Life

Craft beer: There are plenty of brews on offer if you need (or want) to go gluten free

Bristol-based Arbor Ales also brew Mosaic, a gluten-free IPA
Bristol-based Arbor Ales also brew Mosaic, a gluten-free IPA Bristol-based Arbor Ales also brew Mosaic, a gluten-free IPA

I’M NOT about to start banging on about Trappist ales again (although, I could do that all day), but I want to share an old Belgian Trappist saying which perhaps sums up their approach to beer and how it fit on with day-to-day life.

"Beer should be liquid bread, not coloured water."

That nods and the relationship between grain and the drink that eventually is derived from it, obviously with a bit of help from hops and yeast along the way. Barley is the main grain used in beer, but many brewers have also thrown in a bit of wheat, oats and even rice into the malt bill.

Equating beer with bread suggests both are equally vital to life, but also flags up some concerns from those who usually swear off the carbs at this time of year and banish bread from their diet.

But brewers are wise to those concerns to and those who are sensitive to grains or simply want to cut out gluten from their diet are in luck. There is now a huge range of gluten-free beers available to discerning drinkers who may have previously shunned the grain.

I have to admit to not being particularly sensitive to gluten, so I don’t know what drinking regular beer does to someone with that condition. All I know is that if you were to do a taste test between gluten-free beer and regular beer, I would struggle to tell the difference.

Case in point: I recently enjoyed two beers from Bristol-based Arbor Ales. The first was a Citra gluten-free IPA. It had wonderful floral and citrus aromas, and a lovely piney and fruity flavour.

Next up was a can of their Summit IPA, which was again piney and juice with lots of flavours grapefruit, peach and orange peel.

Both were cracking beers and made all the better by the fact that they came in big generous pint cans (the full 568mls, folks).

I appreciate that coeliacs and those looking to reduce their gluten intake might not plump for the Summit IPA, but the point is that they aren’t losing out on taste, strength or overall quality by opting for the gluten-free option.

If lager is your thing, Wicklow Wolf’s kolsch-style gluten-free lager, which clocks in at 4.5 per cent, is a crisp, smooth and refreshing beer with a little kick of bitterness.