Author: Steffen Page 1 of 11

UPDATE 30/09/2024: Dear all, thank you very much for all your comments, for your emails, donations, offers to host the site etc. I am overwhelmed by your feedback and the kind words. And fortunately I found a way of reducing the costs of the site. It was mainly related to an older PHP version I was running which required extended (expensive) support. I will keep the site alive as long as I can. There will be not many new posts or tests but at the least all the information will not get lost. Cheers Steffen

Dear all,

After more than 10 years I will shut down the site by the end of 2024 due the massively increased costs for hosting. I know there is a huge demand for gluten test results for beer and I hope you found some useful information here. I would like to thank all visitors and contributors of my site and wish you all the best for your health – with or without a nice bottle of beer ( I for sure will have one 🙂 )

Cheers Steffen

With Willy’s test of Brand Pilsener we achieved the milestone of 100 tested beers. In August 2019 we conducted the 100th gluten test but now we have reached the 100 beers. As announced already I will focus on different things and not test so much anymore. If you have tests completed and want to share the results you still can reach out to me of course. The site will stay alive as we still have more than 20.000 visitors per month (real visitors, no crawlers or such) and the information we share seems to be useful to many people. And here some more statistics (click/tap on READ MORE).

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This is a test from Tadd, the owner of Blast Beer Company based in Florida. His beer is a Low Gluten American IPA and he uses prolyl endopeptidase (PEP) to reduce the gluten content. It’s the first time we have a beer tested with GlutenTox Pro. It uses the same antibody (G12) as GlutenTox Home.

Beer: Save the Day IPA
Producer: Blast Beer Company, Key West, Florida, USA
Originating country: USA
Brewing location: Orlando, USA
Bottle size: 12 oz. = 355 ml
Alcohol by volume: 6.9%
Ingredients: American 2 row, Citra hops, Cryo dry-hopped
Miscellaneous: Blasted to remove gluten! With PEP, prolyl endopeptidase, which is sold commercially as Brewer’s Clarex

Test Kit: GlutenTox Pro

Test result: The beer contains less than 15 ppm according to the test report. As the test is a pass-fail style test the exact number is unknown. The test report falsely lists Blast Man IPA as the tested beer as explained by Tadd. In the Test Results table I will mark this test negative on the 20 ppm threshold as the test strip indicates a negative result (see picture in the test report). The name of the brewery manager who performed the test is blurred for privacy reasons. As usual please don’t take any test result as a medical advice – please see also my facts page.

In addition to this test Tadd also had the beer tested by ELISA Tech. They use the competetive test method with antibody R5 to detect gliadin. According to the assay gliadin was not detected in the sample which is considered below 5 ppm by the analyst. Unfortuntately it is not allowed to share a copy of the test result without permission.

I made a trip to the Philippines in February this year just before the COVID-19 lockdown. San Miguel Pilsner is the most famous beer in the Philippines and sold Asia-wide. The history of San Miguel is interesting as I always thought San Mig in Manila is a subsidary of the Spanish San Miguel brewery. But it was first invented in the Philippines and then the rights to sell it under the same brand name in Europe were given to a Spanish company.

I tested the Spanish regular Pilsner (San Miguel Especial) back in 2017 but when I saw the light version in the Philippines I wanted to give it a try. This light version is not available in Europe or the US as far as I know. The Spanish San Miguel brewery also don’t have this one in their product portfolio. But I recently learned they have an officially labelled gluten-free beer which I will try when I get my hands around it.

Coming back to the San Mig Light. The taste is good, in the heat of the Philippines absolutely the right one to get refreshed. Of course enjoy it chilled. Gluten was also not detectable in my test, see below.

Beer: San Mig Light
Producer: San Miguel Brewery
Originating country: Philippines
Brewing location:Philippines
Bottle size: 0.33 l can
Alcohol by volume: 5.0%
Ingredients: water, malt, cereals/sugar, hops
Miscellaneous: –

Test Kit: Imutest Gluten-in-Food Kit

Test result: The test result is negative. According to the instructions there should appear a clearly visible pink test spot on the left of the test area ( T ) to indicate the presence of gluten. The pink spot on the right test area ( C ) is a control spot and indicates that the extract/sample is suitable, the test has been performed correctly and all reagents are active. Even though the detection limit in this kit is very low (1-2 ppm) and the test is negative please note this is not a medical advice – please see also my facts page.

I had a request from Northern Ireland on a German beer which I didn’t know until then. It’s the Perlenbacher beer from the German discounter Lidl who is present all over the world I guess.

In German Lidl stores two variants of the Perlenbacher are available – one with 4.9 ABV and one with 5.2 (considered the “Export”). I tried both and couldn’t taste any difference, though. The Pils comes in a nice bottle with twist cap which is very unusual for Germany. Almost all the mainstream beers in Germany come with crown cork or flip-top. The Perlenbacher Export comes in a plastic bottle which is an insult to every beer lover.

