Q: Are your beers Gluten Free?
A: Ah, so you’ve heard that rumor too. Here’s the exciting truth. We submit most of our beers for R5 ELISA testing and they all come back with a gluten content below 10ppm. As we are sure you know, 20ppm is the FDA threshold to be considered gluten-free. So we are well below that number. However, since we do not test and submit every batch of beer we brew and we use ingredients that initially do contain gluten (barley, wheat, etc) we can not legally proclaim that we are a gluten-free beer. We have no reason to believe the results will vary per batch but to be responsible beerworkers we recommend anyone with a severe gluten allergy not to gamble with our beers.
Q: Why do your beers have so little gluten in them?
Excellent follow up. You could also ask, “why are your beers so clear?” The answer is the same: Brewer’s Clarex. Imagine a long gluten protein chain is like a piece of spaghetti and Brewer’s Clarex is a ninja samurai enzyme that chops that spaghetti into rice. Those smaller pieces easily drop out of the beer during fermentation. It is one step in many processes that make our beers so crisp and clear. Creating beer with gluten less than 10ppm is just a wonderful byproduct.
Q: Do you do this to all of your beers?
Almost! Unless we want a beer to remain hazy, we use Brewer's Clarex. Of our year-rounds and seasonals, the only ones that don't have it are Floaty, Bloodwork Orange, Megaflora, Invisible Hand, and the Einhorns.