I was at a soccer game on Wednesday night and one of the vendors was selling Lakefront's New Grist, touted as a pilsner style brewed with sorghum and rice. It was an enjoyable beer and I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking for gluten free beer.
Lakefront's New Grist
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JJL
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I was on a brewery tour one time at Lakefront. By the way, I highly recommend this tour. The tour was led by one of the founders of the brewery, Jim Klisch. At the end of the tour, there was a woman there that was talking to Jim, and Jim was giving her a case of beer. After she left I approached Jim and asked him what he had given her. He said that she had a gluten allergy and he had given her a case of short fills of New Grist. He said that usually the staff takes home the short fills, but New Grist is awful and no one wants to take them home.
I'm not picking on New Grist. I've never actually tried it. And I love Lakefront. I've been on the tour a number of times and I just thought this was kind of funny.
I'm not picking on New Grist. I've never actually tried it. And I love Lakefront. I've been on the tour a number of times and I just thought this was kind of funny.
mloster
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Agreed. I think New Grist is pretty awful. Just my 2 cents.
richbrew99
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Well, I wasn't tasting it in pristine circumstances, but it wasn't horrible - I enjoyed it. Its light, pilsner-ish.
JJL
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Its a gf beer so its only going to be so good. Not sure why they created it but I think Whole Foods picked it up. Plus there is a market for GF beer and there aren't a ton of choices. You also have to consider that Jim Klisch is almost always drinking East Side Dark. So you really can't get much further away from a lite GF beer than a dark beer.
It's not great, but they are gluten free when there aren't many. It was the only one I could find in my area a number of years ago. I also expect that the staff may not need to be gluten free and can drink other things.
Its not horrible at least. Rather drinkable. And one of the originals early on.
Its not horrible at least. Rather drinkable. And one of the originals early on.
I actually like New Grist. It reminds me of PBR. Great on a hot summer's day. A nice light sweetness to it, with a bit less of a twang than Red Bridge or Bard's. Of course most of us can do better, but y'know...I really feel like the gluten-free beer scene is re-enacting the history of beer from 1970 to present. The light lagers are gonna dominate for a bit, but ultimately a craft-beer scene will grow. Think of what this board would have looked like if it was operational in 1985! Lots of people would have been debating the relative merits of Miller vs. Coors vs. Budweiser, all the while they'd be brewing styles that couldn't even be found commercially, like IPA's, porters, imperial stouts, etc. Instead of Bud/Miller/Coors, we've got Bard's/New Grist/Red Bridge. What else would you expect? Here in the U.S.A, light lagers still account for more than 90% of beer market share, and gluten-free beer is less than, what, 2% of the beer market? Of COURSE the most prevalent GF beer is gonna be as close to BMC as possible...you just gotta take it for what it is (Sprite/7-Up for adults), and keep the good stuff alive in the homebrew sector.
Ash_Mathew
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Because you put care and dedication into it. It's the flavours you want. They don't. They just want to put something out there in order to scoop up any money that may come their way. And basically, they can do it because you have no other options other than theirs, or yours.
I don't think it's a lack of care and dedication. That's like saying Bud/Miller/Coors sucks because the people making it don't care about the flavor--that's patently false. The BMC folks care about flavor possibly even more than the average craft brewery, or at least they invest waaaaaaay more money into ensuring that their flavor is exactly what they want it to be, every single batch. Bard's/New Grist/Red Bridge are what they are because it's as close as they can get to BMC, which they presume is what people want because BMC makes up over 90% of the market share of beer sales in the U.S.; if you're gonna try to emulate a non-GF beer as a gluten-free brewer, why wouldn't you emulate the beer style preferred by over 90% of beer drinkers in the U.S.?
And they're not *bad* beers; it's just that we homebrewers tend to favor less-common styles, and the ubiquitous homogeneity of light lagers bores us. I'd wager that if instead of making light lagers, BMC was making brown ale or IPA, then Bard's/New Grist/Red Bridge would have been brown ales or IPAs, and we homebrewers would be scoffing at those styles just as much. It's just how our psychology works. We're not joiners or followers, we have an in-born contempt for the mainstream! But we shouldn't forget about the fact that yes, actually, lots of people *like* light lagers, and that these commercial light lagers are actually exemplary for their style and completely successful at being what their brewers want them to be. We're just bored with the style, that's all.
And they're not *bad* beers; it's just that we homebrewers tend to favor less-common styles, and the ubiquitous homogeneity of light lagers bores us. I'd wager that if instead of making light lagers, BMC was making brown ale or IPA, then Bard's/New Grist/Red Bridge would have been brown ales or IPAs, and we homebrewers would be scoffing at those styles just as much. It's just how our psychology works. We're not joiners or followers, we have an in-born contempt for the mainstream! But we shouldn't forget about the fact that yes, actually, lots of people *like* light lagers, and that these commercial light lagers are actually exemplary for their style and completely successful at being what their brewers want them to be. We're just bored with the style, that's all.
I agree with you on New Grist. I like it more than the majority of commercial gf beers.
The best commercial gf beers that I have had were from Sprechers. They weren't trying to be BMC. They started out as africian beers, which happened to be gf.
thanantos
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igliashon said:
I couldn't agree with all of this more.
I'll only add my confusion that beers like New Grist come from microbreweries so you would think they would be more willing to push further away from the BMC taste in order to compliment the flavors in GF fermentables, but they don't.
However, for beers like Redbridge you can't blame Inbev, they're just trying to make something Budweiser drinkers will like.
Frankly, I just hope Harvester gets their act together. They're the only GF brewery in the U.S. that's even TRYING to make craft beer. They've got the ethos down, now they just need to get the quality!
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