Review #11: Omission Pale Ale

Sorry for the long delay between posts! I moved recently and am still without internet. I'm spending most days getting a feel for the new city and unpacking the seemingly endless stack of boxes.

Today's beer for review comes again from the Widmer Brothers - the Omission Pale Ale. I reviewed their lager in a previous post, which you can check out here.

Omission Pale Ale, like the lager, is brewed with barley and then deglutenized through an enzymatic process. It has 5.8% ABV. Like the other Omission beer, if you are a highly gluten-sensitive person, this beer may not be the right choice for you. It seemed ok to me, but every person is different.

I checked the gluten content on this batch on the Omission website, and it was listed as <10ppm. The 12oz bottle went into my usual pint glass.

Appearance: It pours a clear amber-copper color with a 1" off-white foam head.
Smell: I'm getting a bread aroma with light hops and citrus-y notes.
Taste: Flavor of malt, slightly sweet. Citrus notes with hoppy bitterness. This one tasted a little better after it warmed up a bit.
Mouthfeel: Medium body with moderate carbonation. Refreshing and a bit creamy. finishes dry with bitterness on the palate.

Overall: Omission Pale Ale is not my favorite gluten free beer. It's a bit bitter for my tastes, but not bad. I think put head-to-head, the Omission Lager would win easily. For an easily-found gluten free beer, it's pretty good. I think it would pass the taste test even among regular beer drinkers.

What do you think of this beer? Have you tried both varieties of Omission? Which is your favorite?

Review #9: New Grist Gluten Free Session Ale

New Grist is a Pilsner-style session ale brewed by Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee. It contains 5.1% ABV. According to their website, New Grist was the first beer to get the "certified gluten free" stamp from the US government. New Grist is brewed with sorghum and rice. It is, however, their only gluten-free variety among many gluten-containing beers.

I put off trying New Grist for a long time after reading some scathing reviews of the beer online. However, I decided to give it another try while at a pub with my extended family because everyone else was having beer. I also figured it was worth a shot because most of my pagehits come from my reviews of beer and ciders that are more commonly available. :) I drank this beer out of some weird tiny beer glass that made smelling difficult. I got beer up my nose twice trying to get a good smell in and made a fool of myself in public. All for you, dear readers!


Appearance: New Grist poured a pale, crystal clear straw yellow with no head.
Smell: Has that familiar sorghum smell, but is very faint (note smell-testing issues above). There is a slight sweet fruit smell in there as well.
Taste: Obvious sorghum flavor in this one. New Grist is also slightly sweet, with a grassy flavor note not unlike spinach.
Mouthfeel: Slightly astringent mouthfeel with medium-light carbonation level.
Overall: This beer gets a big "meh" from me. As far as gluten-free beer goes, I've had a lot worse. But this definitely wouldn't be my first choice.

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 #3: Bard's Gold Original Sorghum Malt Beer

I'll admit; I was a bit hesitant to try this beer. It's got quite a few horrible reviews on Beer Advocate. Most gluten-free beers I've seen there do, though. But when someone says,

"When your beer is so bad that it causes you to cough and gag because of the flavor, you know something's wrong."

Or,

"This by far is the worst tasting beer we ever had. We both couldn't spit it out quick enough."

 ...I'm bound to be a little scared. However, I think these two were being a bit dramatic.

Bard's Gold is made by Bard's Tale Beer Company, and claims to be the original sorghum beer. It's a American lager that sits at 4.6% ABV, though I had to go to their website to find the latter - it's not printed on the label. I poured the Bard's into a conical pint glass. It had a small white head that disappeared shortly after pouring. Clear amber color with lots of carbonation.

It has a slightly sweet, earthy smell, with a bit of, well... that ocean smell.The taste is watery and hard to find past all the bubbles. I'm getting bitterness, with a definite bitter aftertaste, and a little bit of saltiness. There's also kind of a toasty grain flavor in there.

Overall, this beer is okay. Kind of boring. Nothing I'd throw away, but not anything I'd buy again either.

Review #1: Redbridge Gluten-Free Sorghum Beer

For my first review, I decided to start with one of the most easily-found gluten-free beers: Redbridge.

Redbridge is made by Anheuser-Busch, the same company that makes Budweiser, Michelob, Shock Top, Busch, and other well-known brands. It is marketed as a "full-bodied lager" or as Beer Advocate says, an "American Amber/ Red Lager." I'm more inclined to call it a lager, because this beer would be pretty weak as an amber. Redbridge sits at 4% ABV.

I had avoided trying Redbridge again after a bad experience at a local burger joint. I ordered a Redbridge and I think it may have gone off. Maybe it spent too much time in a warm part of the kitchen. Maybe it spent too much time in the sunlight, or was just old. Either way, it was very bitter, almost metallic. I hated it. However, after hearing a gluten-free friend say it was her favorite, I thought it was worth another try.

I poured the bottle into this conical pint glass. It has a deep honey color with a big foamy white head that dissipated quickly after pouring. My first impression: "not bad." The beer has some fruity notes and a bit of a toasty flavor. I can definitely taste the sorghum in it, which for some people is off-putting. It's an acquired taste, I think. Redbridge is light on the palate--  moderately carbonated, but easy to drink, and refreshing.

The verdict: I liked this beer. It's nothing special. That is, it doesn't seem that different from most of Anheuser-Busch's offerings. However, it's an easily-found, moderately-priced gluten-free beer that is pretty tasty and definitely enjoyable.