A preliminary study about gluten levels in Sardinian craft beers

The aim of this study was to determine the gluten content of a representative sampling of Sardinian craft beers. Twenty-five craft beers produced by seven Sardinian microbreweries were analyzed. All beers were produced without micro-filtration, pasteurization or preservative additions provided by Italian law. The competitive enzyme immunoassay (Ridascreen competitive ELISA kit) was used for gluten quantification. The levels of gluten found ranged from 39 mg/L in a Pilsner beer to 2400 mg/L in a Weizen. No gluten-free beer was found and eight (32%) of the twenty-five beers analyzed contained less than 100 mg/L of gluten and could be labeled as "very low gluten" according to the Commission Regulation (EC) No 41/2009. Furthermore a significant positive correlation between gluten content and foam stability was found.