Gluten free beer at Waitrose: the best supermarket range in Britain, and what to actually buy

If you drink gluten free beer and you shop at a supermarket, Waitrose built the range to beat: at its summer 2026 peak, 17 lines from 13 brands with a craft lean no other major supermarket came close to matching. Our October check found it slimmer online. The mainstream anchors are all still there, Jubel’s peach lager has arrived, but several of the craft lines that made the shelf special (Gipsy Hill Bandit, Tempest Modern Helles, Vocation Heart and Soul, Wold Top Against the Grain) were not showing in Waitrose’s own listings. Whether that is a range cut or patchy online data, the shelf is worth a phone call before a special trip.

That is the good news. Here is the honest part: it costs more than Tesco, most of the range is still gluten removed from barley rather than naturally gluten free, and it remains thin on darker styles. There is no gluten free stout here. No porter. But as a starting point for supermarket gluten free beer, nothing else compares.

What Waitrose actually stocks

Updated October 2026: we re-checked the range against Waitrose’s own online listings. The confirmed core is smaller than it was in the summer: Peroni GF, Daura Damm, BrewDog Punk GF, the Lowrise pair, Adnams Ease Up and Prime Time (now as single cans). Several of the craft lines that made this shelf special were not showing in Waitrose’s online search at all in October. That does not prove they are gone from every branch, because Waitrose’s online search is patchy, but if you are making a trip for Gipsy Hill, Tempest, Vocation or Wold Top, ring the branch first. Prices below were checked online in October 2026.

Beer	ABV	Pack	Price (checked October 2026)	How it is made gluten free
Peroni Nastro Azzurro GF	5.1%	4x330ml bottles	£8.00 (up from £7.25 in August)	Gluten removed from barley (enzymatic; endorsed by Italian Coeliac Association)
Daura Damm	5.4%	4x330ml	£6.00 on promotion, £7.00 list	Gluten removed from barley (tests under 3ppm)
BrewDog Punk GF	5.4%	4x330ml cans	£6.90, tagged “New” (was £5.25)	Gluten removed from barley (Clarex enzyme)
Jubel Beer Cut With Peach	4.0%	4x330ml	£6.85 (new to the range)	Naturally gluten free (brewery reports under 10ppm)
Adnams Ease Up IPA GF	4.6%	500ml bottle	£1.90 on promotion, £2.55 list	Gluten removed from barley (Clarex enzyme; certified under 20ppm)
Prime Time Lager	4.2%	440ml single can	£2.85, any 2 for £4.50 (4 packs no longer showing)	Gluten removed from barley (under 20ppm)
Prime Time IPA	4.2%	440ml single can	£2.85, any 2 for £4.50	Gluten removed from barley (under 20ppm)
Lowrise Lager	4.0%	330ml single	£2.25, any 2 for £3.50	Labelled gluten free; GF grain method unconfirmed
Lowrise Hazy Pale Ale	4.0%	330ml single	£2.25, any 2 for £3.50	Labelled gluten free; GF grain method unconfirmed

Not showing in Waitrose’s online search in October 2026 (check your branch before travelling): Old Speckled Hen GF, Wold Top Against the Grain, Vocation Heart and Soul, Gipsy Hill Bandit, Tempest Modern Helles, Prime Time Lager Plus, Empress Premium Lager, Celia Organic Lager and Hollyrood American GF Pale Ale. Hollyrood had already been showing as unavailable since 2025. Celia matters most on this list: it was the shelf’s only naturally gluten free lager, and with Jubel’s peach lager arriving the naturally gluten free slot has effectively changed hands.

The Waitrose-exclusive lines were Gipsy Hill Bandit, Tempest Modern Helles and the Prime Time range; of those, only Prime Time was still listed online in October, and only as single cans.

Our verdict on the range

At its summer 2026 peak, the best supermarket range for gluten free beer in Britain, and it was not close. The October picture is less certain: if the craft lines really have gone rather than dropped out of the online listings, the gap to Tesco narrows to price and the Jubel and Prime Time exclusives. We will re-check and update this verdict.

