Is Budweiser Gluten-free?

Find out if Budweiser is gluten-free, if all their products contain gluten, and which you can enjoy on a gluten-free diet.

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If you enjoy drinking a cold beer at the end of a long day or on a warm summer afternoon, you are likely familiar with Budweiser. Even if you don’t drink beer often, you may enjoy it occasionally and have wondered which brands you can enjoy while sticking with a gluten-free diet.

We’re going to talk all about Budweiser beer and their offerings in this post and find out how it fits into a gluten-free diet. We’ll talk about the Budweiser company and its manufacturer, plus go over the products that Budweiser beer makes.

We’ll wrap this post up with some questions and answers about some of Budweiser’s most popular products, including their Bud Light brand.

If you’re a fan of beer or Budweiser – or both – this post is for you!

This post is part of the Gluten-free Alcohol Series, where we’re going to discuss different types of alcoholic drinks and how they fit into a gluten-free diet.

What is Budweiser?

Budweiser is a brand of beer that’s manufactured and sold in the United States. It is considered an “American-style” lager and is one of the most popular beer brands in the U.S. According to Wikipedia, this brand of beer is sold in over 80 countries, though it may be available under different names as trademarks allow area to area.

Budweiser beers are available in bottles, cans, and on draft at restaurants and other larger events and places you might find beer, like sporting events.

Budweiser itself is the lager, but Bud Light is another brand of light beer and seltzers produced by Budweiser and the Anheuser-Busch corporation.

Who is the manufacturer of Budweiser?

Budweiser is manufactured by the Anheuser-Busch company. Its headquarters are in St. Louis, Missouri. Anheuser-Busch has gone through many different versions of its company through mergers and acquisitions of smaller brands.

What products does Budweiser make?

Budweiser is a huge player in the beer industry and makes so many of the different beers you’re likely to find on bar and restaurant menus every day. These are the current beer offerings in their product lineup. They also offer hard seltzers called Bud Light Seltzers in a variety of flavors.

Budweiser

Budweiser
Budweiser Zero
Budweiser Chelada
Budweiser Select
Budweiser Select 55

Bud Light

Bud Light
Bud Light Platinum

Bud Light Chelada

Bud Light Chelada Extra Lime
Bud Light Chelada Original
Bud Light Chelada Mango
Bud Light Chelada Fuego

Bud Light Peels

Bud Light Peels Lemonade
Bud Light Peels Orange
Bud Light Peels Lime
Bud Light Peels Grapefruit

What is gluten?

Gluten is a protein found in most wheat products, and acts as the “glue” that helps to hold wheat, barley, kamut, spelt, farro, durum, bulgur, rye, and semolina together to maintain their shape.

Gluten is naturally occurring, and therefore is impossible to strip away from the grain. If a grain naturally has gluten in it, there’s no way to make that food gluten-free.

Is beer gluten-free?

Most all beer contains gluten from the malted barley or wheat used during the beer-making process. Both barley and wheat are gluten-containing grains.

In the process of making beer, the gluten remains in the drink, as opposed to distilled drinks, such as whiskey that uses malted barley but the gluten is distilled out of the final product.

According to Healthline, different types of beer generally contain differing levels of gluten:

Lager: 63 ppm
Stout: 361 ppm
Ales: 3,120 ppm
Wheat beer: 25,920 ppm

This means that lagers have less gluten content than wheat beers, however both contain gluten. If you’re on a gluten-free diet, you’ll want to avoid all conventionally made beers.

Budweiser beer is not gluten-free as it is made with barley, a gluten-containing grain. All varieties of Budweiser’s beer products contain gluten.

Is Bud Light gluten-free?

Bud Light is Budweiser’s “light” beer. It comes in different flavors and options just like normal Budweiser. Bud Light, Bud Light Platinum, Bud Light Peels, and Bud Light Chelada all contain gluten in the form of barley. These should be avoided on a gluten-free diet.

Choose a different gluten-free beer from my gluten-free beer list to satisfy your beer needs.

Read on: Is Bud Light gluten-free?

Is Bud Light Next gluten-free?

Bud Light Next is made with malted barley and rice, according to the brand’s website. Since malted barley contains gluten, this drink is not considered gluten-free. Opt for a different light beer that is made using gluten-free grains.

Is Bud Light Lime gluten-free?

Bud Light Lime is considered a light lager, meaning it contains gluten from the barley that Budweiser uses in all their beer products. Avoid this option, but consider swapping for a Bud Light Seltzer Lemonade instead as these are gluten-free.

Is Bud Light Lemonade gluten-free?

Bud Light Lemonade from the Peels line is not considered gluten-free and contains barley. However, their Bud Light Seltzer Lemonade is considered gluten-free by the Budweiser brand, so choose this option if you enjoy hard seltzers.

Are Bud Light Seltzers gluten-free?

Bud Light Seltzers are considered gluten-free by the brand. On their website, they list some of their varieties as gluten-free while others don’t call this out. However, when researching this post, I was able to find that many retailers, like Safeway, Target, and Walmart have them listed as gluten-free.

Bud Light Seltzers come in different flavors and varieties:

Bud Light Seltzer Classics
Bud Light Seltzer Lemonade
Bud Light Platinum Seltzer
Bud Light Seltzer Iced Tea
Bud Light Seltzer Hard Soda

Read on: Are Bud Light Seltzers gluten-free?

If you’ve been wondering if your favorite beer is gluten-free, I hope that this post about Budweiser has helped you get the answers you’ve been looking for. The beer made by Budweiser all contains gluten, however their hard seltzer products are all gluten-free.

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