Vitamin enriched beer? Why go through the bother of a healthy diet or even taking a multi-vitamin pill when you can buy a beer that is also an invention. Stephen rightly pointed out the silliness of the idea when our Canadian national beer-challenged wine writer pronounced vitamins in beer the trend of the year. Yet here we are, living the dream:

Crowds gathered to try Vitamin Beer at the show in Thailand with more than 150 products by the International Federation of Inventors' Association, a group celebrating its 40th anniversary. "If you are looking for an excuse to take a swig, this is it," said Billy L. Lalang, who concocted a beer mixed with Vitamin B, to replace the vitamin lost when people drink too much booze. Although yet to be marketed, this "prophylactic for drinkers" has already won a gold medal at the Genius Europe competition for its Philippjine inventor.

The odd thing, as Chris discussed last fall at the Beer Activist, is that real ale is loaded with natural source vitamin B as the yeast at the bottom of the cask or bottle is full of the stuff. So what you have here is a process to put a nutrient into a food that is the same nutrient that is removed by another process, filtering. Isn't science great! So how about selling me unfiltered vitamin B filled real ale and passing on the savings of not using these two no doubt patented industrial processes?