Barley allergy, but only in beer

Not expecting many replies to this, but does anyone else have an allergy to barley in beer? I'm not talking about Celiac Disease; this is specific to barley malt in a brewed, fermented beverage.

A few years ago I began to notice I would go out for an evening and the next day I would be sick as a dog. Railroad spike through my temple headache, nausea, and diarrhea, and that would last sometimes 48 hours. I (falsely) accused several restaurants of poor safety practices assuming it was food poisoning.

On one particular vacation I decided to drink nothing but vodka drinks, figuring that would be the cleanest alcohol available. I got "over-served" a few times and woke up feeling as if I'd spent the night at home watching TV and gone to bed early...no problems at all.

I added other drinks back one at a a time until BOOM! Beer was the culprit. I completely eliminated it from my diet as even a small amount (bloody mary chaser of Guinness) would leave me on the bathroom floor. My doctor, while sympathetic, said, "Don't drink beer."

A friend of mine happened to be listening to a podcast where a caller mentioned these same symptoms and that he'd traced it to barley. He brewed an all-wheat batch for me which I was able to drink with no problems. Woo hoo!

I should mention that I love IPA's. The only non-barley beers I can find are gluten free with a nearly all malt profile. The only exception is St. Peter's Sorgham (sic) Beer which is $5.49/pint at my local discount liquor store, and even that's not terribly hoppy.

I am brewing my own wheat IPA's now but really missing depth of flavor. I have a batch of custom wheat RyePA in primary right now and am hopeful that will add back some of the flavor complexity. It is based on NB's "Denny's Wry Smile Rye IPA".

Does anyone have recipes they could share? Before all of this happened I was a huge fan of Bell's Two-Hearted, Anchor Steam, Dogfish Head 90, etc. While it is doubtful I will ever attain those flavors, I would certainly like to get as close as possible.

For the Wry Smile I used:
7.5 lbs White Wheat
2.75 lbs Weyermann Rye Malt
1 lb Carawheat
Rest is same as original recipe.

You can use sorghum syrup as a direct replacement for liquid malt extract. It won't be perfect, but use that stuff to match the OG of your favorite IPA recipe, then use the same hop bill. If the beer isn't dry enough, experiment with replacing some syrup with sugar or honey. I'd start at around 8% of fermentables.

You could get something fairly close to Two Hearted this way. I could whip up a recipe that would be a good starting point fir you to experiment with if you'd like.

robtotten said:

If the beer isn't dry enough, experiment with replacing some syrup with sugar or honey.

Click to expand...

+1. Champagne yeast is an option as well for making a sorghum beers drier.

I've made 2.5 batches (partial mash on the third) with sorghum and I'm just not super impressed with the results. There's that iron-y, metallic taste to it. Of course, that was with 100% sorghum and nothing else. The batch with the partial mash is bottle aging now so maybe that will change the profile. None of my all-grain batches are ready yet so I don't know how those will be.

I am set up for all-grain now, even have a DIY steam infuser for multi-step mashes. I'm game to try anything, though, so if you have a recipe I'll give it a shot.

Try this, it will be a sort of Two Hearted / Gumballhead hybrid. The wheat should make it taste more like beer than a 100% sorghum, and you can get a little color from the caramel wheat. Should have excellent head retention because of the wheat, and the corn sugar will dry it out a little.


Gluten Hearted
5 gallon partial mash

Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
4 lbs Wheat Malt, Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 47.1 %
8.0 oz Caramel Wheat Malt (46.0 SRM) Grain 2 5.9 %
3 lbs White Sorghum Syrup by Briess (4.0 SRM) Extract 3 35.3 %
1 lbs Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 4 11.8 %
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 20.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 6 12.2 IBUs
2.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 7 8.0 IBUs
2.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 9 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 ml] Yeast 8 -

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.055
Est Final Gravity: 1.009 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.1 %
Bitterness: 40.3 IBUs
Calories: 151.6 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 6.5 SRM
Mash Profile

Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Body, No Mash Out Total Grain Weight: 8 lbs 8.0 oz
Sparge Water: 1.43 gal Grain Temperature: 72.0 F
Sparge Temperature: 168.0 F Tun Temperature: 72.0 F
Adjust Temp for Equipment: TRUE Mash PH: 5.20

Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 5.63 qt of water at 163.1 F 150.0 F 75 min

Sparge Step: Fly sparge with 1.43 gal water at 168.0 F

Ferment at 65 for 10 days, dry hop for 7, and keg / bottle.

I would use some rice hulls in that small mash too.

Wow! Thanks robtotten! What an incredibly nice thing to do! I may have to try this ASAP.