Studies on Laitilan brewery's Kukko beer revealed a rare property: a drink that is also suitable for coeliac patients. Nowhere in the world has a similar full-malt beer been found.

On an initiative by the Finnish Coeliac Society, the biggest breweries have had their beer brands examined over the past couple of years to find out the suitability of beers for coeliac patients. Although there was a slight inkling about the matter at the Laitilan brewery, the outcome of the study finally came as a nice surprise.

"We were the first in the world to realize how the absence of gluten arises. The innovation is to do with controlling the process," says Arimi Aarikka, the managing director, who is unwilling to reveal further details because it is an industrial secret.

Right beer

It has not previously been possible to produce gluten-free beer from barley even though millions and millions of euros have been spent around the world on its development. Coeliac patients have only been able to enjoy beer safely when it has been made from buckwheat, millet or corn.

The gluten contents in Kukko beers were, at their lowest, less than 0.31 milligrams per one hundred grams. In European beers the corresponding contents were mainly between 2.5 and 50 milligrams.

Sufficient demand

Coeliac beers open new export vistas for the Laitilan brewery. "There have been an enormous number of enquiries. Expectations are strong and the market is, in practice, worldwide," Aarikka says.

For example, coeliac patients in Europe and the United States number about one per cent of the population. Coeliac disease is a condition in which gluten, a substance found in wheat, barley and rye, reacts with the small intestine, causing damage by activating the immune system to attack the delicate lining of the bowel, which is responsible for absorbing nutrients and vitamins.

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Laitila brewery's Kukko Pils 4.5% and Tumma Kukko 3.8% are suitable for coeliac patients as well.