Love Good Beer

i have been in a gluten free diet ever since last year because i have food allergy.

Do you have any idea how ignorant you sound?

I’ve got a pretty good idea why you might think I sound ignorant, but how about letting me know specifically?

Not ALL civilizations have developed and florished with gluten in their diet. So I take issue with the notion it is so natural as to be the best thing out there. I’m pretty sure many people who have walked this earth did so without a single gluten protein cruising down their gut. (Rice? Maize? Root crops? Quinoa?)

Allergies are on the rise. One hypothesis is that our modern hygenic lifestyle is causing havoc upon the proper development of our immune system hypersensitzing it to things in our environment. The fact that nowadays you may have more people claiming to be allergic to this or that is probably a combination of people that believe they are allergic to something (as you say, and because we now have the idea that we can diagnose ourselves instead of seeing a health professional) as well as people that have seriously inappropriate reactions to common things in our modern day environment.

Finally, I wouldn’t diss so harshly a type of beer made from a grain crop (that feeds a huge chunk of the people on this earth who live in places where other grains will not grow, and has been used to make culturally important beers for centuries) based upon the tasting of one Western attempt at making a product out of it. Surely Sorghum beer can’t be produced and finished with the same approach to its unique qualities as one would with barley beers.

Hello Bob/Ed/(whoever you will be next),
I apologize if I offended you. I was specifically referring to barley, which is thought to be the grain early Mesopotamians gathered around to form the first civilizations. I’m sure a lot has changed in 10000 years and many people have indeed lived without ever consuming gluten. Also, I am quite aware that many people have severe allergic reactions to gluten. My point was that not as many people that claim to have gluten allergies actually have them, which I think you can agree with based on recent trends. Furthermore, I admit that I was flippant in my post in reference to sorghum based beer and for that I apologize. What I should have said is that I didn’t like Bard’s Gold Sorghum beer specifically and that I hope not to ever drink it again, for the reason that it tasted bad (to me). I am open to drinking and liking other Sorghum based beers in the future, though I can’t see Sorghum ever replacing my beloved grains. Thank you for taking the time to read and comment.

Merry Christmas,

Chris

I have gluten allergy since childhood. I am always on a Gluten Free diet and i use guar gum in some of may baked foods.

im always on a Gluten Free diet. i really hate my allergy to gluten because i love the taste of wheat bread. oh well, you just got to live with it.

Hi Chris,

I thought you might like to have more information about the effects of dietary gluten on humans, a species which is not adapted to digest the types of amino acid groups gluten is part of.

Here’s a link to a medical doctor’s blog who discusses the problem in detail, and why it’s a problem, not just for celiacs.

Oops! here’s the link http://www.paleonu.com/panu-weblog/2009/6/23/the-argument-against-cereal-grains.html

Here’s another one: http://www.celiac.com/articles/798/1/A-Word-on-Gluten-and-Beer/Page1.html

BTW, I really like beer, and drink 8 or 10 light beers daily, so that’s how I stumbled on your blog while I was looking for info about gluten in beer. I would drink heavy beer, but would have to limit the number too much.

You drink 8-10 light beers daily? Wow. Did you know that light beers are only 20% lighter than “heavy” beers? By the way, what’s your definition of a heavy beer?

Thanks for the info on gluten. I’ll check it out, but I don’t see myself giving up cereal grains anytime soon.

Cheers,

Chris

Yeah, 8-10/day is overkill i know (sigh). May have to switch to wine anyway, and hold to the 2 glasses per day mandate.

By ‘light’ i mean low-carb. Heavy would be full carb for these purposes. If the carb load wasn’t so high, I would prefer Sam Adams or Anchor or Bass, etc. Not to mention high overall cost. I once made a batch of home brew that I swear tasted just like Sam Adams. It was the only batch that tasted good though.

BTW, I wasn’t trying to convert you away from cereal grains, just thought you’d want some info from sound sources.

Thanks for the info Jim, I did appreciate it. Drinking less per day can only be a good thing I think. I’d prefer to drink less better beer than more light or low carb beer. Why not drink two Anchor Steams, Sam Adams, or even tasty homebrews instead?

Hey Chris, why would someone want to dream up having an allergy to something as wonderful as the main ingredient to so damn many excellent foods and beers? I completely agree that more and more people are professing allergies to wheat/gluten: I overdid it with baguettes a few winters ago, so now I’m like the person with one too many bee stings. There is not much I’d like more than to have this be all in my head. And…who’s to say it won’t happen to you someday? I guess you’d be in denial, right?
Best wishes and enjoy everything you can as long as you can!

I don’t know why anyone would pretend to have a gluten allergy, that is a good question. I hope it doesn’t happen to me and it doesn’t run in my family, so it likely won’t. I feel truly bad for people who have gluten allergies, since it means missing out on so much good food and beer.

Proof: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/12/health/research/12allergies.html

You’re an idiot. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe these allergies were not discovered until recently. Some people in my family, including my brother and father, are not able to eat gluten and have had some serious health issues because of it. Why would someone pretend to have a condition in which you have to cut out any food that is easy (or cheap) to prepare. By the way, certain ethnic groups have higher rates of certain food allergies. Keep writing about beer, stop making comments about food allergies.

Hey thanks for reading. I didn’t say that nobody has real food allergies. There are definitely people that do and some people have no choice but to drink gluten free beer (which I still think tastes bad). I’m also quite sure that some people think they have food allergies that don’t. Why would somebody to pretend (maybe even unknowingly) to have a condition that requires them to cut out gluten from their diet? Possibly because they went to a naturopath who told them they did or because of an eating disorder.

Just found this post after searching for Sorghum Beers. Been drinking Redbridge lately, it’s pretty good.
You do know the wheat we ate in Biblical times is not the same wheat we eat today. In fact the wheat your Grandmother ate is not the same. They changed the molecular structure of wheat in the 1940′s-50′s Cooperative Wheat Research Production Program in Mexico headed by Dr. Norman Ernest Borlaug. They were trying to help end “world hunger” by creating a more resilient plant, in other words, make more money off a better wheat. Like Aspartame,now showing its 30 year effects on the unfortunate consumers of that Rumsfeld “pushed Through” product,they never studied the long term effects of this new wheat on humans…well if you consider what is happening today, then maybe we all have been guinea pigs-Diabetes is a global epidemic and wheat is literally in everything causing it, not to mention genetically altered corn and corn sweeteners.New Wheats high glycemic level, especially in beer, along with the addictive chemical peptides in our new genetically altered wheat is now showing its long term effects on the human population, but hey!
Can you live without bread? Who cares right? Wheat is cheap and either way, big pharmaceutical gets rich. Yes, take a guess who funds wheat production. Read the book Wheat Belly…..it might change your view on the whole deal.

Well, beer is made of barley, sooooo…. Also, I know plenty of wheat eaters who don’t get diabetes. It’s usually really fat, unhealthy people that get diabetes.

Chris,

I read your post and thanks for the insight on Sorghum beer. I find it disturbing that the population overall is getting these allergies that prohibit (us) from enjoying foods and beverages. I personally don’t have the gluten allergy and don’t have anyone in my family that I know of that has it so, in effect, I also have a hard time believing that ALL people who claim to be allergic to gluten actually are. For those who do….sorry. Me and Chris wil have some homebrews for you.

Mark