Gluten free

Gluten-Free Beer Can Be Labeled As Such, FDA Says
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
When is a beer not a beer? When it's gluten-free.And as of Monday, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which regulates the labeling of beer, wine and spirits, handed off regulation of said cold, sudsy brews to the Food and Drug Administration.That's good news for the nation's estimated 2 million sufferers of celiac disease, for whom consuming any kind of gluten can cause chronic diarrhea, arthritis, bone loss and a host of other symptoms. Their immune systems react to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley, which causes inflammation in their small intestine and interferes with the absorption of nutrients.Beers brewed the traditional way, with malted barley, contain gluten. But small craft brewers and then Anheuser-Busch began making beer from malted sorghum, an African grain, and sometimes rice. Both are gluten-free. That was great for celiacs but didn't fit in the Federal Alcohol Administration Act of 1935's definition of beer, which was a beverage brewed from malted barley and other grains.On Monday, the FDA issued new guidelines covering non-barley beers. To the benefit of the one in 133 Americans who can't eat anything containing gluten, the beverages can now be labeled gluten-free once they've been tested by the FDA."For the longest time, I couldn't put 'gluten-free' on the label, because there wasn't a definition" under previous regulations, says Russ Klisch, whose Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee makes a popular sorghum beer, New Grist.Gluten-free beer makes up less than 0.1% of the beer market, says Paul Gatza of the Brewers Association in Boulder, Colo. The biggest players are Anheuser-Busch's Red Bridge, Klisch's Lakefront in Milwaukee and Bard's Tail of Norwalk, Conn., he says.Celiacs have been buying these gluten-free beers for years, says Elaine Monarch, executive director of the Celiac Disease Foundation in Studio City, Calif. But accurate labels will be nice, and the new FDA regulations may make it easier for European gluten-free beverages to enter the market, she says.Copyright 2009 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.