Answer: Yes.
All Modelo products, including its beers, don’t include any animal-sourced ingredients and are considered vegan-friendly.
By the way, how do you spend your weekend nights? At home, or outside with friends and family perhaps? Let me guess. You’re enjoying your Friday and Saturday nights with your beer, right? Modelo beers I suppose.
Mexican brewing company Grupo Modelo has been manufacturing vegan-friendly beverages that scored high in many reviews. Their ingredients don’t involve any animal-sourced or animal by-products, which makes these drinks vegan-friendly. Malted barley and hops are two of Modelo Beer’s key ingredients.
Yes, let’s face it. We all love beer. And as vegans, we’re always on the lookout for products that are not only animal-friendly but are also gentle on the environment.
Let’s start checking out Modelo Beer.
Table of Contents
Grupo Modelo, Everyone Together
Grupo Modelo is the brainchild of Spanish Basque immigrant and entrepreneur Félix Aramburuzabala Lazcano-Iturburu and his friend Pablo Díez Fernández. The brewery was started in 1925 in Mexico with many different brands added only a few years later from its inception.
Negra Modelo beer was launched in 1930 followed by the brewery’s first canned beer, Modelo Especial in 1966. Grupo Modelo continued to produce different brands of beer as well as put up more brewing plants in Mexico.
Grupo Modelo now has 17 national brands with a presence in over 180 countries, including the United States, Germany, the Philippines, Spain, and more. The brewery also carries and exclusively markets the brands that are produced by its parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev such as Budweiser, Bud Light, Stella Artois, and Michelob Ultra, among others.
Grupo Modelo also has other brands that are exclusive only in the Mexican market. All the brewery’s brands are made in Mexico.
Grupo Modelo is also committed to sustainability where smart agriculture, circular packaging, climate action, and water management come first.
Modelo Beer Is Vegan
Despite the challenges that vegan-friendly booze manufacturers are facing, they still manage to produce alcoholic beverages that are ethical and gentle on the environment. Grupo Modelo, for instance, has been brewing its beers without using any animal-sourced ingredients since its founding in 1925.
This is what most vegan enthusiasts have been fighting for. Producing quality beers without hurting the animals is one way to sustainability. Grupo Modelo, on its website, has also confirmed that they don’t use or include any animal-derived ingredients to produce their products.
Modelo Beer is brewed using filtered water, barley malt, non-malted cereals, and hops. If you notice, none of these ingredients are sourced from animals. Everything is naturally sourced and organic.
So yes, Modelo Beer is safe for vegans, especially since it doesn’t include animal by-products.
Ingredients To Lookout For In Beer
As vegans, we don’t just check the ingredients in every food that we eat but also the beverages. While there have been many breweries and other drink manufacturers that have joined the vegan bandwagon, there are still many companies that produce non-vegan beverages.
If you’re curious enough, there are a few animal-sourced or animal by-products that are used in many alcoholic beverages, including beers, wines, and more.
- Isinglass
- This is one of the most widely used ingredients in making beers and wines. It’s sourced from the swim bladders of fish such as cod and sturgeon. It acts as the clarifying or fining agent for many beers and wines.
- Gelatin
- Animal bones, tendons, skin, and tissues are boiled to produce gelatin, which turns into a colorless and flavorless ingredient common in many food and beverages.
- Casein
- This is one of the key ingredients in making cheese, beers, wines, and more. It’s the protein found in cow’s milk, which is usually white, tasteless, and odorless.
- Chitin
- This is sourced from crustacean shells of shrimp, krill, lobster, and crab. Some insects are also the source of chitin.
- Animal Blood
- Serum albumin is commonly used in brewing beers. This is sourced from animal blood.
- Egg White
- Albumen, which is derived from eggs is also used in beers as a fining agent to improve the foam quality of beers.
- Milk, Cream
- These are also used in many beverages, including beers to give the product a rich, creamy flavor. Both milk and cream are sourced from cows, goats, and more.
- Honey
- This is sourced from the golden, sweet, and syrupy liquid that’s made by bees. When it’s fermented, the product is used as a sweetener in many alcoholic beverages.
- Cochineal, Carmine
- A red dye made from insects called cochineal is called carmine, which is used as a coloring agent in many beverages.
