Tag Archive for: Gluten Free Beer

Blind Tastings of Gluten-Free Beers

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See how New Planet Beer performed in a blind beer taste test.

Fellow gluten-free blogger, Peter Bronski of No Gluten, No Problem, recently had a gluten-free beer tasting party of eight beers for a few friends. There were only three rules to this blind tasting:

1) The tasters knew that they would only be drinking gluten-free beer and had no prior knowledge of which beers would be part of the tasting.

2) They were able to taste the beers in any order.

3) They were able to return to a beer and re-taste it at any time.

The eight beers were separated into two categories. Flight one was made up of “clear” beers: lagers and light ales which included: Lakefront Brewery’s New Grist, Bard’s Beer, New Planet’s Tread Lightly Ale and 3R Raspberry Ale. Flight two was made up of “opaque” beers: yeasty, Belgian-style ales which included: Green’s Tripel Blonde, Green’s Amber Ale, Zonder Gluten Belgian Wit and Green’s Dubbel Dark.

After the two categories were evaluated, the tasters were asked to rank the beers and choose which gluten-free beer was “best in show” overall.

New Planet Beer’s Tread Lightly Ale ended up on top in the Flight one category, “3 out of 4 tasters rated New Planet’s Tread Lightly Ale their overall favorite.” We also were voted with top honors, “2 out of 4 tasters ranked New Planet’s Tread Lightly Ale their Best in Show.” We invite you to read more about the blind beer test and see what people had to say about the New Planet Beer and the competition.


New Planet Beer at the Colorado Brewer’s Rendezvous

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As members of the Colorado Brewer’s Guild, New Planet Beer had the pleasure of attending the 14th annual Colorado Brewer’s Rendezvous on July 10th in Salida. Organized by the Colorado Brewer’s Guild for member breweries and pubs only, the Rendezvous features only Colorado-made craft beers. With nearly 50 breweries and pubs in attendance and over 75 beers on tap, the Rendezvous featured a beer for every taste, and enough beer to satisfy every one of the festival’s 2500 guests!

New Planet Beer tapped a keg of our new 3R Raspberry Ale and served Tread Lightly Ale from bottles at the Brewer’s Rendezvous. People who sampled our beer commented on it’s drinkability and good taste. If you didn’t attend this year’s Colorado Brewer’s Rendezvous and want to make sure not to miss out on future events and tastings, check out our events page for opportunities to join in the fun with New Planet Beer.

Are you experiencing a shortage of Tread Lightly Ale?

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If your store is out of New Planet Beer, don’t worry – we have new stock on the way.

New Planet Beer has some exciting news to share – our beer is going to be brewed in a new and bigger facility! What does that mean? Well, Fort Collins Brewery, who we contract to brew our beer, has upgraded their production facility so they can brew even more beer, which means more New Planet Beer for all of you. In the short term you may experience a shortage of Tread Lightly Ale in this transition, but don’t fret because in August we’ll be back in full stock and ready to serve our fans. After this move you should experience less Tread Lightly Ale shortages in the stores you frequently visit. Don’t forget we just launched 3R Raspberry Ale, so if you don’t see that on the shelves, please let that store know you’d like them to carry the product. It takes fans like you to help gluten-free customers get the selection they deserve. Thanks for all of your support during this transition and we’ll make sure the beer is heavily stocked going forward.

September 16th-18th:Great American Beer Festival 2010

With nearly 50,000 attendees each year, the Great American Beer fest is a festival giant! Over 2000 types of beer can be sampled from over 450 American Breweries. New Planet will be at the festival delivering tastes of our Tread Lightly Ale and 3R Raspberry Ale. Act fast! Tickets to this event sell out every year!

When: September 16-18, session times vary

Where: Colorado Convention Center, Denver, CO

July 7th: Wheatless Wednesday at The Sink

Come join New Planet beer at The Sink on the hill in Boulder for their first Wheatless Wednesday.  This event will feature 10’ gluten free pizzas for $7.99 and discounted prices on Tread Lightly Ale! We will be there to support this great event by passing out free samples of Tread Lightly Ale as well as New Planet Beer bottle openers. Stop by and say hello and grab some delicious gluten-free beer and pizza!

When: July 7th 5:30-7pm

Where: 1165 13th Street, Boulder CO

August 14th: Telluride Festival of the Arts

An annual week-long experience of fine food and beverage, visual arts, and live music performances, the Telluride Festival of the Arts will be an exceptional event this year and is not to be missed. New Planet Beer will be taking part in the Grand Tasting this year, serving samples of our Tread Lightly Ale and 3R Raspberry Ale. Come enjoy delicious food, gluten-free beer, and some of the best visual and musical artwork that Colorado has to offer.

