Brewery: Wold Top
Location: Hunmanby, Yorkshire, England
ABV: 4.5%
Version: 500ml bottle

I should really have posted this review last week as it was Coeliac Awareness Week, but a few days late is better than not at all. Coeliac disease is an auto-immune disease, which means the body’s immune system attacks its own tissues. With coeliacs this reaction is set off by gluten in the diet, a protein found primarily in barley, wheat and rye. Thus people with this condition have to avoid any foodstuffs which contain these cereals, which of course also means beer. Fortunately Wold Top make Against The Grain, which with a certified gluten content of 5.1 ppm is well below the 20 ppm most people with coeliac disease need to look for, and it’s bottle conditioned as well. You can read more about coeliac disease at the Coeliac UK website.

Wold Top say on their website that Against The Grain has been declared “the most beer like” of all the gluten free beers in taste tests. It’s a mid gold colour with a light citrusy aroma, so very beer like so far. The flavour is of citrusy fruit, a hint of lemon and lime, and it gives a bit of a bitter tang on the tongue. The malt is provided by maize but any flavour it may impart is kept very much in the background. Overall then, a perfectably acceptable and palatable bitter. I’ve tasted worse non-GF beers.