Any GOOD gluten free beer recipes?

Hey y'all. A girl I know loves craft beer but has gluten allergies. I want to try to impress her by brewing a gluten free beer, possibly an IPA (she's a hop-head), however all the gluten free beers I've ever tried kind of suck. I've actually never had a gluten free beer I've enjoyed. She agrees, she doesn't like them either.
So with this being said, does anyone have a good gluten free recipe? Any suggestions? I welcome your replies.

 

I'm totally biased, but here's my sole attempt at a GF beer, which turned out well: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f164/recipe-saison-love-gf-402418/ I would use turbinado instead of the amber candy sugar, though. NB that's a 3-gallon batch. It got very good reviews from the recipient and from me.

My theory for GF beer is that, as a first cut, you should make beers whose flavor doesn't depend mostly on malt. So, for example, saisons (yeast), IPAs (hops), and stouts (roasted grain--anything tastes the same if you roast it long enough) are all good choices. That said, I haven't tried to make anything other than that saison. But IPA seems like a good choice to me.

One thing I have heard is that the "twang" of sorghum may not mesh so well with IPA hop bitterness and flavor. So if you go the IPA route, you might consider using less sorghum syrup and adding it at the last 10 minutes of the boil (which is supposed to reduce "twang" and sourness).

 

As I look over my recipe, it seems like that it could be a good base for just about any lighter-colored beer (we're all flying a bit blind on GF!). So you could take that as your base for the IPA, but change the hop schedule. For fermentables, you could use candy sugar as the recipe suggests (and not turbinado as I suggested above), since that would take the place of, and provide some of the flavor of, the crystal 20 or 40 or 60 that is in many American IPAs.

And then you could easily plug in whatever hophead-friendly hop schedule you want.

An additional idea--instead of using a clean American yeast, you could use a Belgian trappist yeast at moderate temperatures to get a Belgian IPA (with some, but not insane, ester production). That way you have two different sources of non-malt flavor.

 

There are some good GF breweries out there that may help you with recipes if you email them. Lots of info on the Aurochs website (http://www.aurochsbrewing.com/), but I haven't had their beer. I can tell you that Harvester's IPA is pretty good (http://www.harvesterbrewing.com/).

 

Any progress on this? I have some friends wanting some GF beer.

Thanks!

 

Omission beers from Widmer are pretty good but I agree many of the GF beers Ive had commercially otherwise Ive wanted to dump. Good luck and there is a gluten free fourm you may want to check out.

 

I tried the Omission and it wasn't awful. It's not the same as other GF beers that start with GF ingredients. Omission is a barltey based beer that is treated with an enzyme sold as 'Brewers Clarex'. It's marketed as a clearing agent, how it's used to make GF beer I don' know.

 

I put together a recipe and her and I are going to brew next Sunday. Here it is and we hope it comes out good. If anyone has suggestions, I'd welcome them.

The Celiactrixxx IPA:
(10 Gallons)

10 lbs (=3 cans) Briess White Sorghum Syrup-
4 lbs Brown Rice Syrup (Make sure it says Gluten free- I bought Lundberg's)
32 oz Dark Belgian Candi syrup( the kind in the pouch, bought from Rebel Brewer)
32 oz Clear belgian Candy syrup
8 oz Maltodextrine



Boil 2 oz Columbus hops pellets 30 minutes
Add sugars last 15 minutes of boil
1.5 oz Simcoe leaf at flame out
Whirlpool 30 minutes, add 1.5 Oz Simcoe and whirlpool another 15 minutes.

Cool down, pitch 3 Packets Safale US-04. No starter, just rehydrated. Don't use liquid yeast which has trace amounts of gluten.

Dry hop 3 oz Citra after fermentation, added to the keg in Nylon Mesh bag., weighed down with SS bolts)

Will let everyone know how it turns out on a month or so.

 

I personally never use clear candi syrup--it's just expensive sugar. The dark stuff has more utility--you can make your own, of course, but that doesn't mean that when somebody else does it for you and does it the right way, you shouldn't pay money for it.

I have no personal experience with using mostly sorghum, but other people report that beer tastes better when you don't heavily base it on sorghum extract.

Finally, as to the recipe itself--if I were brewing this, I would significantly increase the hop schedule. For 10 gallons, I think you could safely add a few oz in the 10-20 minute range (flavor), and also significantly increase (double) the whirpool additions. Out of curiosity, what are your calculated IBUs, OG, and FG?

 

I am waiting for the results of this brew. It is now September, and I am very much wanting to find a good GF brew.

Along those lines, this is an extract brew, correct? Are there any malt extracts that are gluten free? I have been an extract brewer for a long time. Still waiting to finish my basement renovations to move to AG (wife does not want her kitchen to be an AG catastrophy).

 

Feel free to check out my blog for some recipes I have created. As well as a description on how to brew gluten free.

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