Norwalk, Conn.-Based Firm Creates Gluten-Free Beer

By Max Hadler, The Hour, Norwalk, Conn.

Feb. 23–NORWALK — Beer. It’s the passion of Homer Simpson and a lot of other people around the world.

Kevin Seplowitz and Craig Belser were among the masses of beer aficionados until they were told that the beverage was making them very sick – and not because they were drinking too much of it.

Within a few years of each other, Seplowitz and Belser were diagnosed as celiacs, a term for people who suffer from an intolerance to gluten known as celiac disease. The list of comestibles that contain gluten, a mixture of proteins found in common grains like wheat and rye, is endless. It includes basic foods, such as most forms of bread, crackers and pasta, and basic drinks, such as most forms of beer.

Faced with the prospect of never again indulging in their favorite pints, the two men teamed up in 2002 to create what they say is the world’s first craft-brewed, gluten-free beer business. After two years of hashing out details, Bard’s Tale Beer Company was born in 2004, with grains from the Midwest and a brewing plant in San Jose supplying the product of a company whose headquarters remain in Norwalk, next to the childhood homes of Seplowitz and Stamford High School friend Tasha Kardaris, Bard’s Tale’s vice president of marketing.

Seplowitz and Belser faced a daunting task in creating something resembling the taste of beer without using barley, the gluten-containing grain found in most brews.

“The professionals were saying it couldn’t be done,” Seplowitz said of conversations he and Belser had with expert scientists and professors. “They said a natural method with malted grains was impossible.”

Some European companies had already found success by filtering out the gluten from their favorite grains, but the Bard’s Tale mission was to have the first all-natural process, beginning with gluten-free grains. After much trial and error with piles of ingredients that included rice, buckwheat and quinoa, Seplowitz and Belser settled on sorghum, a grain native to, and most commonly used in, Africa.

Sorghum is more expensive than other grains because it not as widely available in the United States. It represents the first step in a process that is necessarily more costly than standard malting and brewing.

Sanitation is critical in crafting a gluten-free beer because cross-contamination can destroy the product. The mill that Bard’s Tale uses to crush grain cannot be cleaned and thus must be used exclusively for sorghum. The result — a beer that is truly gluten-free — should be well worth the extra few dollars, Seplowitz maintains.

A six-pack of Dragon’s Gold, the flagship beer of Bard’s Tale, costs between $9.99 and $12.99 depending on the location and the distributor, so marketing is critical. For celiacs, the appeal is obvious. However, Bard’s Tale also aspires to be a mainstream beer.

“We’re not a gluten-free beer,” Seplowitz said. “We’re a beer that happens to be gluten-free.”

The word play is key because, as Kardaris said, “There’s a preconceived notion that it will taste funny.”

Dragon’s Gold, at least in the eyes of this beholder, actually tastes like a regular beer. Seplowitz attributes the natural flavor to Bard’s Tale’s closely monitored process of craft-brewing, in which the origin of the grains is always known and there are no added rice or corn syrup extracts, unlike some of the mass-production competition like brewing giant Anheuser-Busch’s Redbridge.

Authenticity is a common theme at Bard’s Tale and goes beyond the product.

Perhaps the most critical aspect is the experience that Belser and Seplowitz, who called the period before his diagnosis with celiac disease “18 months of pure hell,” share with the estimated 2.2 million celiacs in the United States (according to a University of Chicago study).

“We have an inherent trust factor with our customers, being celiacs ourselves,” Seplowitz said.

As a manifestation of the founders’ personal investment, Bard’s Tale keeps close tabs on logistical and legal issues surrounding celiac disease. The company was founded with the goal of raising enough money through beer revenues to contribute to research that will help people better understand gluten intolerance. Considering that celiac disease takes an average of 11 years to diagnose, according to the same University of Chicago study, the field is in need of a push.

A boom of gluten-free options in supermarkets and specialty stores demonstrates a slowly increasing awareness and helps ease the pain of adjusting one’s diet, but the work is still difficult for diagnosed celiacs.

Seplowitz believes nomenclature for gluten in food products is dangerously hazy and leads to confusion because some companies, like the beer-makers in Europe who use the filtering process, claim to be gluten-free when they are really only below the gluten level determined by the government.

In the United States, wrangling over the terminology is still in full swing.

Companies like Bard’s Tale are prohibited from placing the phrase ÂŒgluten-free’ on bottles until there are uniform testing regulations. As someone who is confident about his product’s merits and believes that the personal experiences of afflicted people speak for themselves, Seplowitz disagrees with the current strategy.

“Testing shouldn’t be a stamp of approval. The consumer needs to use judgment. I think we should just give the information and let people decide for themselves,” he said, proposing that the ingredients be printed plainly on packaging and differentiate between products that are gluten-free and those that are low in gluten.

Honest labels are part of Seplowitz’s crusade for safe eating and drinking options. From a business standpoint, he’s doing fine without them. Progress has happened faster than expected, and last December the company expanded its management team by adding two people with substantial résumés in the beer business. Brian Kovalchuk, the former CEO of Pabst Brewing Company, now holds the same position at Bard’s Tale, and Brian Bizer, Pabst’s former vice president of finance, is the new CFO.

The company has visions of expanding nationally, where it is already present in 20 states, and internationally. It could start in its own backyard — Dragon’s Gold is still not available in Connecticut.

“It’s funny,” said Kardaris. “We have to run over to White Plains (N.Y.) to get our own beer.”

On the Net: www.bardsbeer.com

—–

To see more of The Hour, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.thehour.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Hour, Norwalk, Conn.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.