You Can Drink A Beer Made From Oysters (Yes, Seriously)

Beer, in its simplest form, is made from nothing more than grains, hops, yeast, and water, so you'd naturally assume that all beers are vegan, right? Surprisingly, not every type of beer is vegan. Milk stouts may contain lactose, while some beers are made with non-vegan honey. Others are clarified with isinglass, which is made from fish bladders. The reason why oyster stouts are not suitable for vegans is right there in the name: Brews such as Harpoon's Island Creek, Maine Beer Company's Love Point, and Henhouse Oyster Stout are actually made with oysters.

In the earliest oyster stouts, only the oyster shells were added to both refine the beer and add flavor. These days, however, craft brewers are pushing the envelope by adding whole oysters to the brewing vat. People making more oystery stouts use both the oyster flesh and the shell to produce a rather briny brew. Those making lighter-bodied beers may opt to only include the shells, creating a more subtle finished product. 

If stout made with oysters strikes you as a bit outré, rest assured it's downright basic compared to some of the more, uh, interesting concoctions that today's brewers come up with. (Could this be to stand out in a rather overcrowded market? This is just speculation, but there are a lot of choices at any good-sized beer store.) Some of these beers may be traditional, like rauchbier, a smoky German brew that is thought to be America's most hated beer. However, the weirder ones tend to be modern like beer made with yeast from Roald Dahl's writing chair or beer made from sea urchins. Some products, however, make it seem as if the brewers are trolling us, and the oddest ones involve whales.

Moby Dick Ambergris Ale is made with ambergris, a substance formed inside sperm whales' digestive tracts. This substance is supposed to smell, uh, pretty poopy when fresh, but it's not so bad when dry. As for what it does for beer, we're not quite sure, but it does make a heck of a marketing gimmick. An even better one, though, might be using smoked whale testicles; doing so certainly put Iceland's Stedji brewery on the map. (They did catch flak from conservationists, though.) Perhaps the oddest, and certainly oldest, ingredient used to make beer was yeast taken from a 35-million-year-old fossilized whale skull. The resulting beer, Bone Dusters Paleo Amber Ale, was available during 2014 and was reported to taste fruity, if a little dry.