It seems a growing number of people are getting diagnosed with health conditions that require them to cut gluten from their diet, although that may just be that myself and other people I know are getting older and more decrepit of course! Either way it had always been game over for the beer lover as most beer is brewed with malted barley which provides the sugar to turn to alcohol as well as influencing the colour and flavour of many beers.
That’s not to say there wasn’t any gluten free options available – a handful of some more traditional ale breweries had experimented with alternative ingredients but it is safe to say they weren’t the same!
The good news is that now an increasing choice of beers are available thanks to the availability of a proline specific oligopeptidase enzyme that brewers can add to the beer to reduce the gluten content to below the 20ppm threshold required to label a product as gluten free and is tolerable to those sensitive to Gluten.
Locally all the beers produced by Abbeydale Brewery and Triple Point brewery are treated this way and can be considered Gluten Free so the many pubs in our area with Moonshine on cask now cater for drinkers with a Gluten free requirement! Chantry brewery’s Full Moon pale ale is gluten free, some of Bradfield’s bottled beers are too whilst Thornbridge’s gluten free options are AM:PM session IPA, Lukas lager and Bayern Pilsner.
A growing number of breweries across the UK are now joining the list that offer Gluten Free options and looking back at our Steel City Beer & Cider festival held at Kelham Island museum last October we offered a range of 19 cask ales and 13 keg beers that were Gluten Free and this is choice many beer festivals now seek to offer.
Some pubs also make the effort to keep their Coeliac regulars interested too, for example at the Kelham Island Tavern one of the regularly changing guest ale lines is dedicated to Gluten Free beer whilst the Dog & Partridge has a handpump that usually has the current Abbeydale seasonal special on it which of course is gluten free. It also of course goes without saying that Abbeydale’s own pub, the Rising Sun in Nether Green along with the bar at Triple Point Brewing are a good destination for drinking gluten free beer!
There are some pubs that don’t have a dedicated gluten free line but do regularly stock something suitable, examples here include the Head of Steam in Sheffield City Centre and the Beekeeper in Hillsborough. It is also worth noting that some local music venues such as the Leadmill have beer from Triple Point or Abbeydale either on keg or in can.
So if you have Gluten free dietary requirements and enjoy good beer, do seek out the beers and support the brewers and pubs that are making the effort!