Gluten free beer head to head

  Every beer drinker knows what happens down the line after drinking tons of beer. No, I am not speaking of  cirroshis, or public drunkenness or a bad hangover, I speak of coeliac disease. When you acquire coeliac disease, your body cannot process wheat protein properly, so you have adjust to a gluten-free diet to maintain overall health and continuance of your life span. That also means you have to cut beer. Yes, it is a pain and a hassle to give up your favorite intoxicant loaded with dextrose, oak, fruit, brettanomyces, or other heavenly ingredients. Well,not really.
   You can still drink beer, just make sure it is truly gluten free. Well, this special beer review deals with that. I bought two beers from work today: Estrella Damm Daura, and Dogfish Head Brewery's newest offering, Tweasonale. Let me start off with the Estrella Damm Daura.
    The Daura is Estrella's gluten-free offering. An award winning brew all the way from Spain, this one collected a whole boatload of medals. Besides that, this beer is quite refreshing loaded with flavor. It pours clearly and neat, kind of like a light canary yellow. At first sniff (yes, sniff!), you can smell hints of malt and grains. Weird, but when you drink it, it hits you. At first you think, "There is some wheat in here!" Not quite. It tastes like there is some wheat in there, but as any discerning beer drinker knows, wheat isn't the only grain there is. I taste some oats here, and it is very subtle. The maltiness is also low key, but well balance and the complexity dies down as you sip. No wonder this beer won its awards, Estrella managed to make a filling and refreshing without compromising flavor or taste. No plastic aftertaste either (Red Bridge anyone?).
   The second beer here is Dogfish Head's Tweasonale. First off, funky labeling! Kinds of reminds me of something out of a Little Feat album. Anyway, this one has a lot more flavor than the Daura. At first sniff, you smell honey, strawberries, and raspberries. Sweet? Not really, but it does have some tartness. No, it is not a geuze (how fucking cool would a gluten-free geuze be?), but that tartness adds another dimension to how light, crisp and refreshing this beer  is. That also gives this beer a slight advantage over Daura, but Daura is a little more rustic and deep. As far as food compliments go, for the Daura, gluten-free pasta with sauce works. For Tweasonale, some soft light cheeses would work for that tartness.
  Conclusion: Gluten-free does not suck. It takes some getting used to. If you want to live and nice, healthy life, does what you must and be careful. There are a lot of options of gluten-free beer out there, so use caution. To your health.

More information: www.estrelladamm.com
                             www.dogfish.com

Resin- Another Sixpoint Brewery smash!

Hey! This is my first beer review in a while, and it's a good one. The beer in question is Resin, Sixpoint Brewery's Double IPA offering. I'll tell you all this, the can packs a serious hop wallop! Upon pouring it into a snifter glass, the aroma was one of a piney, grassy, citrusy nature, mellowed out by the malt. Upon first sip, their is enough bitterness to wake up the palate, but also enough hoppiness and malty character to balance it out. It goes down very smoothly and refreshing. This beer, according to Everett (gourmet manager), comes close enough towards the hoppy complexity of Dogfish 90 Minute, and as I was sipping it through, he was justified in his statement. This is one very good beer, and brings the goods (hop balance, great complexity). It is another winner from Sixpoint Brewey (www.sixpoint.com). Food pairings: Burger and fries, fish and chips, light Mexican fare.