The Official Guide to Gluten-Free Homebrewing

Note: In this article, we distinguish between gluten-free beer and celiac-safe beer. Not all food products considered "gluten-free" are safe for celiacs to consume. If you (or one of your friends) are celiac, please take extra precaution.

Beer is not gluten-free. Barley, the base of most beers, contains gluten, as do wheat, spelt, and rye. Unfortunately, this fact presents a very real roadblock to those who love beer but suffer from gluten intolerance or celiac disease.

But fear not! Gluten-free homebrewing is not only possible, it's also a fun challenge.

Building Your Recipe

Let's review: beer is malt, hops, yeast, and water. Those last three ingredients are all 100% gluten-free. The only part of your recipe you need to change is the malt. Malt supplies the sugar that yeast consume to make alcohol. Gluten-free beer, then, requires a gluten-free fermentable.

We recommend that you choose your fermentable first, then build the rest of the recipe around that base. This method both prioritizes the drink's gluten-free nature and gives you ample room to play with flavor and aroma. Experimentation is the best part of homebrewing, after all.

Let's jump into a few key gluten-free players.

Gluten-Free Fermentables

We carry a mix of products that will help you brew gluten-free beer that still looks, tastes, and feels like beer. Let's start with white sorghum.

White Sorghum

Ever heard of sorghum? This crop is native to Africa, Asia, and many parts of the Pacific. According to the Whole Grains Council, sorghum is the fifth most important cereal crop in the world. It's also 100% gluten-free. If you want to try brewing with it, find white sorghum malt extract here.

Rice

You're probably familiar with sake, which we call rice wine in English. This is actually a misnomer. Sake is brewed like beer, not wine. Rice is another naturally gluten-free grain.

Rice beer exists across the globe in many forms, particularly in Asian countries where barley doesn't grow natively. The challenge of brewing with just rice is that it doesn't contain the same natural enzymes present in barley that convert starch into sugar during the boil. It needs an added enzyme. Here's an excerpt from our own rice beer experiment:

"A cheap way to do it is to use commercially available amylase enzyme. From what I've read, this is, like many cheap solutions, not that great-tasting. I decided to go a more traditional route by using koji, a strain of Aspergillus mold used in making sake and miso... I ended up with very floral aromatics (like lavender or oil of bergamot), a bit of fizz, and smooth, lingering sweetness."

To read our full adventure with rice beer, click here.

Belgian Candi Sugars

We don't recommend fermenting with just Belgian Candi Sugar. However, if your resulting beer is either too light in color or too low in alcohol content for your taste, these little gems are a great way to boost both. Candi sugar is made from beets and completely gluten-free.

Gluten-Free Yeast Options

Omega Yeast OYL-071 Lutra™ Kveik - Gluten Free Yeast

Isolated from Omega's Hornindal Kveik (OYL-091) culture, Lutra™ GLUTEN-FREE is shockingly clean with unrivaled speed when pitched at 90°F (32°C). This strain is perfect for brewing a gluten-free hard seltzer, alcopop, mead, cider, or beer!

When paired with Omega Yeast's Propper Seltzer you can achieve a complete Hard Seltzer fermentation in as little as 4 days!

Propper Seltzer™ Yeast Nutrient - Gluten Free

One dose of Omega Yeast's specially formulated gluten-free Propper Seltzer™ nutrient powers your favorite beer yeast through a healthy sugar-based fermentation in as little as 7 days. It also supports various other fermentations like mead, cider, wine, and hard kombucha.

The Magic of Clarity Ferm

Feeling Adventurous?

Try experimenting with other naturally gluten-free drinks, like wine, cider, or kombucha.

Begin or continue your homebrew education with Northern Brewer University and our Homebrew Video Courses.