Avoid beverages that use any of these non-vegan ingredients. Always check the packaging to ensure that you’re not drinking animal-sourced beer or any other drinks.
Modelo Beer Nutritional Facts
So, we’ve learned that Modelo Beer is vegan-friendly. But how many calories one can get from a serving of this famous Mexican beer?
Of course, we also need to keep track of the nutritional value of every beverage we drink, and Modelo Beer shouldn’t go unnoticed.
You can check the figure below for every 12 oz serving of Modelo Beer.
- Calories: 144
- Carbs: 13.7 g
- Protein: 1.1 g
- Alcohol by Volume(ABV): 4.4%
- Fat: 0 g
- Sodium: 20 mg
- Potassium: 90 mg
What I like about Modelo Beer is that it doesn’t give you a lot of calories, and the ABV percentage isn’t high to make you drunk with just a serving. Well, unless you’re drinking more than two or three bottles of 12 oz serving, you’ll start feeling different already.
If you drink during the weekend, consider having a few bottles of Modelo Beer, and try not to drink too much. Binge drinking isn’t the best option, especially since beers contain alcohol.
According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, adults should limit up to two drinks or less in a day to avoid health issues in the future. Excessive alcohol consumption has risked many lives, which is why drinking in moderation is crucial to peaceful and healthy living.
Grupo Modelo Beer Products
Modelo Beer isn’t acting alone in the beverage industry. It’s brewed with many other Modelo products that have entered the worldwide market.
These products are authenticated in Mexico, which gives the original Mexican taste of beer. If you’re in the U.S., you know which brand or product has been made famous. It’s also my favorite brand of Modelo Beer.
There are almost 50 brands that Grupo Modelo has produced and marketed throughout the world. But these are the top 10 best products you can find in stores near you. These products are also vegan-friendly, which is something that you don’t need to worry about.
- Corona
- Pacifico
- Modelo
- Victoria
- Bud Light
- Michelob Ultra
- Budweiser
- Hoegaarden
- Stella Artois
- Guinness
Vegan-Friendly Beer
It’s not just Modelo Beer that’s ethical and vegan-friendly. There are also many beer brands that have joined the vegan drink bandwagon, which is what we’re living for.
If in case you’d be rubbing shoulders with one of these products below, know that it’s safe to drink since these are vegan-friendly. These brands are known, which means that you can find them at your local grocer or supermarkets.
- Coors and Coors Light
- Heineken
- Pabst Blue Ribbon
- Miller Genuine Draft and Miller High Life
- Skol
- Beck’s
- Harbin
- Tsingtao
- Snow
Non-Vegan Beer To Avoid
It can be confusing to find out whether or not a beer is vegan, especially when there’s limited information on the packaging or label. If you find any of these types of beers below, quickly disregard them as they contain animal-sourced ingredients in the form of milk, cream, honey, and more.
- Meads
- This is fermented honey that is used as sweeteners in beers or other alcoholic beverages.
- Cask Ale
- Also known as Real Ales, this is a type of beer, a British brewed beer, which mostly uses isinglass as its clarifying or fining agent.
- Milk Stout
- This usually contains whey or lactose, which is also used in alcoholic beverages.
- Honey Beers
- Any type of beer that uses honey as one of its ingredients is obviously not vegan-friendly.
Some companies or breweries though produce both vegan and non-vegan drinks, which can sometimes cause confusion for consumers. Considering the ingredients, however, you can easily identify which one is vegan and non-vegan, especially when the label bluntly states the contents of the booze.
Most manufacturers would put labels on the packaging, especially the allergen information. In the US, it is required to state any allergen and carmine statements to ensure the safety of consumers.
There are also companies that put vegan labels on their packaging, making it easier for vegans to identify which kind of beverage to drink. Or better yet, find the manufacturer’s contact information to directly ask about the product.
The Takeaway
Modelo Beer and all of its brands and products are vegan-friendly as clearly stated on Grupo Modelo’s website. Its key ingredients include hops, non-malted cereals, water, and barley malt, which are all sourced from plants and natural resources.
Modelo Beer also contains average alcohol volume, which means that it’s safe to drink one or two servings of it. Grupo Modelo also has other several products that are also vegan-friendly. You can find out more about them, particularly Modelo Chelada in this article.
