I recently had the chance to drink a bottle of Brooklyn Lager, a very nice American beer which tastes completely different to the, well, typical American style beers. It was refreshing and crisp and not flat at all. And of course I wanted to see how much gluten it has. Moreover, it claims to have less than 5 ppm (please keep in mind the widely accepted gluten free level is 20 ppm):
“None of our beers are gluten free. Unfortunately, we don’t routinely test for gluten content in our beers. We are only able to quantify up to 5 ppm of gluten and confirmed that Lager has less than 5 ppm of gluten. Unfortunately, our current production demands do not allow us to produce a gluten free beer.”
Source: http://brooklynbrewery.com/about/faq
Here is my test result:
Beer: Brooklyn Lager
Producer: Brooklyn Brewery
Originating country: USA
Brewing location: USA
Bottle size: 12 oz = 0.355 l
Alcohol by volume: 5.2%
Ingredients: malted barley, hops, water, yeast
Miscellaneous: –
Test Kit: Imutest Gluten-in-Food Kit
Test result: There is no indication of the presence of gluten. According to the instructions there should appear a clearly visible pink test spot on the left of the test area ( T ) to indicate the presence of gluten. But this test is negative. The pink spot on the right test area ( C ) is a control spot and indicates that the extract/sample is suitable, the test has been performed correctly and all reagents are active. Even though the detection limit in this kit is very low (1-2 ppm) and the test is negative please note this is not a medical advice – please see also my facts page.
Clive Hardin
Thank you for your site. I’ve had Celiac Disease for about 10 years. No effects from Brooklyn Lager so far. Why is it not labeled gluten-free?
Steffen
I think it is fair to say it’s below 5 ppm but not gluten free as it probably has traces of gluten and they cannot constantly test the gluten content. I personally think that 10 or 20 ppm are just traces of gluten. In Europe they could even label it gluten free. Clearly on option for Coeliacs who can cope with gluten traces and it tastes really good – the best American beer I had so far 😉
Clive Hardin
Thanks Steffen much appreciated.
Svein
This recent test finds this to be above 20 ppm: http://gluteninbeer.blogspot.no/2015/10/brooklyn-lager.html
Sibuel O'Miguel
The Website of this guy is awkward. When you test Japanese beer this guy does the same shortly later. This site is a Clone of your site. And all his Tests are high positive. how can be? Very strange. Greetings from Portugal.
Steffen
Hi Sibuel, yes I agree he first poorly clones my site -he even uses the same style and terms- and then he points indirectly to my site by saying “I heard a rumor this one was low gluten” and then he even adds some fake comments with links to my site. I just can laugh about such silliness and will not visit this clone site again. Cheers Steffen