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(Milton, DE) – The topic of discussion on The Brewing Network last night? Gluten-free beer.
It turns out that 9 out of 10 people suffering from celiac disease don’t even know they have it. A person with celiac disease can be so sensitive that gluten coming into contact with a plate off of which that person later eats can actually cause a reaction.
So why aren’t more breweries making gluten-free beers to help this underserved market?
One reason may be the barrier to entry.
Dogfish Head‘s Sam Calagione was on to talk about the brewery’s upcoming Tweason’ale. Calagione re-iterated that they needed to do something gluten-free as it was the #1 requested item from customers.
It wasn’t an easy process though. Dogfish Head had to deal with a mountain of red tape and Calagione doesn’t know “how many thousands” they spent on testing to get the beer certified as gluten-free. In order to be certified, Tweason’ale would’ve had to test under 20 parts per million of gluten but the beer actually came out at under 10ppm.
While Tweason’ale 4-packs will be priced similar to other Dogfish Head seasonals, Calagione admitted that the size of the brewery made it possible for them to do this beer and still keep the price point reasonable. He wasn’t so sure that small microbreweries would be be able to pull that off after all the money that goes into certification.
Tweason’ale has been pushed back to a January release and will be brewed on a quarterly basis.
Though Beer Advocate and RateBeer do not (yet?) offer a list of gluten-free beers in their databases, here is a short list with which to start.
For one of our private tastings this year, we had a gluten-intolerant guest – so we included some gluten free options. Here’s some info:
http://www.tappedcraftbeer.com/blog/2011/5/22/a-birthday-celebration-with-beer.html
His favorite was the St. Peters.
cheers,
Matt
One of the issues with gluten-free is the testing, which is still private (not by the FDA), and evolving. There are newer antibodies available for testing, and there are now some decent home and business testing options, but it’s still a rapidly changing industry.
Here’s another list I did for Men’s Health: http://blogs.menshealth.com/the-regulars/the-best-gluten-free-beers/2011/11/14/
Lets hope not
I’m a beer lover who was just diagnosed with Celiac a couple of months ago. Of the beers I’ve tasted so far, I was not a fan at all of Redbridge, find St. Peters is OK, I like Daura a lot, but I _love_ Green’s! The only problem – it costs an arm and a leg!
My significant other is gluten-free, and we’ve tried a number of the options and in comparison to gluten’d beers…well, there is no comparison. On one hand you have a gamut of IPAs and stouts and variation upon variation while on the other is a cornishy-slightly hopped lager (with the exception of DFH brew).
However we’ll definitely see more gluten-free beers though, and possibly better ones as brewers learn to work with corn and sorghum better.
It may be a very acute trend, but it’s definitely not the next big thing. Organic beer hasn’t taken off, and this won’t either.
Speaking as someone who is allergic to wheat and barley I think you may be wrong with your gluten-free/organic comparison. You don’t have millions of Americans who love beer and yet can not (as opposed to choose not) consume gluten. I think you might be underestimating the want to drink beer from those who are gluten free. I know of at least one brewery (a buddy of mine works there) whose top-selling beer is their gluten-free option. They can’t make enough of the stuff.