For a long time now we’ve been producing a wide selection of gluten free beers, led by Heathen and Heresy from our Brewers Emporium range. And now we’ve gone one step further and committed to brewing each and every one of our beers to a gluten free (containing less than 20pppm gluten) recipe. (And yes, that means Moonshine too!)
We have timed this post at a point where all of the beer now leaving the brewery is gluten free. We have been using a gluten reducing enzyme in every brew, including our core beers Moonshine, Daily Bread and Absolution (the only beers which didn’t previously use the enzyme in their recipes), since October 2024, so all cask stocks from older batches should now have been polished off in pubs. The overlap period in cans will by its nature be a little longer, so please do check the can label for the GF symbol and/or statement to confirm the beer was brewed using a gluten reducing enzyme, which will be clearly shown on the newest batches.
Our beers are not produced without gluten containing ingredients, and are brewed using barley, plus often wheat and other grains too, as can be clearly seen on the ingredients list of our beers in can. However, we use a gluten reducing enzyme as part of the brewing process – this is a proline specific oligopeptidase enzyme (which you may have heard referred to as Brewers Clarex, Brewers Clarity, or DeHaze) which can reduce the gluten to below the 20ppm threshold required to label a product as gluten free. This means our beers can be safe to drink for many of those amongst us who are sensitive to gluten. This has no effect on the taste of the beer and is not in any way detrimental to the flavour – such a clever little enzyme!
Our beers are regularly tested to check the gluten content at a UKAS accredited laboratory, and we use a lateral flow test prior to packaging by way of double checking the GF status before each and every batch of beer leaves the brewery.
You can always check the Gluten Free status of each of our beers by looking for the logo shown to the left – it is clearly visible on the “Our Beers” page, as well as on our online shop. For those of our beers which are available in can, we clearly display a declaration of the beer as gluten free on the label (look for the logo shown to the left). We also indicate that we have brewed the beer with a gluten reducing enzyme in the ingredients list on our cans, and for our trade customers this information is visible on the labels applied to each cask and keg.
You will not find the logo on the pump clips for our cask and keg beer. This is because, whilst the beers produced as GF are made in the same way no matter what format they’re released in, we cannot guarantee that the beer is being served through a gluten free line, which may affect certain customers (although some pubs and bars may choose to dedicate a line to GF beers).
The vast majority of beers labelled as gluten free that you see on bars and shelves of pubs and bottle shops around the country will have been produced in a similar way to that described above (so you will still see grains such as barley clearly highlighted as allergens in our ingredients lists).
Whilst there are gluten free beers available that have been brewed with no gluten containing ingredients, these are few and far between. This is because gluten free grains generally do not hold the same characteristics as those more commonly used in brewing, and so a wider change of process and a huge amount of investment would be needed for us to be able to utilise grains such as rice and sorghum effectively on a large scale. At the moment, this isn’t a direction we are in a position to take, so we have looked at other ways that we can make our beers as accessible to as many people (over the age of 18 of course!) as possible. We are aware that this isn’t a one-solution-fits-all scenario, but we hope to provide sufficient information to let you, the drinker, make an informed decision about our beers, and therefore hopefully enable more of you to enjoy them!
We hope this helps to reassure you that we are taking the utmost care to ensure the safety of our customers, alongside of course offering a great range of flavourful beers that are accessible to as many of our drinkers as possible. We’re keen to ensure that you are fully informed about the processes our beer undergoes before it reaches the glass – as part of this, we’re also more than happy to answer any questions you may have, and are very willing to take feedback on board if there’s anything you think we could communicate more clearly, so please get in touch (you can email us at [email protected]) if you have any suggestions or think there is anything we are missing.
Cheers!
Team Abbeydale
