Awesome news

This is such good news for celiacs who love their beer.  Bard’s Tale is BACK!!!

I read about it on another site, and followed the link to a local news article about it.

Sorry, I should probably explain why I am so happy about this and what Bard’s Beer is.  After I was diagnosed, one of the biggest adjustments for me wasn’t not eating bread, pastas, pastries or the like.  It was BEER!  I *love* beer.  The worst was knowing I was going to the UK for a month and not being able to have a single pint while I was over there. (I’ve since learned several brands of GF beer over in the UK).  But when I got back, I started to search in earnest for GF beer.  It had to be out there, right?  Well, yes and no.  There was several, just not close.  There’s a big production facility in Australia.  A small brewer in New York somewhere.  Then I found Bard’s Beer.  This looked like a large production facility.  I started doing some research.  They only brewed with the 4 tenets of beer, grain (in this case sorghum), water, hops, and yeast (no barley - that has gluten in it).  I managed to get a bottle from the local GF store.  Someone gave her a couple of bottles to pass out to other people or to keep for herself.  She opted to give them to other people.  I was one of the lucky recipients.  It was amazing.  A little foamier than I was used to but the taste reminded me of an IPA.  It’s definitely a lager, not an ale, but certainly drinkable and enjoyable.

The quest was on.

I searched for *months* and tried to get any of my local off-licenses to ask their distributor to start supplying this.  No luck.  I was starting to get discouraged, when again the woman in the gluten free shop came through.  Someone was going to NY for a beer run and she told the person she knew someone who would be interested.  I told her to give the person my number and I would happily pay them to bring me a couple of cases.  And that’s exactl what happened.  I received two cases. (It felt like some weird black market thing, I’m telling you.)

I was a bit disappointed this turn.  The beer was *extremely* foamy and te person warned me they had several bottles explode in the basement.  EEEK!  The beer still tasted ok, but not quite the same as before.  Probably because it was warm by the time I was able to pour a pint.  Drinking out of the bottle was impossible.  Too foamy and would overflow the bottle every time you tried.  I still have a bunch of it left, but I don’t really drink it simply due to the foaming issue.

This catches us up.  After looking at the news article, I looked at the brewery’s website.  they explained, they pulled the beer shortly after I got my batch due to the quality issues (the excessive foaming).  They stopped using the brewery faciliy they were contracted with because they were having sanitation issues that was causing the foaming/exploding issues.  Ew.  But they have since contracted with a HUGE brewery in California that can handle the production for all of the US.  That means, starting in May, Bard’s Beer may just be available in every state, including here!!  The link to the news article is here.  Hurray for gluten free beer again!!