Completely biased, as I worked for Craft Brew Alliance (formerly just Redhook) for 8 years, but I think this is one of the most innovative, game-changing things to hit the craft beer market in a long time. I’ve had both the Omission beers on many occasions, and honest to god I would never think the beer was gluten free. The fact that each batch can be associated with individual ELISA tests speaks highly of the level of visibility being offered. Biased, I know, but deserved IMHO.
I had a guy intern with me who was trying to make gluten-free beer, and after tasting dozens of iterations of sorghum, brown rice syrup, and chestnut based beers, I came to the conclusion that none offer the malty deliciousness that I like in beer. Omission was way better than any of them from a taste perspective, which is why the intern was fiercely against allowing Omission to call itself gluten free.
Re chestnuts: this stuff is amazing but it does contain some normal malts:
Resurrecting an old thread (due to my enthusiasm)…
Discovered Omission (brewed by Widmer in Portland) today and was very impressed with both the Pale Ale and IPA. Did not try the Lager.
My dad, sister, and daughter suffer painfully form Celiac …My brother and I seem to be asymptomatic or otherwise passively afflicted, so at the age of 60-sumpin’ I thought I’d shift away from wheat “stuff” in my diet.
Red Bridge (Budweiser) was crap, but as the comments above state, this is quite the stuff!
Sad to wave guhbye to my faves (Allegash, Ommegang and all the Belges), but I’d rather drink Gluten-free for another coupla years than be shut down by some bad juju from some cancer doc.
Looking forward to more quality GF brews hitting the market.
Not sure how Omission brews their gluten free stuff but some breweries such as Alpine are using this…
Supposedly reduces most beers to below 20ppm of gluten. They can’t claim gluten free with this process according to the FDA at this time but I believe they can state gluten reduced.
Not sure who else uses it but it doesn’t seem to affect quality in the resulting beers as the Alpine stuff is world class. I don’t know why more breweries wouldn’t use this product if it indeed reduces gluten enough for those who suffer from Celiac.
The enzyme that removes gluten is called Clarex, which was developed by Koninklijke DSM N.V., a Dutch company. Clarex is what Widmer uses, and it is the key ingredient in the White Labs version as well.
is Clarex what Stone used for their “Delicious” IPA?
also, a brewery called Against The Grain makes a fantastic gluten-free Pale Ale (as well as some other offerings, I believe). Just as good as, if not better than, Omission, imo.
I’m sure it is.
I just happened to stop at Stone today, and was able to confirm that it is, indeed, Clarex that they used for their “Delicious” IPA.
Do you have any experience brewing with this enzyme Rick? Any thoughts on how it affects taste, aroma, quality? Just guessing but maybe analogous to fining in wine?
Also I wonder why some breweries can claim gluten free when using this method and others can only state gluten reduced? Maybe just a matter of testing and paperwork.
I haven’t used this enzyme. For the most part we try to follow the German Reinheitsgebot, although we do use a seaweed derivative for kettle fining. Our niche is German-style beers, and we have a hard enough time keeping with demand for those…
From a labeling standpoint, I was under the impression that you couldn’t claim gluten free if you used malt at all. It could be that someone is just flying under the radar. Notice that the big boys (Stone and Widmer) use the term “gluten reduced”.
Thanks Rick. I am hopeful to find your beers on the shelf here in SoCal someday.
A year or so ago I bought my Mother in Law some GF beers from Harvester Brewing in Portland which is now called Ground Breaker Brewing. We both thought they were quite good for what they are. My Mother in Law is not a connessiour but does enjoy a beer in the evening.
Harvester is interesting because they make their beer from chestnuts, rather than using just Sorghum and rice syrup. The Italians make a number of more traditional beers with chestnuts.
I was impressed with the quality of the beers. Even the IPA was close enough to a real IPA to be enjoyable. I like the concept but I fear it will be hard for GF only breweries to make it. Same sort of problem for GF restaurants. My wife and I spent a good bit of time in Italy eating at various GF places. The pastas and pizzas were surprisingly good. Its also funny how the pharmacies sell GF pasta.
They key in marketing is to let the GF population know you are GF but not let the non-GF people know. There is still too much bias against GF due to poor quality which is fair. I have to admit I spent a lot of time sitting in wonderful Italian restaurants thinking about how you could make it work in the US. Clearly there would be a market in the larger cities but I think you would have to appeal to a broader market than just GF. You would also have to make your own GF pasta and pizza dough. My eyes were opened as to what you could do based on the Italian products.
I’d like to check out the Ground Breaker brewpub to see how they are doing.