Does New Mashing Process Hold the Secret to Great Gluten-Free Beer?

As a PSU graduate who lives just a few blocks from the University Park campus, this is exciting news!  However, will we continue to be stuck with the "clear-fizzy" beer nonsense?  Can we please have stouts, porters, strong ales and malt-wines?!?   [And as a craft bartender, I would be more than happy to help the researchers taste-test their experiments!]

On 1/24/2022 at 7:27 PM, sc'Que? said:

As a PSU graduate who lives just a few blocks from the University Park campus, this is exciting news!  However, will we continue to be stuck with the "clear-fizzy" beer nonsense?  Can we please have stouts, porters, strong ales and malt-wines?!?   [And as a craft bartender, I would be more than happy to help the researchers taste-test their experiments!]

The problem currently is that restaurants and sports bars refuse to carry gluten-free beers.  They only supply the very sweet "hard apple cider" (the taste is awful).  Your suggestions are awesome!

4 hours ago, Distressed said:

The problem currently is that restaurants and sports bars refuse to carry gluten-free beers.  They only supply the very sweet "hard apple cider" (the taste is awful).  Your suggestions are awesome!

 

Find a brand of cider you do like and perpetually ask for it!  Samuel Smith is a good start, as far as being lower in sugar than the big-box brands and also it's certified organic.  Angry Orchard (here me out!) Unfiltered is much less sweet than their typical offerings. But as you say, getting bars to offer it is really difficult. 

The secret to getting product you want in a restaurant (not a chain) is going there regularly... and also when they don't have what you want, DON'T BUY ANYTHING except food.  If they can successfully switch you to another brand or a cocktail, then your request is basically moot. 

As for gluten-free beer, there's a reason bar managers don't want to sell it: IT'S GENERALLY TERRIBLE.  If a gluten-free beer can't be sold to a regular beer drinker, then they're not going to bother to stock it.  Each bottle in the fridge must be able to "pay the rent".  

And that is why this article is so important.  

But even if they can pull off gluten-free beer that tastes good, they're going to have to offer samples to every bar manager.  Not just leave a sample bottle behind. But actively taste them on it while the rep is standing there!  

Best gluten-free beer I've ever tasted, by a long-shot, was a collab between a Montreal chef and the Glutenberg company. They branded it Chartier-Glutenberg and offered at least 4 varieties that were seasonal.  The Shiso-leaf Saison was SPOT-the-f$#%-ON!!!  

Of course, it was a one-off.  <eyeroll> 

Apparently rice can be malted and mashed just like barley and makes very palatable beer. Sounds much better than the hideous gluten-reduced or sorghum beers. I am still a nomad at the moment but as soon as I have a place, I am getting to work on making rice beer.

There is good overall information here:

Open Original Shared Link

Some varieties have better enzyme content than others, as detailed here:

Open Original Shared Link

A related patent here:

Open Original Shared Link

An interesting youtube video by an Italian guy making rice beer in his kitchen:

13 hours ago, Russ314 said:

Apparently rice can be malted and mashed just like barley and makes very palatable beer. Sounds much better than the hideous gluten-reduced or sorghum beers. I am still a nomad at the moment but as soon as I have a place, I am getting to work on making rice beer.

There is good overall information here:

Open Original Shared Link

Some varieties have better enzyme content than others, as detailed here:

Open Original Shared Link

A related patent here:

Open Original Shared Link

 

 

Yes. Anheuser-Busch has been doing it for at least a generation or three, marketed as Budweiser.  Of course, their mashbill is in combination with barley, so is not gluten-free.  And it should also be noted that in the classic beer-brewing community, such ingredients are frowned upon... and termed "congeners".  <--(We'd never have gluten-free beer with that mindset, mind you.  But that someone viewed such ingredients as inferior still begs the question: WHY?  I would posit that the reason likely involves both predictability in the brewing process... as well as the notion of body.) 

On 1/30/2022 at 7:26 AM, sc&#x27;Que? said:

Yes. Anheuser-Busch has been doing it for at least a generation or three, marketed as Budweiser.  Of course, their mashbill is in combination with barley, so is not gluten-free.  And it should also be noted that in the classic beer-brewing community, such ingredients are frowned upon... and termed "congeners".  <--(We'd never have gluten-free beer with that mindset, mind you.  But that someone viewed such ingredients as inferior still begs the question: WHY?  I would posit that the reason likely involves both predictability in the brewing process... as well as the notion of body.) 

I take it that with Budweiser, they are not actually malting the rice but using it as a source of starch and relying on the barley enzymes to break it down to glucose.

You can sprout brown rice, but I suspect it would be very difficult to sparge without the hulls. I have only found unhulled paddy rice as pet food in the UK and don't know whether this is fit for human consumption. Probably not.