What does it mean to be Gluten-Free?

We really care about our beer and making the best quality beer possible. All of our Gluten-Free beers are no exception this and are made under very strict HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) standard operating procedures.

Our coeliac-friendly beers are made with sorghum, rice, buckwheat, and millet. Beer is not required to have its ingredients listed, but we feel it is important for you to make your own informed choices and we list them on all of our beers. Our celiac-friendly beverages will have the words “gluten-free” clearly listed on the label so you can enjoy them with confidence.

There are 3 stages where we check for the absence of gluten in the beer: in the fermenter, the bright beer tank prior to packaging, and in package. We use an industry accepted method for testing for the presence of gluten (gliadin and hordein proteins) which has a threshold of detection of 2PPM (which is below the accepted minimum detection level of 3PPM). Food Standards Australia/New Zealand specifies that a product may only be called Gluten-Free if there is no gluten detected and considers a result of less than 3PPM as suitable for calling “Gluten-Free”. As a result, we test ourselves at a far more stringent level of testing than is applied in the US, EU, and UK. We are confident that we are achieving this result and would not release the beer if it tested otherwise.

We produce other products which do contain gluten and we have a very rigorous cleaning schedule which we follow prior to making our gluten-free beer. Breweries are typically kept to a very high standard of cleanliness, but there are several points which we have identified on our brewhouse where proteins can build up as staining or deposits. To address this, we perform a second level of cleaning beyond our usual caustic-based standard cleaning procedures with an intensive renovation cleaning procedure prior to making any Gluten-Free products. To do this, we strip off key fittings from the brewhouse and manually clean the problem areas and visually inspect all surfaces to make sure they are not stained with any deposits and then use a hot-acid detergent wash on all the food contact surfaces in our kettle, heat exchanger, and transfer hose.

This ensures a very clean working environment and the best quality control possible for making our range of Gluten-Free beverages.