Gluten-Free Week: Green’s Quest

Gluten-Free WeekGreen’s Quest is the other gluten-free beer from them available to me here in Central Oregon; as I mention in my review of Endeavour, this (and all of their beers) are brewed to a secret recipe though there are a few clues as to their makeup.

I forgot to mention in that previous review that on the bottle they proclaim millet, rice, buckwheat, and sorghum as the ingredients. Given that Quest is brewed to the style of a Belgian Tripel, then there is likely to be a large portion of the recipe consisting of a (nearly) pure sugar source—common in the style to boost the alcohol strength (8.5% in the case of Quest) without adding color or body to the beer.

With Quest I’m fairly positive this sugar source is honey, which will become apparent as you read my review notes.

Green's QuestAppearance: Clear honey-gold with a choppy, large-bubbled head.

Smell: Mild profile, with hints of sweet honey and floral notes. Fairly clean.

Taste: Right off reminds me of a mead—wildflower honey with hints of summer fruit and the wine-y character present in most meads I’ve had. Actually quite pleasant—I wonder if they used a lot of honey for the sugar-boosting part of the Tripel style…

Mouthfeel: Sparkling, light of medium, with a puckery-wine mead-like finish—dry and clean.

Overall: Quite good—a bit different than I was expecting but enjoyable nevertheless. Makes for a nice (though strong) warm weather ale.

Would someone with Celiac disease like it? Yes.

However, on BeerAdvocate, there’s no love for this beer: overall grade of C-. It fares similarly on RateBeer, scores 2.18 out of 5 and only in their 9th percentile. It’s looking like gluten-free beers just won’t get a good mention from the rating sites; sad, but such is life.

2 comments

  1. I’m pretty sure Green’s proclaims all of their beer as vegan (even using the Vegan logo) so I doubt they are using honey as their sugar source here.

  2. Good point; they do say on their site that they are “suitable for both Vegetarian and Vegan diets” but they also don’t specifically exclude honey from their list of what they don’t contain… I’d still swear this has a strong mead-honey quality to it…

    (As an aside, I never knew honey wasn’t considered vegan until now; I hadn’t given it much thought, but it’s good to know.)

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