… and for the beer enthusiast

With many Oktoberfest celebrations planned in the upcoming weeks, thought it might be worth mentioning there are now a variety of gluten-free beers available to wet your whistle. Celiacs and the gluten-intolerant must avoid the harmful glutens found in wheat, barley and rye.  In the gluten-free beers, alternative grains such as rice, sorghum, yeast, buckwheat, millit, and corn and sunflower are used instead of barley, rye and wheat, though some breweries will leave the barley and rye, but process it in such a way that no harmful gluten peptides remain.  In an article published by New York City’s Gothamist.com the following four beers were compared for overall flavor, and are listed below in order of their ranking by Gothamist’s taste tester:

(1) Estressa Damm Daura –  a brew from Spain, and a two time winner of the “Worlds Best Gluten-Free Beer” at the World Beer Awards.  Barley is still an ingredient in this beer, but processed in a way to remove the harmful gluten.*

(2) Green’s Belgium Beers– Discovery Amber Ale, Endeavor Dubbel Ale and Quest Tripel Ale are available in the US

(3) New Grist – produced in Milwaukee, was compared to the gluten-containing “Magic Hat”.

(4) Anheuser-Busch’s Redbridge – although this beer is most often available in US bars, it ranked last.

There are other gluten-free beers available in the US which were not part of Gothamist’s evaluation. Among others:  Bards Tale, Ray Bay, England’s St. Peters Beer, Australia’s O’Brien, Finland’s Carlsberg, Ramapo Valley, Germany’s Liebharts Residenz and relatively new to the US market, New Planet, produced in Boulder, Colorado, winner of the Best Young Business Award of 2011, by Naturally Boulder.

*some may still question whether this is a safe process for Celiacs.

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To read the full Gothamist review: http://gothamist.com/2011/10/03/beer_month_gluten-free_alternatives.php

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