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Mike Jones has asked me to comment on the following statement from the
Sapporo Brewery people:
 
>This statement is being distributed by Sapporo Breweries:
>
>    "A representative from Sapporo Breweries, Ltd./Tokyo has advised
>    that Sapporo beer does contain barley.  However, after the barley
>    is boiled, the gluten is filtered out along with the barley skins.
>
>    The representative assured me that although the barley itself does
>    contain gluten, their brewing process effectively removes all the
>    gluten from their beer."
 
Comments from Don Kasarda, Albany, California
 
The reason that this doesn't make sense for celiac patients has to do with
the digestion of the barley hordeins, the proteins that are similar to wheat
gliadins in barley. During the malting and fermentation processes, the
barley hordeins are broken down into smaller pieces called peptides.  It is
true that no intact hordein proteins can generally be found in beer.
However, the smaller pieces of these proteins resulting from enzymatic
digestion are often quite water soluble so that they remain in the beer
throughout the complete processing to the final product. (Remember that beer
is not a distilled product as are whiskey or vodka. Filtration of the beer
will not remove these small water-soluble hordein polypeptides.)  A barley
hordein might have a polypeptide chain including 300 amino acids in its
sequence, yet it is reasonably well established by experiments that
polypeptides with as few as 13 amino acid residues in the chain can still
retain toxicity for celiac patients. These small pieces of the original
proteins can (and do) have very different properties from the original
larger proteins.  In the strict sense, Sapporo is correct that there are no
more intact hordeins in their beer.  What they cannot claim is that there
are no hordein peptides in the beer that might harm celiac patients.
 
There is some evidence from analytical methods involving antibodies prepared
to gliadins that there are peptides in beer that react with these
antibodies.  It is not proved beyond any doubt that the peptides in beer are
actually toxic to celiac patients, but it is quite possible that the
peptides remaining in any barley-based or wheat-based beer, Sapporo
included, are harmful to celiac patients.  The amount of harmful peptides,
if they are present, is likely to be small, but there is no satisfactory
analytical data, in my opinion, that defines the amount exactly.  So it
could be in a range that would be harmful to a celiac patient drinking beer
on a regular basis.  My guess is, and I emphasize that I can't back this up
with scientific results, that a glass of beer once every few months would
not do lasting harm to the average celiac patient.  By average celiac
patient, I mean those who have no obvious allergic character to their
disease and do not notice any immediate reaction when they ingest gluten.