When: Saturday, August 14th 5:30-8pm

Where: Telluride Mountain Village Plazas

New Planet Beer Hosts a Tasting with Fans

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On June  18th, New Planet Beer invited several of our gluten-free fans to Kakes Studios in Boulder for a tasting of some of the new styles that we’ve been working hard to perfect. To start things off, we offered tastes of Tread Lightly Ale, our flagship style. Still a favorite, our patrons enjoyed Tread Lightly Ale’s light and refreshing taste. Next we offered pours of our 3R Raspberry Ale; it was well received and perfect for the warm Boulder day– 3R Raspberry Ale is definitely going to be popular among New Planet Beer drinkers this summer.

Next, we had our tasters enjoy and give us feedback on two styles in the works, an American-style Pale Ale and a European-style Pale Ale. Designed to deliver that hoppy scent and flavor of traditional APAs, our version of the American-style Pale Ale was well received, with the vast majority of our tasters giving us raving reviews. The beer was described as “hoppy”, “delicious”, and “exactly like the APA’s I used to drink”. Our European-style Pale Ale also received some positive reviews and our tasters provided us with a lot of valuable feedback that will help us make improvements to our recipe.

We really value our fan’s feedback so we can continue to make improvements to our gluten-free beers. Keep checking our upcoming events page so you can also have the opportunity to sample New Planet Beer.

What’s Sorghum?

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New Planet Intern gives us the inside scoop on his internship and sorghum.

New Planet Beer intern, Ryan Gaterman enlightens us on what he’s learned so far during his summer internship.

Before working with New Planet Beer, I was a bit unaware of gluten-free diets and the processes behind gluten-free products. After working for a few weeks and attending the Rocky Mountain Brewfest in Fort Collins, CO, I have learned much more about the beer industry than I thought and what it takes to brew certified gluten-free beer.

I’ve found that in the wonderful world of beer, unless you’re gluten-free, many people don’t know what separates New Planet’s Beer from other beer brands. New Planet Beer’s selection is strictly gluten-free and the ingredients and recipes for Tread Lightly Ale and 3R Raspberry Ale are like no other. I explain to consumers, aside from an outstanding taste, that New Planet Beer uses sorghum instead of wheat, thus making New Planet Beer gluten-free. For those who don’t follow a gluten-free diet or don’t know their crops well, they may ask, “What’s sorghum?”.

In order to answer this question, I did some research and found some interesting facts about the grain sorghum:

  • There are roughly 30 different species of sorghum
  • Sorghum can be used for alcohol, syrup, biofuel, and fodder
  • Sorghum is extremely drought intolerant
  • Sorghum is one of the top cereal crops in the world along with wheats, oats, barley and corn
  • The sorghum plant can grow over 6 feet tall
  • Sorghum is very high in fiber, iron and fairly high in protein
  • Sorghum originated in Africa and is grown most commonly in Africa
  • It makes good beer

If you have yet to try a beer brewed with sorghum, now is the time to start! Whether it be gluten sensitivity or a diet choice, have a taste of New Planet Beer and you’ll be satisfied.

Rocky Mountain Brewfest 2010

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New Planet Beer was thrilled to be at Estes Park Brewery last Saturday for the Rocky Mountain Brewfest! Despite the chilly and wet weather, the event had a great turnout. The Rocky Mountain Brewfest featured beers from several Colorado breweries, live music, and great food. We were grateful for the opportunity to dispense samples of Tread Lightly Ale to festival attendees, which made many new fans of New Planet Beer.

Both gluten-free beer drinkers and regular beer drinkers alike showed up to sample New Planet Beer. Many people said that they were pleasantly surprised with the way that Tread Lightly Ale tastes so much like regular beer, despite the use of sorghum and corn instead of wheat. We are glad that our efforts to provide a delicious gluten-free beer are bringing enjoyment to beer drinkers in Colorado.

If you’re sad you missed us at the Rocky Mountain Brewfest, never fear. We will be at the Colorado Brewer’s Festival in Fort Collins on the 26th and 27th of June, sampling our Tread Lightly Ale and debuting our 3R Raspberry Ale. Please come and find us, say hello, and enjoy a cold one, compliments of New Planet Beer!

Brewing and Bottling at Fort Collins Brewery

If you’re as fortunate as us to be living in Colorado, it’s a weekend pastime to visit local breweries (we have 92+ statewide). For those of you who don’t have that kind of brewery access, we documented the brewing and bottling of New Planet Beer at our contract brewer, Fort Collins Brewery. Check out the Tour photos>

During the process, New Planet Beer is mixed, brewed and stored in 60 barrel tanks. The brewers go through extra steps and procedures to ensure our gluten-free certification standard, and we can safely say they have the cleanest equipment around! The whole bottling process operates as an assembly line, making sure no step is missed. We observed the clean bottles pushed into single file formation on the conveyor belt, filled with  New Planet Beer, capped, labeled, put into the six pack carriers and then boxed to be shipped out to all of our accounts.

Fort Collins Brewery is in the process of building a brand new brewing facility. This new facility will be able to hold 100 barrel tanks, which means even more New Planet Beer in stores and restaurants near you. We’ll be sure to share a deeper look into the new brewery later this summer.

Thanks to the Fort Collins Brewery for helping us bring Gluten-Free New Planet Beer to our fans!