Read more here:
https://www.veggieboards.com/articles...beer-drinking/

Just thought that this might be even more helpful ... a site that lists many many drinks and whether or not they are vegan :-)
http://www.barnivore.com/

I don't drink alcohol personally so no worries here

BUT, I always thought diatomaceous earth was the fossilized remains (basically rock) of ancient sea creatures? Not parts of currently living, then killed ones. I guess there has to be some operation in order to attain these fossilized remains, which I am unfamiliar with...hopefully it doesn't involve dredging the sea floor or extensive mining

I actually have the app on my phone and iPad, very helpful.

They have an app???? I just use the main site. I've found a huge majority of beers sold in the U.S. are vegan. There's not a vegan beer I don't like!

Brew your own booze and you'll know if its vegan
I've seen lots of people have fun with beer brewing and wine brewing can also be quite fun, I found. I dont even like alcohol but brewing it is fun
Its fossilized plants (a type of algae) from either freshwater or saltwater sources. The deposits mined are on dry land, basically they dig down to the 10-100 foot thick layer and mine that. Most deposits mined are a million to sixty million years old, the ethical considerations would be habitat destruction and air quality from mining the abrasive fluff out of the ground.

Now I am curious as to whether it is valuable enough to be mined primarily, or is it just something they come across and is useful when they are actually mining for other things???

Haha yes! It's very helpful when your out and about and need to check on a whim.

My understanding is that most diatomaceous earth mining operations are going after it, specifically. Although I fully expect if there were something else worth mining there they would get that too.
Its a cool material, if you think about it. After all, its just basically tiny pickles that have fermented a LONG time

Thank you for the infor I never knew and always thought beer as vegan vegetarian friendly ..although I don't drink , im not interested in alcohol, I once in a while might have a beer or glass of wine. ( once a year ) today unfortunately is a day that I happen to be sipping Budweiser in a hotel with my meal ( probably. Last beer ) ..I was horrified to learn that some beers got animal derivites ,,
What is wrong with ppl today can't. They do with out animals ??
Injustice done to animals for ages , and ppl play deaf n dumb ..it's about time we leave them alone and stick to a decent meal !!

Diatoms are unicellular plankton.

Beer and other drugs alter our natural state of consciousness... Ideally it should only be used as medicine and in minimal amounts and time periods. Nor should we encourage it. It is ok if and when people consume it maturely (if it is actually possible to do that).

The problem isnt so much that alcohol 'alters our natural state of consciousness'. Many things do that- prayer, meditation, jogging, music alters our natural state of consciousness so much as to have a measurable influence on the functioning of our immune cells thanks to psychoneuroimmunology. The problem with alcohol and many other drugs is in their capacity to dull the mind and cause heedlessness, making mistakes and ethical misconduct easier to do.

It is possible for people to consume it maturely. As one very blatant example, a hundred years or so back some christian missionaries went deep into africa. They met up with a friendly village of farmers who were routinely effected by famine. The missionaries used the age old trick of buying conversion with food and medicine. The tribe had an ancient custom of brewing a weak beer and drinking it, and giving the dregs to children for them to drink. They didnt explicitly know why it was a custom, they just did it by tradition. But under their new religion drinking was a sin and giving the low octane beer to children was a horror. They stopped doing both. In time the missionaries had to leave. Generations of the tribe were already converted, so they would stay that religion even without the foreign food and medicine. Soon malnutrition and infant mortality skyrocteted to levels beyond what the eldest grandparents could remember. That weak beer they once brewed had been increasing the amount of B vitamins in the grains and served as a nutritional supplement. The dregs were especially concentrated in B vitamins and prevented malnourishment and death in the children. A great many children died because of the idea that drinking was sinful.
With ethics its important to look at the process and evaluate the outcomes, and not just to follow old rules blindly.

I have been a veggie for 35 years, but never knew about beer making and the process's involved! Thanks for sharing.

Is that example of deep Africa a hundred years ago and a few deaths maybe just a bit far-fetched? Please try to find a better example of mature consumption. Would something like Kombucha be alike or better?
I categorize alcohol as a form of drug and feel the experience of alcohol along with the experience of some drugs can be considered an ok learning experience if done only a few times. More for medical reasons. I agree that under those circumstances it can be done maturely.
Surely there are more negative health effects than beneficial when consumed in any prolonged regularity?

I totally think that if you need more say, energy, then use some tea like Kombucha or Yerba Buena.