Taste Test: The Best (And Absolute Worst) Gluten-Free Beers

There may have been a time when "gluten-free beer" was an oxymoron -- when the only option for someone with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity who had a hankering for a moderately alcoholic carbonated beverage was hard cider -- but that time is not 2015. At least a third of Americans are now trying to avoid gluten, and beer companies, not wanting to lose out on a huge share of their customer base, have rushed to develop a host of gluten-free beers, across all styles, over the past few years. So at this point, "gluten-free beer" is almost as well established a category as "decaf coffee" or "diet soda." But among beer aficionados, gluten-free beers still get a pretty bad rap. When asked for a recommendation for a good beer for someone trying to avoid gluten, many of them would still recommend cider. With that in mind, we decided to give gluten-free beer a chance by conducting a taste test of as many brands as we could find (in southern California) in an effort to identify at least one that actually tastes great. We tried a dozen beers -- and, sadly, that experience mostly reinforced our negative impressions of gluten-free beer. Almost all the beers we tried had strange textures: fizzier and less substantial than you'd expect from a beer. And many also had flavor profiles that were, in one respect or another, seriously flawed. There was a preponderance of unpleasant piney, honey-like and tropical fruit flavor notes, and few of the beers struck the right balance between bi...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news