My wife and I both have problems with gluten so we’ve been brewing our own GF beer for the last ~7 years. It was difficult to get started but the output is well worth the effort!
Most of them are darker brews (stouts, tripels, etc). This is one of our lighter holiday ales that came in ~8% ABV.
How do you even go about gluten-free brewing? I would expect that to have been a non-starter.
It was difficult at first to source ingredients, with the biggest restriction in malting. Since gluten is present in wheat, barley, and rye it can be difficult to find a good brew base. We ended up using sorghum malt as our starting point and spice it from there.
We’ve had plenty of friends try it and they don’t know it’s gluten-free unless we tell them. But it takes a larger list of ingredients to mimic the flavor profile of what people are used to.
I can imagine. Still, sounds satisfying. I don’t need gluten-free myself, but the concept is fascinating to me.
New here, and writing this from another instance. Hope it works.
My gf is also allergic to gluten and I brew her a fancy beer as present. I decided to make an unusual one (not with hops) and used millet/ rice (+ amylase), “banana”-yeast and ginger.
Tasted great, but sadly got contaminated with lactic acid bacteria, making it sour. But that was also my first try ever, next time it will get better!
You HAVE to share your recipe, especially what kind of malt you use. I’m still searching for an alternative to the strong malt taste in classical beer.
Also, any ideas for a “non-classic” (aka hops and malt) beer? Similar to the ginger-millet beer? Maybe with some spices or herbs?
Tell me everything!!! :)
Welcome to Mander!
Ginger-Millet beer sounds amazing. I haven’t yet tried a lot of non-malt brews for beer. I personally love hops so we always add a few from our little planter outside for flavor. Originally we were trying to make GF clones of regular gluten beer, but as we progressed it became easier to work up unique combinations.
The holiday ale that’s pictured above is much heavier on spice than malt flavor. When combined with the naturally lighter gluten-free malts like sorghum you don’t get that heavy malt hit. It may be close to what you’re looking for. I’m traveling on vacation right now but can pull some recipes from my log book when I get back.
On a slightly different note, have you ever tried making mead? It’s the classic honey, spice, and herb beverage.
edit: I forgot to add that my standard brew is much heavier. Stouts and tripels are my go-to. I’ll pull up some of those recipes too.
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Interesting! Most of my yeast comes from White Labs. I haven’t tried it myself, but have seen some commercial beers treated to reduce gluten and would guess it’s the same enzyme. It would probably work for me though my wife is much more sensitive.
I have only made rice wine, but its gluten free
