports from other countries do not?
I asked a rabbi at the KAA and he said that the ruling was because in NZ ethanol is produced from whey and there was concern about that ethanol being used to fortify beers. However, they have now determined that no major NZ breweries fortify their beer in that way, so they now consider NZ beer to be pareve (neutral, neither dairy nor meat). See more here.
The KAA page notes that major import brands (but not boutique breweries) that contain no additives are kosher/pareve even without certification (other than NZ, as previously discussed). This must mean that NZ is unique in either using whey to produce ethanol or using ethanol to fortify beer, but I don't know which and didn't pursue that question with KAA.
