Glossary
Finings
Substances added to wort or beer to bind with haze-forming material and drag it out of suspension.
Also called fining, isinglass, irish moss, protafloc.
Kettle finings — Irish moss and its refined forms — are added late in the boil to improve the hot break. Beer finings, historically isinglass made from fish swim bladders, are added to the cask or tank and pull yeast down.
Isinglass is why traditionally fined cask ale is not vegan, and its use has declined for that reason. Several breweries now ship unfined, which produces a slightly hazier beer and is a presentation choice rather than a defect.
Related
- Flocculation — What finings force.
- Cask conditioning — Where beer finings are traditionally used.
More vocabulary
Arrested fermentation · Barrel ageing · Batch sparging · Biotransformation · Blending · Bottle conditioning · Bottom fermentation · Burtonisation · Cask conditioning · Centrifugation
See every term on the glossary index.
Last reviewed 2026-08-16.