Gluten Free Beer: A good beer is a beer for everyone
"These are world class beers – they stand up next to any beer behind the bar," says Luke Darcy, Coeliac, ex-AFL star and hospitality owner.
What is the priority when choosing ingredients and style of gluten free beer?
Beer trends change, but demand for quality is always there. We try and experiment as much as we can with pilot batches at the Taproom and styles in can that people ask for, enjoy and may not have otherwise had a chance to experience.
What consumers want, what is "best for you" or "better for you" changes all the time – but good beer is a constant.
Some like easy drinking beers; others like something more complex – and between our two gluten free beer brands, we try to brew something for everyone.
The Great Australasian Beer Spectapular (GABS) and Good Beer Week return to the beer world this Autumn, and we're excited to have another beer at GABS, to be partnering at three Good Beer Week events, and to have entered beers into the Australian International Beer Awards (AIBAs) once more – we've won 13 medals at the two AIBAs we've entered, including gold medals for GFB, No Doubt Stout and Pulp Fusion Passionfruit Sour!
Innovation in ingredients is really important to us – for both easy drinking beers and more complex styles. For GFB, TWØBAYS Lager, Session Ale and Pale Ale, we're always looking at different ways to evolve the ingredients, while keeping the end result consistent.
At the more complex end of the scale, this year we've released a Schwarzbier, a wet-hop IPA and, for GABS, a Pumpkin Beer.
The Schwarzbier is a dark lager, brewed with dark roasted malts and cold fermented like a lager. With flavours reminiscent of dark chocolate, cherry and toasted almonds this beer is both comforting and sessionable. A beer fit for all seasons.
Our GABS show special (Container Bar B, Tap 86) is the Pumpkin of Liberty IPA, celebrating the freedom to choose a beer even if you are avoiding gluten. It's a labour of love, with three varieties of pumpkin, hand-cut and roasted in our pizza oven, before going into the brew.
The Hop Harvest IPA was wet hopped with fresh Galaxy hops; bursting with notes of berry and passionfruit, followed by a soft and mild bitter finish – we brought the hops back from the Victorian High Country during a harvest-time visit.
Tastes change, and trends sway, with hops being the hero for the last decade of craft beer (if you ignore the crazy adjuncts for a minute) – but it looks as if malts could be making a comeback as the kings of cool.
"There is so much fun to be had in beer," says Richard Jeffares, CEO and Founder.
"I knew there was fun in drinking it, but had no idea how much fun you can have making it. Different breeds, germinations and roasts for malts, different climates, soils and harvests for hops... and then all the possibilities with adjuncts! I won't even pretend to understand much about yeasts. That's all before playing about with mash temperatures, dry-hopping and fermentation periods."
"Malts are coming back into the limelight though, that's for sure – with experimentations happening around flavoured roasting and other opportunities. The malts have always been our hero – it's what allows me to drink beer and run a gluten free brewery!"
"Our malt partners do an incredible job with the quality and variety of malts available to us, so that we can continue to have fun with making – and drinking – the beer and exploring different styles."