Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Hambleton Ales' GFA

I have a few friends who suffer from Coeliacs disease. I always feel sorry for these poor blokes as they are pretty limited when it comes to lifestyle and most importantly alcoholic beverage choices! Hambleton Ales have released a beer called GFA - or Gluten Free Ale (4.8% abv) you guest it, is not made from wheat or other gluten containing grains.
Moving onto the beer! Its a rather real tasting beer. its not a particularly malty beer, but it does have a nice hop taste and is remarkably similar to a hop driven regular bitter. Overall its very drinkable.

But I cannot find any information on how the beer is made! Is it made from malted buckwheat, millet or sorghum? Is it made from the unmalted grains and treated with amylase enzymes? Or it produced with various caramels and sugars and then heavily hopped to drive the flavour profile towards a bitter?

The first commercial all malt Gluten free beer is an Australian Beer called 'Aztec Gold', which was closely followed by O'Brian Lager. These beers were the results of experimentation by Australian brewers Jim Levet and Andrew Laverty who both independently devised the process of malting Millet and Sorghum grains. I am curious to know if the GFA stems from the pioneering brewing of the Australians or if it uses a different process?

Can anybody shed any light on the situation?


Labels: , , ,

2 Comments:

Blogger Beer Blokes said...

G'Day Tim,
The 'Silly Yak's' Aztec Gld is made using amaranth which is native to Mexico and can be eaten as a vegetable or as a grain with leaves similar to spinach. Doesn't sond like it would make a great beer! It is not a terrible drop though still a long way from a satisfying beer flavour.

O'Briens make a GF Lager and Pale Ale and to be honest I couldn't taste the difference for the overpowering back note of children's cough medicine! I think at this stage that the best beer for coeliacs is wine! I will see what I can find out about the ingredients in O'Briens and get back to you.

Cheers,
Prof. Pilsner

October 29, 2008 at 8:11 AM  
Blogger Tim said...

Cheers Prof. Pils
Yeah I read somewhere recently (AHB maybe?) that O'Brians have moved into a new brewery and are moving into regular beers as well.
I know what you mean about O'Brians LAger. I dont think that medicine taste is a flaw though. i think its an actual flavour component of Sorghum malt. Its a slightly sour flavour.

October 29, 2008 at 9:17 PM  

Post a Comment

Comments welcome, however if you are a ticker, weird beard or anonymous spammer expect to have your comments edited or removed.

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home