For the gluten test I used the 4.9 ABV Pils. It is hoppy, bitter and has good carbonation. It tastes more like a typical Northern German bitter beer. It was OK to drink but not very quaffable. And here is the result of the gluten test.

Beer: Perlenbacher Pilsner
Producer: Frankfurter Brauhaus
Originating country: Germany
Brewing location: Germany
Bottle size: 500 ml
Alcohol by volume: 4.9%
Ingredients: Water, barley malt, hops
Miscellaneous: German beer which is using twist cap

Test Kit: Imutest Gluten-in-Food Kit

Test result: There is a very faint but visbile pink test spot on the left of the test area ( T ) which indicates the presence of gluten. According to the instructions a “very low gluten” level of 20 to 100 ppm should give a test spot which is weaker or similar in intensity to that of the control spot ( C ). As this spot is very faint the gluten level seems to be much below 20 ppm.

On a scale from 1 to 20 I would rate the test spot intensity 3. As Imutest uses the R5 antibody since a while it is difficult to estimate the gluten level in ppm in comparison to the Skerritt antibody they used earlier, hence I will mark the test just positive. Please find some more information here. Even though this test is positive please note it is not a medical advice – see my facts page.

There was a very clear result on the latest beer poll. Well, it strangly jumped on one day from a very close result to a huge lead and at the end to a clear winner. It seems “somebody” was really interested in getting this beer tested and voted over and over for Tuborg. Anyway – a poll is a poll and even without this “somebody” it was not unlikely that Tuborg wins this poll. 

I tested the German variant of the Tuborg pilsner and I don’t know if this is similar to the “Tuborg Green”. If you know please use the comments to let us know. 

And here is the test result:

Beer: Tuborg Pilsener
Producer: Carlsberg
Originating country: Denmark
Brewing location: Germany
Bottle size: 500 ml
Alcohol by volume: 4.9%
Ingredients: Water, barley malt, hops
Miscellaneous: on the label stated that the beer was brewed in Germany in accordance with the German purity law

Test Kit: Imutest Gluten-in-Food Kit

Test result: There is a very faint but visbile pink test spot on the left of the test area ( T ) which indicates the presence of gluten. According to the instructions a “very low gluten” level of 20 to 100 ppm should give a test spot which is weaker or similar in intensity to that of the control spot ( C ). As this spot is very faint the gluten level seems to be much below 20 ppm. 

On a scale from 1 to 20 I would rate the test spot intensity 2. As Imutest uses the R5 antibody since a while it is difficult to estimate the gluten level in ppm in comparison to Skerritt antibody they used earlier, hence I will mark the test just positive. Please find some more information here. Even though this test is positive please note it is not a medical advice – see my facts page.

Here comes a Finnish double feature for you. A Finnish friend of mine brought some beer and as I never had Finnish beer before I decided to test them. It’s Karhu 5,3 and Lapin Kulta – the latter is probably the most popular beer in Finland.

According to my internet research Finland has the highest prevalance of diagnosed CD in the world. So people are probably very much interested in the test results. 

For the taste I liked Karhu 5,3 more. Malty with a nice bitterness, still watery though. The Lapin Kulta was rather sweet and watery as well. Both didn’t cause any reaction to me. As usual please don’t take the results as a medical advice.

Beer: Karhu 5,3
Producer: Sinebrychoff 
Originating country: Finland
Brewing location: Finland
Bottle size: 0.33 l can
Alcohol by volume: 5.3%
Ingredients: water, barley malt, barley, hops
Miscellaneous: –

Beer: Lapin Kulta
Producer: Hartwall
Originating country: Finland
Brewing location: Finland
Bottle size: 0.33 l can
Alcohol by volume: 5.2%
Ingredients: water, barley malt, hops
Miscellaneous: –

Test Kit: Imutest Gluten-in-Food Kit

Test result: Both test results are negative. According to the instructions there should appear a clearly visible pink test spot on the left of the test area ( T ) to indicate the presence of gluten. The pink spot on the right test area ( C ) is a control spot and indicates that the extract/sample is suitable, the test has been performed correctly and all reagents are active. Even though the detection limit in this kit is very low (1-2 ppm) and the tests are negative please note this is not a medical advice – please see also my facts page.

After I received a new test kit I will continue testing some beers now. As I mentioned in the 100 Gluten Test post I will not push anymore to post the test results quickly and it can be that I don’t post anything for quite a while. Anyway, here is a poll on some beers from Europe where you can vote for your favourite to be tested. So which European beer do you want me to test next?

Gösser (Export) – from Austria
Holsten (Pilsener) – from Germany
Krusovice (Imperial) – from Czech Republic
Tuborg (Pilsener) – from Denmark

(listed in alphabetic order and from left to right in the pic)

 Loading ...

 Poll closed.