Raise Your Glass to Gluten-Free Beer

Attention gluten-free shoppers!

If you like beer, but also have celiac disease (an intolerance to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and and barley, which are the same things found in beer), raise your glass to toast to the fact that gluten-free beers do exist, and are catching on.

At the Bohemian Cafe, a cool and quirky restaurant and bar in Greenville, S.C., I tried my first gluten-free, lager-style brew called Bard's, not because I have celiac disease, but my friend did, and I thought, well, what the hey, why not test it out? (A few limes gives it a nice finish.)

I'm glad I did because it tastes just like regular beer, even though it does not contain any wheat, barley, rye, or oats, and is America's first gluten-free beer made from 100 percent sorghum malt.

Huh?

Sorghum is a naturally gluten-free grain made from grass, essentially, which has been used primarily in the United States for animal feed. But as Bard's founders point out on their website, there are over two million people in this country of legal drinking age who have celiac disease, and the numbers are rising, reports the New York Times. That's a whole lot of unhappy happy hours for people who want to enjoy (responsibly, of course) a beer without clutching their stomachs in pain. And so, sorghum is moving into the mainstream.

Anheuser-Busch also produces their own gluten-free, sorghum-based beer called Red Bridge. I haven't tried that one yet, but if Bard's any indicator of what a superstar sorghum can be, cheers to that!

For more information on celiac disease, click here.