Things are brewing out West in British Columbia. A new craft brewery in Kelowna is making gluten-free beer.

“I was diagnosed with celiac disease in 2003, back when nobody even knew what gluten was,” said brewmaster Chris Neufeld. “Finding a gluten-free beer that stands up to its more traditional counterpart is tough. It’s a real hole in the market.”

Neufeld picked up how to extract the starches from the gluten-free grains in Oregon. To do this, he uses a combination of millet and rice along with hops and yeast to produce his gluten-free beer.

“I was giving it to my friends, and they couldn’t tell they were any different from the beers they were drinking at the taproom down the street,” said Neufeld. That’s when I knew things needed to be bigger, and that’s when Grey Fox started.”

According to Neufeld, there aren’t that many taprooms serving gluten-free beers, a market that could potentially do really well for customers with celiac disease.

“In the last five years there’s been an explosion of gluten-free craft beer in the States,” he said. “It really hasn’t been something that’s caught on here in Canada. There’s clearly a need, and we want to change that.”

The challenge with this is gluten-free malt is not available in Canada, so he has to source it from Colorado, not only making it expensive to ship, but also increasing the price point of the final product.

“That’s why everybody is scared to get into the market I think,” said Neufeld. “But my thinking was if I build a gluten-free facility then I can supply or contract to other breweries and they don’t have to make that capital investment.”

Although Neufeld has secured placements throughout the Okanagan, he still needs some funds to complete costs. He’s doing this through a Kickstarter campaign to help raise an additional $20,000.

“Construction costs have spiraled out of control, so we thought the Kickstarter might be a way to raise a little bit of extra money, and we’re getting close to opening,” said Neufeld.

Photo courtesy of Grey Fox Brewing