Review #8: Omission Lager

Apologies on the long delay between posts! The last week has been a bit crazy for me.

Without further ado, here is my review of Omission Lager from the Widmer Brothers Brewing Company.

This lager is brewed in Portland, Oregon. It is a lighter lager and has 4.6% ABV. It is brewed with barley and then de-glutenized through an enzymatic process, much like the Brunehaut Blonde I reviewed previously. Omission, like the Brunehaut ale, may not be the best choice for those that are particularly sensitive to gluten, since this beer began as a barley beer. You have to make that choice for yourself, though.

Omission has a cool feature on the website where you can enter the date on your bottle of beer and it will tell you how much gluten was in the batch that your bottle came from. My bottle was from a batch that tested  <10ppm of gluten. Good enough for me. I poured the 12oz bottle into my usual pint glass.

Appearance: The lager pours a clear straw yellow with a 1" white foam head that dissipates to leave behind a thin layer of foam. It tries to leave behind lacing but mostly fails to do so. 
Smell: Not much of a nose on this one. There is a slight bready smell with light yeast, a little nutty, and a hint of lemon.
Taste: Bready, grassy with a bit of hop flavor. Very light flavor. Leaves behind a slight bitterness on the palate, but is quite pleasant,
Mouthfeel: crisp, smooth, moderately carbonated. A little watery.

Overall: It doesn't have much going on, but I liked it. Tastes like a real beer and I probably wouldn't have guessed it was gluten free from taste alone. With Omission, the Widmer Brothers have presented an easy drinking, refreshing lager perfect for the Northwest's hot summer weather.  This would be a great beer to bring to a summer BBQ.

Review #7: Original Sin Pear Cider

This cider was a celebratory drink, because I graduated! I'm done with all my undergrad assignments and am awaiting my diploma in the mail. Now it's time to join the real world. :P


Original Sin Pear Cider is made in New York, and has 4.5% ABV. It is a traditional dry cider that is fermented from pear juice with no added sugar. I poured it into my usual conical pint glass.

Appearance: The cider pours a translucent, crystal clear pale yellow with lots of bubbles. It pours like champagne - very fizzy, then quickly mellows down to a tiny ring of foam around the edge of the glass.
Smell: There is a slight pear and honey aroma.
Taste: The taste is tart and slightly astringent at the start, but finishes sweet with a light pear flavor.
Mouthfeel: Original Sin Pear is highly carbonated with an average body. It is smooth and very crisp.

Overall: The smell and mouthfeel remind me a lot of drinking the house champagne at my favorite French bar during happy hour. I would be as happy as anything to drink this cider paired with a snack plate of fancy olives and prosciutto. I just need someone to get me some fancy olives and prosciutto first. Other pear ciders I have tried in the past have been much too sweet for my tastes. However, I was pleasantly surprised by this cider. Original Sin Pear was a tasty cider that I would definitely buy again.

Review #6: Fox Tail Gluten Free Ale

I hope everyone is having a good weekend! I decided to kick mine off with a beer, and chose the can of Fox Tail that had been sitting in my fridge for a couple weeks.

Fox Tail ale is brewed with rice and hops and made in Nevada by the Joseph James Brewing Company. It is 5% ABV and is the only canned gluten free beer I have tried so far.

I poured the beer from the can into a conical pint glass. It pours a clear light yellow color (I didn't light my photo very well, oops!) with a bright white head that leaves behind a bit of lacing.

Fox Tail has a sweet lemon scent with floral undertones. The mouthfeel is thin, but fairly well-carbonated.

The taste, however? Yuck. It has a soapy, bitter, metallic taste that was not nice at all. I gave Fox Tail the benefit of the doubt and figured it just needed a bit of time to open up, maybe warm up a bit. So I let it sit for fifteen minutes, then came back to try it again. Still the same - Horrible.

The verdict: this was the worst gluten-free beer I've tried so far. I could not even finish half of it. Fox Tail is now baiting slugs in my garden.

Review #5: Brunehaut Blonde Ale

Today's review is for Brunehaut Blonde Ale.

Brasserie de Brunehaut is a Belgian brewery. They brew several varieties of beer, four of which are gluten-free.This particular beer is an artisinal blonde ale made with "eco-friendly ingredients," or so the label states. The beer contains 6.5% ABV.

First off - if you buy this beer, open it over the kitchen sink! It was bursting with bubbles as soon as I got the cap off, which is why you see a bit of dampness below my beer glass in the photo. Oops.

As far as I can tell, Brunehaut brews this beer with barley, then de-glutenizes it through an enzymatic process that brings the finished product down to "less than 5ppm" of gluten. They say "less than 5ppm" because that's as low as current tests can detect. Current US standards do not allow for this beer to be labeled gluten-free, so you won't find those words on the label in the United States. However, you will find the lovely international gluten-free symbol on the cap, seen here.

I would like to say that people who are very sensitive to gluten may still react to this beer simply because of its ingredients. If you are one of these highly-sensitive people, then I would probably not recommend it. But that is your decision to make. I did not react to this beer and found it quite pleasant.

Onto the taste test. I poured from the 11.2 oz stubby bottle into my conical pint glass. The color is a cloudy butterscotch with a big, fluffy white head that left behind a little bit of lacing.

The beer has a slight apple-y smell with hints of yeast and grass, but the aroma itself is not very strong. The beer is a bit watery, but very smooth and lightly carbonated. It tastes like a typical Belgian blonde at the beginning, with some hits of apple and earthy hops. There is a slight bitterness in the aftertaste, but it is not unpleasantly bitter.

Basically, Brunehaut Blonde Ale tastes like a regular beer. I wouldn't have guessed it was gluten-free just from the taste. There was no weird sweetness, no grassy-ness, and no sorghum funk. Just a pretty damn good ale. This was a lovely end-of-the-day treat paired with a handful of pistachios. My only complaints are that it's a bit hard to find, and a little expensive for the size - this single bottle ran me a little over $4. 

Review #4: Ace Apple Hard Cider

TGIF, everybody! It's been a very long week, and I'm glad to present you all with a new review.

Today's brew of choice is Ace Hard Apple Cider, from the California Cider Company. This is my first time trying this particular cider. It is made in California from fermented apple juice and has a 5% ABV.

I poured the cider into a conical pint glass. The cider is clear, and a very pale yellow color, with no head. It is lightly carbonated with a wine-like smell.

The flavor is a sweet, crisp, light apple-y flavor. Yes, that sounds like I'm stating the obvious. Ace tastes like fresh apples. This cider is simple, and simply presented.

While the flavor is good, the mouthfeel of this one was very syrupy. About 3/4 the way into the cider, the sweetness became overbearing. I'm really not sure how this cider does that at only 8g of sugar per bottle, which is less than most other ciders I've had. The syrupy sweetness of this cider places this one firmly in the "pass next time" category for me.

I'm excited to present some more gluten-free reviews for you guys next week, and will be making a trip to the bottle shop to pick up the next round of brews tomorrow!