<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> >I foolishly tried the Sapporo beer last week, I have not been that ill for >many years. To make beer you need a fermentable sugar. In cereals these sugars are not present by nature. They may be formed however by a starch splitting enzyme. In most cereals this enzyme is formed during germination (which is also the first stage of malting). Almost any cereal can be malted. During the brewing process many other cereals are sometimes added, e.g. to modify the taste, as the starch splitting activity of the malt is quite sufficient to split the starch in these cereals too. Perhaps the Sapphoro beer is produced with malted barley or wheat as a base with a large amount of rice added. Though the proteins co-extracted during brewing are usually removed by splitting them with proteolytical enzymes (to prevent chill haze) the (toxic) peptides still may be present. As Dr Kasarda mentioned in a previous posting it is very difficult to establish whether these peptides are still toxicl. There are however immunoreactive proteins and peptides present in many types of beer (especially in the wheat based beers like the Belgian Gueuzes and the German Weizenbier) which suggest that it might be safe to avoid any beer unless it can be made sure that it is produced exclusively form non toxic cereals. Frederik Willem Janssen, Zutphen, The Netherlands