Shaking my confidence daily

Gluten-free beer seems to be where it's at these days. More and more brewers appear to be going after a slice of the intolerance dollar and, whereas once gluten-free beers were very much a compromise option not tasting convincingly like beer, more recent offerings like Wold Top Against The Grain and the quinoa beer UCC presented at Franciscan Well last Easter, have been closer to the mark.

The latest exhibit is Celia, a lager brewed in Žatec with, predictably, Saaz hops. Organic barley is high on the ingredients list and no other fermentable is named so I don't quite see how the claim of under 0.5mg of gluten per 100ml at 4.5% ABV was achieved, but there you go.

It's an enticing red-gold colour and smells like a proper Czech výčepní: gently grainy with a seasoning of fresh mown grass. The texture is light and smooth though pleasantly prickled, and the flavour perfectly clean. The hops are on the down-low and there are some additional soft fruit esters: a bit of peach, maybe. Really it's quite an unremarkable-tasting beer, delivering everything that most consumers of 33cl bottles of lager want. Good news for any of them that have found they aren't able to handle gluten, then.

Cheers to DrinkStore for the sample bottle.

The Tykely Lads

Three from that Yorkshire today, part of the ever-expanding range of English bottled beers currently knocking around Dublin's offies.

My first is Thoroughbred, a pale ale from Hambleton's. I confess I wasn't expecting much, the brewery being better known in these parts for its lacklustre gluten-free efforts. Thoroughbred is all of 5% ABV and a hazy shade of light orange. There's not much by way of aroma but the flavour more than makes up for that. You get lovely big, ripe juicy mandarins followed by a stimulating sandalwood spice all set on an assertively waxy bitter base. Subtle it ain't, but I really enjoyed the combination of tastes. Harvey's Best in hobnail boots, as well as one of the closest-tasting beers to draught Timothy Taylor Landlord that I've met. And I'm including bottled Landlord in that.

Wold Top's Mars Magic next: a dark red-brown beer, looking not far off some of the Irish reds, and Carlow's in particular. It's the dose of roast barley that does it. There's a thick boozy, beery drip-tray aroma, though the taste isn't as sweet as I expected from that. The roast barley jumps in early with quite an assertive dryness. In the middle there's just a flash of black cherries or blackberries, and then its dryness as usual at the end, with a dash of dark chocolate and more than a little bit of metallic bite. It's heavy going and quite fizzy with it: one of those beers I found myself wishing was over before I was half way through.

And finally Against the Grain, another one from Wold Top. This beer caused a bit of a nine-day wonder when it was launched here at the end of last year, sharing its name as it does with one of Dublin's top beer pubs. The name comes from the fact that it is gluten-free, and lists maize and lager malt on the ingredients. Lager malt is gluten-free? Really? (Sort of.)

Behind the punky distressed lettering (yawn) is an exceedingly pale yellow beer with a sharp and citric smell: quite a wake-up call after the boozy bloaty dark beer which preceded it. And the taste is... convincing. Yes it's a bit thin for the serious hopping it's been given, presumably to cover up for flaws in the compromised grain bill, but it's genuinely enjoyable to drink. I'm reminded of crappy pseudo-lagers I've made from kits and then loaded with dry hops to render them drinkable: it's a very easy and cheap way of making palateable beer. Were I to be sentenced to a gluten free lifestyle tomorrow I would definitely view this as a welcome comfort, depending on what the doctor says about lager malt.