If you are one of the many people in the world who like a drink with their meal or even go out at night for a drink and then finding gluten-free beer is very important for those with coeliac condition. There is no room for doubt over the gluten content, too much beer has an effect on most people producing headaches and upset stomachs and celiacs do not want to compound this by ingesting large amounts of gluten.
Although there are 1 in 500 people who are gluten intolerant there are few beers commercially available which are gluten-free. Breweries are commercial companies, targeting large market segments and catering for what they perceive as a small percentage of the population is not in their marketing plans. Having said this there is a growing awareness of the need for gluten-free beer and in 2006 in the UK CAMERA, the campaign for real ale, held its first international gluten-free beer Festival.
Many beer aficionados claim that beer can only be made with specific grains and unfortunately all of these contain gluten. Perhaps their expertise and advice is best placed to one side as we live in the real world and if you want a beer then you want a beer and shouldn’t let some pompous attitude stand in your way. This attitude can also cause problems as certain beers are claimed to be gluten-free because they have been filtered several times. Whilst filtration will remove many of the components which contain gluten this is not a 100% purification process and tiny amounts of gluten will remain to which you could be sensitive. The only solution is to take a beer which is guaranteed to be 100% gluten free.
Some people have overcome the problem by brewing their own gluten free beer. An important part of this process is to find gluten-free grains which are produced in a form for home brewing, this means that they are malted. This can be a problem as many grains are sold in the bird seed form which contain chemicals, and you need to contain a pure form, and information on malting grain is not commonly available.
Several smaller breweries have started to produce gluten-free beers, Green’s Discovery, Ramapo Valley Brewery, Bard’s Tale Beer, Fine Ale Club New France Beers, O’Brien Brewing, Hambleton Ales and in Italy Bi-Aglut to name some examples. Hopefully this represents really the beginning of a much larger number of breweries understanding the commercial opportunity in catering for people who need to maintain a gluten free diet.
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