Gluten free beers are made with ingredients that don't include glycoproteins. These types of brews are marketed towards those who have gluten intolerances or have allergic reactions to wheat or barley. The ingredients you will typically find in gluten free beers are rice, sorghum, buckwheat and corn. There are a number of these types of beers sprouting up within breweries across the globe. I was able to find a pretty solid list here. In fact, gluten free beers have even become popular enough to warrant their own festival back in 2006! A quick glance at that site shows that they seem to have all the information you would ever want to know about gluten free beers. Check it out if you want to learn more.
Todays review is of the first gluten free beer I was able to find at my local beer store (the giant "GLUTEN FREE" on the label helped in my search). They have a massive selection of beer so I am sure there are more gluten free beers to be found if you were to dig for longer than 30 seconds like I did. Green's specializes in gluten free beer as emphasized on their site. They have three of their beers that they ship over the pond to us here in the states: Discovery, Endeavour and Quest. Although, my bottle says Dubbel Dark Ale. It looks like they change the name on the bottles for the beers that find their way to America. Either way, I think its time to prost!
The first thing I notice with this beer is the high carbonation. As I poured it into my mug it started to foam up fast. Since this is my first experience with gluten free beers I dont know if that is normal or not. No worries though... I press on. The color is clear and dark. When held to the light you see shades of ruby red. The foam lingers for quite a long time and finally collapses into a thick layer floating on top and never quite goes away. The aroma is a caramelized fruit and is what I would expect from a beer made with Belgian yeast. My first taste is better than I had anticipated. Thin to medium body and a carbonation level that is lower than what the initial pour led me to believe. A lot of dark fruit flavors are present. After a few sips the sweetness begins to sneak up on you. Probably due to the brew warming up. The finish is a little watery. The hop bitterness is there but the sweetness overpowers it a bit. The alcohol is nowhere to be found which is nice considering its 7% ABV.
Overall 2.7/6.0 - I was surprised by how drinkable this gluten free beer was. Just because its drinkable doesn't mean I want to drink a lot of it though. Once it warmed up it really became overly sweet. Be sure to have this one nicely chilled. For my taste this was a little too sweet to start. The style lends itself to being sweet but I think I could perceive the difference between a malty sweetness and a "millet, buckwheat, rice and sorghum" sweetness. You will definitely need to enjoy a sweeter beer in order to get through the entire pint. For what its worth, the brew was good enough to make me a semi-believer in gluten free beers. I'm sure I'll review another beer from Green's.
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