Gluten-Free Beers - Making Craft Beer even more accessible
Just for a second imagine a world without beer - it’s not pretty is it. Now, try imagining a barbecue without beer – it doesn’t bear thinking about. In fact, if you shuddered, don’t worry we had the same reaction. Joking aside, for some people beer just isn’t an option, at least it never used to be…
Aside from the fact that beer is a total no-no, gluten intolerance, Coeliac and Crohn’s disease are no laughing matter. Estimates suggest that inflammatory Bowel Disease, or IBD, affects some 3 Million people across Europe alone, so the chances are you know someone who is a sufferer.
With a little help from the Craft Beer Revolution...
Thankfully, in recent years, with a little help from the Craft Beer Revolution, interest in Gluten-Free Beer has blossomed, with Craft Breweries creating beers suitable for all tastes, whether you’re gluten-intolerant or not. In fact, gluten-free beers are becoming popular because they offer the same great range of beer flavours without some of the bloating often associated with malted beers. Whether it’s a necessity or a lifestyle thing, more and more people are removing gluten from their diet, and feeling a whole lot better for it.
That’s pretty low...
The European Union currently classifies gluten-free foods as containing less than 20ppm (parts per million) of gluten. That’s pretty low, and thanks to effective food labelling, it’s easy to see what you’re eating or drinking.
So how do you make Gluten-free beer? Unfortunately for Celiac and IBD sufferers, wheat, barley, and rye are a key ingredient in most beers as well as being major sources of gluten.
Two basic ways to brew gluten-free beer
Nevertheless, there are two basic ways to brew gluten free beer. To make alcohol, yeast needs fermentable sugar (plus a few nutrients to help it along). If you can replace malted cereal with a product that contains no gluten, then you can make gluten-free beer!
By using buckwheat, a member of the rhubarb family, rice, millet, maize or sorghum - all cereals that contain little or no gluten - the problem ingredient is removed at source.
The second solution is to brew as normal with classic wheat, barley or rye cereal malt and then filter out all the nasties to less than the threshold allowed by EU law.
Making great beer accessible to everyone...
So what are the options? Well, as we already said, thanks to the Craft Beer Revolution, in recent years Craft Brewers have been keen to make great beer accessible to everyone, which includes gluten-intolerants. And there are now breweries from all over the world producing gluten-free beer that’s so good it’s hard to tell the difference.
And it’s not just the geographical diversity of nationality that’s amazing: up-and coming Craft Brewers and old-established family breweries have really taken this issue to heart producing beers in a vast range of styles.
So good it’s hard to tell the difference
With filtered classic Blanche wheat beer, like Brunehaut, to Huyghe’s enormously popular Mongozo Pils, to modern American Pale Ales and IPAs from Mikkeller, To Øl, Sainte Cru, and Sori, you’ll be amazed at the choice on offer.
Like many Craft Brewers, we also believe that beer should be for everyone. That’s why we took the trouble of putting some of our best Gluten-Free beers into one superb 12-pack so you can see for yourself just how good gluten free beer can be.
