Panhead New England IPA is Not Vegan Friendly

Company email (May 2018)
"We do not use any finings. Our core range beers are filtered using a two stage process of fine plates and cartridge filters. Many of our small batch beers in the tasting room are unfiltered.

"The Banana ice cream IPA has Lactose sugar derived from milk.

"Many hazy beers with a rich mouth feel such as New England IPA and also some stouts use lactose. It is unfermentable by yeast so remains in the finished beer to add body and sweetness."

Company email (October 2015)

"Although most of our beers are currently vegan we are cautious about claiming to be a 'vegan friendly' brewery. (not that we're not friendly to any vegans we meet)

"Currently, our stout, Blacktop, uses lactose and we may occasionally use lactose in other dark beers. It's possible that we may use honey at some point in a one-off beer.

"Our process aids currently contain no animal products but we readily adapt our processes to make the best beer we possibly can.

"Our beers aren't made anywhere but Upper Hutt at the moment but they've been made elsewhere in the past and may well be again in the future.

"So, in a nutshell, we'd rather give ourselves the option of adapting our products and processes as we see fit and we wouldn't want to upset anyone if we changed a recipe or process unannounced. I don't eat meat myself and I'd feel cheated if a 'vegetarian' product suddenly had animal fat in it."