Gluten-free brewing has gained top recognition with its own category in this year’s Australian International Beer Awards. As a pioneer brewer for coeliacs, Billabong’s Alan Proctor, could be expected to show delight. But he’s pretty low-key about it.

   “I pulled our gluten-free beers out of the Perth Royal Beer Show after winning the section – Billabong had the only entry, so it was embarrassing,” he said at the Myaree brewery. “There’s probably only one other Australian gluten-free brewery, so I’m hoping some overseas non-gluten beers will make it a meaningful contest in Victoria.”

    The first Mr Proctor knew of AIBA acknowledgement of the niche style was when the organisers phoned asking him to enter a trophy category. He had no driving personal reasons to make beer for people whose systems react to the gluten found in brewing grains such as barley and wheat.

  “One of my regular brew-on-premises customers said he couldn’t continue making beer because he’d been diagnosed with coeliac disease,” Mr Proctor said. “‘What’s that?’ I asked. And he told me about gluten intolerance. I knew nothing about it, so I looked into it.”

  It was a rigorous year or so, working with Curtin students and the WA Department of Agriculture and Food, which helped with a research grant. “The rest was in-house experimenting – we did about 70 brews before reaching a base for our Blonde lager about three years ago. It’s low-carb, but we don’t emphasise that; the point was that coeliacs had a beer they could drink.”

   Others followed – Apple Beer and Ginger Beer – until the best achievement, Australia’s Pale Ale. Astonishingly, it compares well with normal pale ales in character, flavour and texture. Mr Proctor, proud of Coeliac Society accreditation, keeps his hard-won formula secret, but known gluten-free substitutes for usual grains include millet, sorghum, buckwheat and rice. The result is a winner.

   “We’re battling to keep up with demand,” Mr Proctor said. “We send gluten-free beer all over the country and the bottles are sold in pubs and shops in WA. A woman from Melbourne who regularly orders Australia’s Pale and Ginger Beer by internet turned up during a touring holiday in February and left with ten cartons stacked in her campervan.”

 Billabong’s latest brew is a full barley malt beer named Nelson Sauvin Ale (or NSA) for the NZ hop variety known for its wine-like connotations. Tank-tasting shows stone-fruit character and other hop-based flavours and aroma. It’s already on tap at Zebra’s in Bicton.

  NSA is only the latest of a procession of craft beers from the brewery: Billabong announced its commercial credentials with an AIBA gold medal in 2007 for the splendid 4 Hop Ale; Billabong Porter – on tap at Moondyne Joe’s, Fremantle - is a trophy winner; and other classic styles such as Bavarian Wheat and Dark Wheat have won plaudits.

But the core of Billabong’s success remains its ground-breaking gluten-free quartet.

THE BEERS

BLONDE (4.5 PER CENT)

The brewer acknowledges that there’s little to excite the tastebuds except faint grapefruit notes, but that’s usual in so-called blonde, light, low-carb lagers and it doesn’t prevent the style attaining Australia-wide popularity. This one has a distinctive absence of gluten-containing grain, which seems to diminish the head.  

AUSTRALIA’S PALE ALE (5.1 PER CENT)

First bottled on Australia Day 2006, the ale has hop spice and herbs on the nose. Aroma and fruity flavours are down to an eclectic hop blend of Australian Pride of Ringwood, English East Kent goldings, US Cascade and NZ Mateuka applied in the boil and dry-hopping. The only missing pale ale requisite is a bitter finish.

GINGER BEER (4.5 PER CENT)

Fresh ginger – and some concentrate – goes into the brew, a reincarnation of the “ginger plant” some older people may remember from days gone by. The alcohol is disguised in an effervescent, fresh drink that’s enjoyable, and not only for coeliacs.

APPLE BEER (5 PER CENT)

The extremely pale brew pours bubbly but headless, like cider, yet distant beer echoes in the yeasty, malty, apple-sharp, dry, crisp refresher make it a versatile hybrid. Billabong recommends adding a dash of cordial. Whatever, it’s ideal for summer.  

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QUICK ONE

Perth’s Nail Stout won a silver medal at the Sydney Royal Beer Competition and Nail Ale took bronze in what is known as a tough-judged event. Nail Stout won SRBC gold in 2008 and brewer John Stallwood said: “The trick of getting gold is consistently being able to win silvers.” Top awards went to Redoak Brewery of  NSW for its India Pale Ale (champion bottled beer), a 6.5 per cent aromatic, bitter drop packed with English Goldings and Fuggles hop flowers, and Victoria’s Matilda Bay for US-styled Alpha Pale Ale (champion draught), another bitter. As well, Matilda Bay won gold for its Bohemian Pilsner.

ALE TALE

MATILDA BAY BIG HELGA (4.7 PER CENT)

The Garage Brewery in Dandenong, Victoria, is best known for award-winning craft ales such as Alpha Pale Ale. Last October, however, it introduced a blonde called Big Helga. Styled on Munich Helles lager, she is not as rich and dark as Marzen Oktoberfestbier. The beer has been on tap only, but now is available in 330ml bottles as well. “While something like 99.9 per cent of the beers enjoyed in Australia are lagers, we’ve bucked the trend with Big Helga and brewed one which actually has shed-loads of flavour, a bit of complexity and is still easy drinking,” Matilda Bay head brewer Scott Vincent said. And Helga does have more European style than many Australian lagers. Big Helga costs about $20 per six-pack, $60 a case of 24.

From Fresh, The West Australian, 4^th March