{"id":100900,"date":"2025-02-21T05:55:29","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T05:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/recipes\/category-a-b\/beer\/beer-review-darling-break-free-gluten-free-lager\/"},"modified":"2025-02-21T05:55:29","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T05:55:29","slug":"beer-review-darling-break-free-gluten-free-lager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=100900","title":{"rendered":"Beer Review: Darling Break Free Gluten-Free Lager"},"content":{"rendered":" \r\n<br><div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"270\" height=\"40\" class=\"wp-image-1830\" src=\"https:\/\/brewmistress.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/Bremistress-Rating.jpg\" alt=\"beer review south africa\"\/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1819\" src=\"https:\/\/brewmistress.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/3halfoutof51.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"130\" height=\"40\"\/><\/figure>\n\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-8563\" src=\"https:\/\/brewmistress.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/darling-gluten-free-beer-south-africa.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"623\" srcset=\"https:\/\/brewmistress.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/darling-gluten-free-beer-south-africa.jpg 450w, https:\/\/brewmistress.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/darling-gluten-free-beer-south-africa-169x300.jpg 169w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\"\/>I am having one of those weeks where I strike things off my to do list. Specifically my February to do list. Why, just yesterday I replied to not one, but <em>three<\/em> emails that have been sitting in my inbox for four months. I am feeling very proud of myself and am riding this momentum \u2013 hence this review of Darling\u2019s Gluten-Free Lager, Break Free, which I have been meaning to write since the start of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Giving up bread and cake would be tough enough, but if you\u2019re Celiac or have an extreme reaction to gluten (or are just not a big fan of farting), then giving up beer must be just torturous. Beer is generally made with malted barley, which contains gluten. Wheat beers contain higher levels, while adjunct lagers are fairly low in gluten (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.healthline.com\/nutrition\/does-beer-have-gluten#production\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the only stats I found are here<\/a> and are repeated on every other website that actually lists parts per million [ppm] amounts of gluten in beer). Luckily, the beer industry is constantly innovating and in recent years there\u2019s been a marked increase \u2013 and improvement \u2013 in gluten-free beers, at least on other continents.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s not much in the way of gluten-free beer in South Africa. In fact, the only other one that I can think of (aside from umqombothi of course) is Boston Breweries\u2019 Gluten-Free Lager (please comment below if you know of any others). Red Sky used to produce Goshawk, a pale ale that featured gluten-free grains, but they\u2019ve been out of business for a while now. There are two ways to make a beer without gluten \u2013 or at least with levels low enough to be labelled gluten-free. You either brew with gluten-free grains, or you brew a standard beer then use an enzyme to reduce (but not entirely remove) the gluten. Both Boston and Darling take the latter approach. A product can be labelled gluten-free in South Africa if it contains less than 20ppm of gluten (20mg per kg).<\/p>\n<p>So \u2013 what does Darling\u2019s gluten-free lager taste like? Let me tell you a story. A few months ago I sat down to do a blind lager tasting with a few of my nerdier beer friends. Each person brought along two beers and handed them over to the pourer \u2013 no-one else knew what anyone had brought along. I happened to have a four-pack of Darling\u2019s Break Free in the fridge, so brought a couple of bottles to see how it would fare in a line-up of regular lagers, with a panel of people that didn\u2019t know there was a gluten-free beer in the mix. It fared well, ranking above six other craft and mainstream lagers and scoring a very respectable 34 out of 50.<\/p>\n<p>The judges in this year\u2019s African Beer Cup agreed, awarding the beer 40 points and a silver medal in the International Lager category. This is no easy feat \u2013 it is one of the most entered categories in the competition (judges were aware that it was a gluten-free beer). There\u2019s not a huge amount to say about the beer in terms of flavour, since it\u2019s a style that trades on being refreshing, not boasting big flavours. But it offers everything that an international lager should \u2013 it is crisp and bitter, refreshing and lightly malty, well balanced, with a dry finish \u2013 perhaps a little dryer than is usual for the style. I acknowledge that this is more a series of anecdotes and titbits of information than a review, but I\u2019m still calling it a win and crossing it off my to do list. And if you know a drinker who has cut out beer due to issues with gluten, I\u2019d recommend you gift them a four pack \u2013 it\u2019ll probably make their day.<\/p>\n<p>Want to read more lager reviews? Check out this write up of <a href=\"https:\/\/brewmistress.co.za\/castle-double-malt-vs-castle-lager-vs-castle-lite\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Castle Lite vs Castle Lager vs Castle Double Malt<\/a>.<\/p>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n<br>\r\n<!-- \/wp:post-content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 I am having one of those weeks where I strike things off my to do list. Specifically my February to do list. Why, just yesterday I replied to not one, but three emails that have been sitting in my inbox for four months. I am feeling very proud of myself and am riding this [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137],"tags":[3171,6792,24332,807,20316,18500,3749],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-100900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beer","tag-beer","tag-break","tag-darling","tag-free","tag-glutenfree","tag-lager","tag-review"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Beer Review: Darling Break Free Gluten-Free Lager - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=100900\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Beer Review: Darling Break Free Gluten-Free Lager - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0 I am having one of those weeks where I strike things off my to do list. Specifically my February to do list. Why, just yesterday I replied to not one, but three emails that have been sitting in my inbox for four months. 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