ON THE HOP

I ntolerance to gluten can be a burden. I’d know — my mum has it. My childhood was filled with gluten-free bread, rice pasta and taco-free tacos. In retrospect, I don’t know which one of us it was harder on.

Gluten-free beer can be awful, because it relies on grains and plants that are usually only used sparingly in most beers — adjuncts like maize, millet, cassava, rice or sorghum. Many South African beer styles — like traditional

umqombothi or its more modern iJuba-style iterations — are predominantly made with sorghum and therefore gluten-free. That said, SA-style sorghum beers tend to land on the thicker and sourer side of things — delicious if you like it, but definitely not to everyone’s taste.

Sorghum is a promising grain though, and when carefully substituted for barley and wheat in American or European styles it shows its true versatility. Red Sky Brewing Company’s Goshawk Gluten Free — made with sorghum and maize — is a case in point.

It doesn’t exactly fit into any recognisable style of beer, other than “gluten-free”, which is slowly turning into its own, slightly ad hoc category overseas. Its presentation might irk lager drinkers: an opaque champagne yellow, with a bubbly, dissipating white head. Trepidation.

But it’s as clean a beer as you’d want. It smells almost like a weissbier, with layers of light cloves and coriander and orange peel and noble hops. There’s something spritzy about it, like a shandy without the overt sweetness: a tinge of bitter, a tinge of fruitiness, a tinge of grassiness — all finishing crisp.

It doesn’t look conventional, but it’s wellmade and refreshing. And perhaps best of all, it gives relief to sufferers of gluten intolerance — or people just trying to cut down on their gluten intake, whatever their reasons — who are hankering for a beer. A bit of relief to wash down your bun-free burger. Goshawk Gluten Free, Red Sky Brewing Company, 440ml bottle, R25