Gluten Removed Beer

[JBee]

Hello! I was diagnosed with celiac in August and I'm a big fan of beer. It's really the only thing I will miss! I have found one decent true gluten free beer: Ghostfish Grapefruit IPA. I am wondering if anyone has had luck with 'gluten removed' beer. There's a great brewery down the street from me who specializes with gluten removed beer. It's so good I used to drink it before I was diagnosed. Also, has anyone tried one of the gluten testers? Would this be a good way to check if I can drink it? Thank you all!!

[Scott Adams]

I've had several gluten-removed beer, and like Omission's line of gluten-removed beers. Before my diagnosis I drank mostly beer, then switched to wine afterwards. I did spend about 2 years working on a recipe for a gluten-free beer made from malted sorghum and rice, and was considering launching a gluten-free brewery, but gave up due to the laws at the time which restricted shipping it from state to state.

[JBee]

Ok. So just to be clear. . . You have celiac and you've been ok with 'gluten removed' beers?

[Scott Adams]

Correct, I've not had issues with them. They use a commercial AN-PEP enzyme to remove the gluten, and there have been many studies done on this enzyme and it's ability to do this, in fact, this is how AN-PEP first got attention as something that might help celiacs--it has been used in the commercial brewing industry for many years as a clarifying agent.

That said, there are celiacs who do claim to have a reaction from these beers, so you need to be aware of this. In Europe these beers can be called "gluten-free," but because they use barley as an ingredient they can't be labelled gluten-free in the USA (although distilled spirits can, and yes, there are also celiac who claim to have a reaction to distilled spirits made from wheat, rye or barley, even though the best scientific evidence indicates that they are gluten-free.)

Here are some studies on AN-PEP:

"12. Treatment of the Extra-Intestinal Manifestations of CD
the only one that is currently on the market is the gluten-specific enzyme, GliadinX (AN-PEP). Unfortunately, it is only capable of detoxifying 0.2 g of gluten or roughly that of 1/8 of a slice of gluten-containing bread. For this reason, it should only be used as an adjunct to the GFD when there are concerns for accidental gluten contamination and in an effort to ameliorate symptoms, not as a replacement for the GFD."

Sources: Scientific publications on AN-PEP enzymes:

• Extra-Intestinal Manifestation of Celiac Disease in Children. Nutrients 2018, 10(6), 755; doi:10.3390/nu10060755
• Efficient degradation of gluten by a prolyl endoprotease in a gastrointestinal model
• Enzymatic gluten detoxification: the proof of the pudding is in the eating!
• Highly efficient gluten degradation with a newly identified prolyl endoprotease: implications for celiac disease
• Degradation of gluten in wheat bran and bread drink by means of a proline-specific peptidase

[JBee]

Thank you so much! I've only been gluten free for about 4 months and I haven't had a second blood test yet. I may wait a year or so before I try one.