Great things have come from the humble backyard shed. Harley motorcycles. The world’s first aircraft. Instant noodles. And O’Brien Beer.
When founder, John O’Brien, discovered he had coeliac disease in 1998, it put an end to enjoying some of the finer things in life, one of which was beer. But instead it led to the creation of something great. Realising there wasn’t any gluten free beer on the market, he retreated to his backyard shed to make one.
Driven by passion and thirst, he went to work on a brewing formula for an all-natural gluten free beer, with no colourings or preservatives. After many batches – and much trial and error – he hit upon one that blew barley-based beers out of the water and pulled no punches when it came to taste.
In 2004, John went looking for investors and in August 2005 he released O’Brien Pale Ale, Australia’s first commercially brewed gluten free beer. Two years later Rebellion Brewing was established – a nod to its Ballarat roots.
Today, they source all sorghum and millet from local Aussie farmers, buying the best quality early harvest grains available. And they keep true to the dream born out of the shed.
The result is an award-winning, full-bodied flavour that extends across their entire range.
O’Brien Beer is for beer lovers. O’Brien Beer is for everyone. Always 100% gluten free. No preservatives or colourings. And always true to flavour without compromise.
O’Brien – naturally crafted, distinctly different.
The key to great tasting beer is getting the malting right. But unlike brewers of barley and wheat beers, we can’t just buy malted gluten free grains off the shelf. They simply don’t exist.
So over the years we’ve had to get clever and develop our own process for malting the best gluten free grains for each of our beers.
To get it right, we’ve invested heavily in specialised equipment, some designed externally and some built to perfection by us. This equipment is crucial because the mashing process – the mixing of the malted grain and water at varying temperatures – is significantly different for gluten free malted grain than it is for barley and wheat based beers.
The wort (raw sweet unfermented beer) is extracted from the mash using our mash filter, one of our own unique pieces of equipment that you won’t find in any other microbrewery.
We then follow the traditional brewing process to perfect each beer, ready to be bottled.
1. Mashing the grain with water to extract the wort solution from the grain
2. The boiling of the wort with bittering hops and then aroma hops at the end
3. Cooling the wort
4. Adding yeast to ferment the wort sugars into alcohol
5. Conditioning the beer at -2C to settle out the yeast and suspended hop particles
6. Filtering the beer to remove the remaining yeast and hop particles
7. Carbonating the beer
8. Bottling, pasteurising and packaging the beer
9. Then it’s over to you to chill and enjoy. Cheers!
Because the brewing process is so different than it is for barley and wheat based beers, our brewery is specially fitted with customised equipment, some expertly designed externally and some built to perfection by us.
It’s this equipment that sets O’Brien Beer apart from other craft beers.
This means a little extra effort for us, but big rewards for you. It means our grains haven’t been sitting on a shelf for years, waiting to be used. They’re sourced fresh from local Aussie farmers, and specially malted following our own exacting methods.
The result is a fresh and uncompromising taste that extends across our whole range of beers, every one of them 100% gluten free, without preservatives or colourings.
