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

Judging by the frequency with which it turns up on this list, beer is one
of the 'foods' from pre-celiac days most missed by those of us who have to
cope with a gluten-free diet.  There have been many reports of "safe"
beers which by and large have been very unsafe.  I would like to express
agreement with the recent comments of Don Kasarda, Jack Rann, and Frederik
Janssen that add up to a warning to celiac patients to stay away from
commercial beers.  To reemphasize some of the points that have been made,
any one with an interest in alcoholic beverages should be aware of the
fact that yeast cannot ferment starch unless the long sugar chains that
constitute the starch molecules are first broken down to simple sugar
(glucose) molecules or to very short chains.  This is accomplished with
enzymes that appear very rapidly as seeds begin to sprout.  Partially
sprouted barley seeds are a particularly potent source of these enzymes.
The art of the brewer in malting is to apply heat at the proper time when
the newly formed enzyme level is high but not too much of the starch has
been consumed in plant growth.  I think that one should accept it as a
fact that beer is based on the fermentation of malted barley, even if
other grains such as rice or wheat are added to modify the flavor.

A few words about hops.  As has been pointed out by others, they are not a
source of starch or sugar and they are added solely as flavor modifiers to
give beer a somewhat bitter taste.  Their use goes back almost 1000 years
if not longer.  The plant is not a cereal but belongs to the family
<Cannabinaceae>.  As one might guess from the name, a remote relative (a
different genus) is <Cannabis sativa>, the source of marijuana (which is
NOT made by the hops plant).  Hops, as used in beer, are the dried cones
of the unfertilized plant.

If anyone would like to know almost everything there is to know about all
aspects of beer there is an excellent article, BEER, by W. A. Hardwick.
It is Chap. 3, pp 165-229, in Vol. 5 of BIOTECHNOLOGY, A Comprehensive
Treatise, H.-J. Rehm and G. Reed, eds., Verlag Chemie (1981).

Is there such a thing as GF beer?  During a discussion of this topic on
this list about a year ago, two more or less serious candidates were
described.  At that time someone statedthat there were beers from central
Africa that used sorghum as a source of starch and bacteria for the
amylases to make sorghum fermentable by yeast.  I have never found it in
the US, and my celiac daughter who lives in Paris has not been able to
find any in France.  The original posting may have reported that it was
available in England - I do not remember.  Another solution to the problem
was proposed on this list by Eric Constans on 26 Nov. 1995.  He described
a home brew recipe that used malted buckwheat and rice syrup to replace
malted barley.  His list of ingredients and instructions can be reached
from the S.P.S. Beer page on the Web at         http://www.beerstuff.com