No, Suzi, the baking soda and the egg white are analogous to the beer. It comes out very crispy. I like beer batters too, though, very much.
However, when Jeanne and I were first married, I remember buying these very large shrimp and boiling 'em in beer - now that was great! 'Course, that was before I figured out that I'm allergic to crustaceans. Shrimp ain't kosher anyway ;-)
When I was a teenager, I developed a convenient allergy to raw shrimp. We used to help Daddy de-head them when he came in from shrimping. After I couldn't do them anymore, I cleaned the crabs. He caught them in the trawl with the shrimp, separated them at the sorting board, and put them in the cooler for the trip back. These were the tasty blue crabs. I even had to help Mama pick the meat out of them. It was a vey tedious job, but we sure liked that fresh crabmeat.
Sorry Ruthie!
bottom feeders.