<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Recently, there was once again a discussion about Budweiser and is it or is
it not GF, or low gluten enough for some celiacs to drink.  The only person
I know who I would trust to answer this is a celiac who happens to be a
chemist with all kindsof credentials from Texas A&M.  You may have seen her
name on this list before, Megan Tichy.  I forwarded her the question, and
here is her reply.  Makes sense to me.

Anne in Texas

Whenever someone says, "I discovered online that..." but does not back it up
with a link to the information you should suspect that he/she either made it
up, or is taking information out of context. Also, we all know that there
are hundreds of blogs and personal websites that spread lies.

This person claims that "the brewers of Budweiser claim their beer to be
gluten-free" - but the company itself - Budweiser - does NOT make that
claim, for good reason. In fact, a recent poster just shared their stance,
their only GF beer is Redbridge.

"the brewing process and filtering remove or negate the barley gluten." -
No. Ask anyone who makes this claim to explain HOW. They will not be able
to.

Think about a filter, like the one in your coffee pot. It is used to
separate solid from liquid, for example. Gluten, and small harmful peptides
from gluten, would go right through such a filter. Filtering does not
separate out the gluten. If we had such a filtering process, don't you think
we would be using it to render all of our liquids gluten free? Broths,
soups, juices... We would just "filter" them! No, this process does not
exist in such a way as to remove gluten. Gluten sticks to solid surfaces
too, so we can't even filter to get gluten away from solid foods let alone
try and filter liquids.

The word negate is just silly, you cannot negate a molecule, it has to go
somewhere. If the argument is that we can destroy gluten or somehow heat it
to smithereens, then again, we would be doing this to many, many
gluten-containing foods in order to eat them. Bake it, broil it, grill it,
fry it... the gluten is still there!

The brewing process is not a separation process, so the gluten that is there
stays there. I've also heard folks try to argue that the gluten becomes
modified or changed somehow to become a new safe molecule. If we could do
that, then we would have a way to render all of our food safe, wouldn't we?
The gluten is there still, and it is not modified, destroyed, or "negated."

"Sapporo beer makes the same claim." - more heresay.

Hope that gives you an effective way to counter such claims.

By the way - I think it is a dilution factor. The small amount of barley
gluten that is present initially is diluted, and by the end of the process
there may be part-per-million concentrations. So it might be a small enough
amount that a person could "get away" with drinking a beer without symptoms.
But this is playing with fire. Drink a few beers and you might find yourself
doubled over with pain. Esp if you are a sensitive celiac. Now who would
drink part per million concentrations of rat poison, just because it doesn't
make them sick if they only have one glass a month?

 


*Please provide references to back up claims of a product being GF or not GF*
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