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

For the second time, someone has posted a misleading statement from
Anheuser-Busch. In response, I'd like to present actual scientific evidence
that beer does contain gluten.

The Summer 2002 issue of the GIG Newsletter has a report on presentations
made at the May 2002 Digestive Disease Week. The report says that Dr. Skelly
et al from the UK presented a scientific abstract showing the reliability of
the dry strip immunochemistry test used in gluten home testing kits for
determining gluten in alcoholic beverages. To test the accuracy, the results
were compared with ELISA testing, the "gold standard" for determining gluten
content.

Five beers and two whiskies were tested. The "control" was Coca Cola, known
to be GF.

The results were that all five beers (one of which was Budweiser) tested
positive for gluten. The exact levels from the ELISA test were shown, and
all of them were well above detectable and safe levels. The results for the
home test kit showed two of the beers testing Positive (50-200 ppm range)
but the other three had so much they overloaded the test kit (>10% gliadin).
The two whiskies and the Coca-Cola showed zero gliadin in the ELISA test and
Negative in the home test kit.

GIG's comment: "As you can see, fermented beverages clearly contain gluten
in levels unacceptable for consumption on a gluten free diet, while whiskey
(no matter its starting material) showed no gluten in the end product."


Dave Westheimer
Minneapolis, MN, USA

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