Gluten-free Gourmand

In my previous post I promised to give you a description of the Gluten-free Ale once I could get my hands on it.  Well, I never got one.  What I could get was a description of an even newer gluten-free beer: the Gluten-free Pale Ale. 100% Gluten-Free Ale!  This beer is made with sorghum, brown rice, and carmelixed sugar syrup for a smooth gluten-free experience.  The juicy hop aromas come from Cascade, Centennial, Crystal and a touch of Citra.  Tell your friends! IBU's: 49     Alcohol Content: 5.0% I learned a few things from a helpful server that I hadn't realized before: - The gluten-free beers are all brewed in the Bend facility. - The gluten-free beers are all made in a dedicated gluten-free brew kettle and fermentation tank to avoid cross-contamination. - The Gluten-Free Ale I had last week may have been one in a series of small experimental batches of gluten-free beer. - Deschutes is trying to perfect various recipes in the ho...

Deschutes Brewery has switched over from the Gluten-free ESB to a Gluten-free Ale.  My server described it as a "wheat-style beer."  Of course, as with all the Deschutes Brewery GF beers, it contains no wheat. This beer has the smoothest aftertaste of any sorghum beer I have ever tasted.  There is only a hint of that metallic aftertaste that you get from most gluten-free beers.  Run out and try it soon, or I may drink it all myself!  I got a growler today to enjoy over the weekend. I'll post again when I have an official description of this new gluten-free beer. Have you been to Deschutes lately?  What do you think of their gluten-free beer?

As chance would have it, I had an opportunity to dine at Deschutes Brewery this evening, and I was able to procure their beer list.  I reviewed their current gluten-free beer in a previous post , but I didn't have the official description until today: Gluten Free ESB 100% Gluten-Free Ale!  This beer is made with sorghum, brown rice, maple syrup, and molasses for a smooth gluten-free experience.  We used Topaz and Brewer's Gold hops for bittering and Willamette and Sterling hops for aroma.  Tell your friends! IBU's: 49  Alcohol content: 5.7% You can see their list of " What's on Tap " on the Deschutes Brewery website , but it's often incorrect where the GF beer is concerned.  Click here to find a link to the gluten-free menu at the Portland Pub.  I had the steamer clams with house-made GF bread sticks and a house salad withe gluten-free croutons.  You can't see the croutons in the photo because I had already eaten them all before I took th...

I went to Deschutes brewery the other night with one of my gluten-free friends.  I was looking forward to having another pint of the Gluten-free Wit beer, but instead they had a Gluten-free ESB on tap.  My friend Daniel said after one sip: "I think this is the best gluten-free beer I've ever had." That's what I always say after trying one of Deschutes Brewery's gluten-free beers.

I finally have a description of the Gluten Free Wit beer they are serving at Deschutes.  It's not on their website but they have it printed on their beer list in the brewery: 100% Gluten-Free Ale!  This beer is made with Sorghum and brown rice syrup for a smooth gluten-free experience.  We used German noble hops, Perle for bittering and Spalter and Hersbruckens hops for aroma, and spiced with coriander and orange peel. IBU's: 25  Alcohol content: 4.8% I reviewed this beer in a previous post , but I want to bring up something that confuses me about this beer's name.  They call it a wit beer, but it doesn't have a traditional wit appearance - that is, it's not cloudy.  Here is a description of wit beer from Beer Advocate : "A Belgian Style ale that's very pale and cloudy in appearance due to it being unfiltered and the high level of wheat, and sometimes oats, that's used in the mash. Always spiced, generally with coriander, orange peel and othe...

Deschutes Brewery is currently serving a gluten-free wit beer.  Even better news is that my server informed me last night that they have several different kinds of gluten-free beers that they have been trying out lately.  They only have one on tap at a time for obvious practical reasons, but it sounds like they might be rotating them out more frequently now than they were over the summer and fall. Unlike the previous Deschutes beer that I reviewed here , which I called a wit beer but was probably intended to be a hefeweisen style, this one actually is a wit-style beer.  This new wit beer gives the same first impression that most of their gluten-free beers do: the first sip, it tastes like normal beer.  Then, you get that subtle hint of the metallic aftertaste that is so common in beers made from sorghum.  However, in the Deschutes beers the metallic flavor is usually much more toned down than in, say, Redbridge.  This gluten-free wit beer is very good an...

Deschutes Brewery in Portland, Oregon, out-does itself again with their new gluten-free beer, the Gluten-free Crystal Weiss. Deschutes is really perfecting their gluten-free beers - each one is better than the last. Each one also seems to come closer to traditional beers, and sidesteps some of the pitfalls of the typical gluten-free beer. The Gluten-free Crystal Weiss is very drinkable. The ingredients of maple syrup and molasses come through in the flavor and aroma. This one is very pleasant and smooth, with none of the metallic aftertaste that is the signature of other gluten-free beers die to the sorghum malt.  It has a bit of a fruit quality to it but it holds back from being actually sweet. The aroma is what really stood out for me with this beer. Gluten-free beers often have an unusual odor. While I could smell the sorghum in this beer, the scent was surprisingly pleasant. They don't have it posted on their website yet, but the brew is listed on their beer menu: ...