Drink like a celiac!

By Mark Tichenor & Bruce Lish

 

Maybe you’ve noticed the increase in gluten intolerance diagnoses sweeping the nation. What was once a rare condition has blossomed into a full-fledged epidemic. Today, according to a web source I found (I forget which but don’t worry college professors, it’s not Wikipedia), over 2 million people in the USA suffer from celiac disease and cannot consume wheat or barley. That’s a lot of missed opportunity for breweries, as well an enormous personal tragedy for these beer-challenged folks.

 

Fortunately the 1 in 133 Americans who suffer from celiac disease can find liquid salvation in an ancient an traditional brewing grain: sorghum.

 

What barley was to historical European brewing, sorghum was to African brewing. The grain, which flourishes in warmer climes, is the traditional cornerstone of village and tribal beer, and remains a key agent in sub-Saharan brews to this day.  In fact, some brewing historians suggest that, instead of using the term “sorghum beer,” the proper term should be “African Opaque Ale”

 

Thing is, the stuff doesn’t do so well as a facsimile of barley-based beer unless a certain amount of barley malt is included, and that’s no help to celiacs. The gluten-free beers marketed for that purpose instead use sorghum and rice to create brews, which, with apologies to the late Douglas Adams, are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike beer.

 

First up: Redbridge Gluten-free beer from our buddies at Inbev-Anheuser Busch of St. Louis Missouri. To the eye, it looks like a pale ale, ruddy copper in color with a persistent head. Redbridge even has the aroma of a pale ale, gentle floral and beeswax notes wafting out of the glass.

 

However, where a pale ale would burst with flavor Redbridge (brace yourself) pales in comparison. There’s nothing on the front of the tongue, and only a little, slightly beery, finish at the very back, maybe with a touch of honey. Other than that, it’s like drinking softly carbonated water.

 

This might be perfect for folks whose comfort zone is light beer, and Redbridge really isn’t all that different in character than the 64 calorie ultralight brews currently all the rage among the young professional set. With a six-pack of this, a celiac could find the groove at any party.

 

Interestingly, Redbridge is made from only four ingredients, water, hops, yeast and sorghum, which makes it one of the Anheuser-Busch beers that most closely conforms to the traditional German Reinheitsgebot.

 

Milwaukee’s Lakefront Brewery brings us New Grist, made from sorghum and rice extract. The bottle proclaims it a ‘crisp, refreshing session beer, and it has the look of a German Helles with a weaker head.

 

The flavor is slightly tart, almost like a Belgian dubbel, or the square root of a dubbel, anyway.  No big, booming flavor notes or alcoholic burn here. You have to squint with your tongue to perceive the flavor. Which is most evident upon exhalation immediately after taking a sip, at which point the earthy, sweet, slightly grapefruit notes fleet down the back of the tongue for just a second or two.

 

New Grist lives up to its crispness though, and delivers inoffensive, vaguely beerlike drinking pleasure.

 

Finally we have Green’s Discovery, a Sorghum/buckwheat/rice concoction from the honest-to-gosh Belgian brewery DeProef. This one makes a valiant attempt at aping the characteristics of legendary Belgian ales. It fails, of course, but not as badly as one would think.

 

For one thing, there’s an actual aroma. The sense of smell is so important to tasting a beer, often serving as the differentiator between the substantial and insubstantial. Green’s kicks you in the nose. In a good way.

 

Where the general thin palate of a sorghum beer remains, at least Greens gives your tongue something to do while you sip. Belgian yeasts lend a noticeable citric grapefruit quality that really makes you feel like you’re drinking something hearty, and the alcohol burn goes some of the way to compensate for a lack of mouthfeel. It finishes with wine like tannins clinging to the inside of the mouth and inviting another sip. The best of the bunch by far.

 

If you’re gluten-intolerant, it comes down to this: How much do you miss beer? If the answer is ‘not that much,’ you’re probably better off in the world of wine, which remains totally accessible to you and your crazy physiology. But if you long for the experience of throwing back a couple of pops with the boys, you can do so with the knowledge that sorghum beers, while nowhere close to barley brews, are not, in fact, downright disgusting.

 

In other beers:

Custom Brewcrafters’ brewer Jordan Sunseri is leaving the Rochester area for the big leagues, taking a brewing gig with Downingtown PA-based Victory Brewing, one of the premier marques in indie beer. We congratulate him and revel in the knowledge that, in a few weeks, our Hop Devil and Prima Pils will have a little more Rochster in them than before. That’s a good thing, right?

 

Bruce is a certified beer judge and commercial brewer. Mark owns a laptop and likes beer. For more on beer, check out the beercraft blog, updated regularly, at http://www.beercraftsite.com. Find us on Twitter @beercraft. Send your questions, suggestions, or comments to beercraft@rochester.rr.com.