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I am grateful I arrived back in the States at the most opportune time to witness the explosion of gluten free brew coming out of local and craft breweries. I’d gone beerless for about the last year of my stay in Japan, where just about the only brew available is piss colored lager, celiac disease and gluten intolerance are unknown, and nobody has heard of gluten free anything.

Nostalgia for Kirin Ichiban set aside, I also have discovered that for a variety of poorly understood medical reasons I cannot drink more than 3 sips of white wine, red -just forget it. Alcohol also amplifies the sleep-inducing effects of some of my prescription meds so I drink very… very occasionally, usually in the morning and I make it through about one six-pack a month. If this sounds like my apologies for not getting around to this topic for such a long time, so be it.

Gone are the days when the only choices are Redbridge and Bard’s (only marginally better than the former). I was a beer snob before I discovered that gluten consumption was a significant part of what “ales” me. So I am happy to report that in the last year I have tried no less than 6 different gluten free beer varieties. While not all of them are to my taste any of them is a world better than the two aforementioned beverages.

My own personal taste tends to run toward IPA and dark Belgian. Before going sans gluten my two personal faves were Ommegang from Ommegang Brewery and VT Pub and Brew’s IPA.

One of my first finds was  Green’s Endeavour Dubbel Dark Ale. It also comes in Blonde and Amber if you like thick frothy Belgian style ale but without the bitterness of the dark. I should warn that this wonderful substance comes only in liter bottles much like my beloved and forbidden Ommegang. If you are going out ot eat in Burlington Ri Ra’s has Green’s Dubbel (I forget which color) available, for about a 200% markup -ouch! 

Another early find that has subsequently disappearred since Healthy Living stopped carrying it is St. Peter’s Sorghum beer. My recollection was that it was decent, but I’ll keep buying the Dubbel…

About six months ago I discovered Sweet Clover Market in Essex, VT was carrying a new variety, or I should say varieties of New Planet. they have a pale ale that is quite good, reasonable for GF beer, 4 bottles under $9. They also have a raspberry ale that is slightly sweet and very mild if all these others are a bit bitter for you. I think it’s something like raspberry water and wish my days of IPA drinking weren’t over.

Another GF beer spotted recently, I can’t honestly remember where I bought it first but its been seen both at Healthy Living and Sweet Clover is Celia’s. I was at first excited by the prospect of a truly bitter ale, but have since discovered that they make their brew bitter in part by adding a rather strong citrus component that disagrees with my stomach much like wine does.

I’m currently sipping on a can (yes -a can!) of a new GF arrival at Sweet Clover called Glutenberg. It’s a fairly satisfactorily bitter pale ale. But my absolute favorite discovery last month was a new 1 liter bottle of Harvester GF IPA. True IPA my friends!