The craft lean was real and it mattered. Gipsy Hill Bandit is a South London pale ale that actually tastes like one. Tempest Modern Helles is the kind of thoughtful lager that a craft drinker picks up without feeling like they are compromising. Vocation Heart and Soul is a credible session IPA from one of Yorkshire’s better independent breweries. Wold Top Against the Grain is the standout for testing rigour: a proper pale ale from a family farm in the Yorkshire Wolds, not a flat lager dressed up as a concession, from a brewery that independently tests its whole gluten free range. These beers appeared at Waitrose and essentially nowhere else in a supermarket aisle, which is exactly why their absence from the October online listings is worth watching.

The mainstream anchors (Peroni, Daura, BrewDog Punk GF) are here too, which is exactly right. A range needs its approachable entry points. Adnams Ease Up IPA is a well-made choice for anyone who wants a heritage Suffolk brewer rather than the BrewDog default. Old Speckled Hen in gluten removed form is a genuine nod to the English pale ale tradition and a rare style sighting on any supermarket shelf.

The gaps are still there. No stout. No porter. No dedicated gluten free brewery (Bellfield, Thornbridge, Abbeydale) in the range at all. The Prime Time range is interesting as an exclusive, and the caffeinated Lager Plus is an oddity, but it is squarely in the low-calorie wellness lane rather than craft. And the price premium is real: a four-pack of Peroni GF at Waitrose costs noticeably more than the equivalent at a big four supermarket. You pay for the breadth and the craft lean.

Still: if you are buying gluten free beer from a supermarket, Waitrose is where you go.

The thing the shelf will not tell you

Of everything on the Waitrose shelf, one line is naturally gluten free (Jubel’s peach lager, since October 2026; before that, Celia). Everything else where the method is confirmed is gluten removed from barley. That ratio is roughly the same as every other supermarket. Waitrose is better at what it stocks, but not fundamentally different in what it is.

Gluten removed beer starts as ordinary barley beer. An enzyme (usually Clarex) is added during or after fermentation to break down the gluten proteins until the beer tests below the legal limit of 20ppm. It legally qualifies as gluten free. For most people with gluten sensitivity it is fine.

For coeliacs, it is more complicated. The standard tests for gluten in beer were not designed to measure the kind of broken protein fragments that enzyme treatment produces, and a real number of coeliacs report symptoms from gluten removed beer that passes the 20ppm test. We explain the full picture in our guide to gluten removed versus naturally gluten free. It is worth reading before you decide whether the Waitrose shelf is safe for you specifically.

Naturally gluten free beer is brewed from grains that never contained gluten: sorghum, maize, millet, rice, buckwheat. No enzyme treatment needed. No barley proteins at any stage. At Waitrose that is now Jubel’s peach lager; Celia Organic, the sorghum lager that used to hold the slot, was not showing online in October 2026. One option on an otherwise barley shelf.

For the Lowrise pair the GF method remains unconfirmed. The packaging and Waitrose listings describe them as gluten free, but the grain or treatment is not published clearly enough for us to classify them. If you need to know before buying, contact the brewery directly.

What we would actually buy, and where

From the Waitrose shelf as it stands, the honest picks depend on where you sit on gluten removed beer.

If you react to gluten removed beer, the naturally gluten free pick is now Jubel Beer Cut With Peach, £6.85 for 4. If a fruit lager is not your thing, Celia Organic Lager was the shelf’s sorghum lager until recently and may still be in some branches, but it was not showing online in October 2026, so check before making the trip. Nothing else Waitrose carries substitutes for either.

If gluten removed beer is fine for you but you want it tested properly, Wold Top Against the Grain is the pick. It is a gluten free craft beer with proper character, brewed on a Yorkshire farm, and Wold Top independently tests its whole gluten free range rather than a token few, working to a policy of 10 internal tests to 1 external test to verify. Against The Grain tests under 10ppm.

If gluten removed beer works for you, this shelf earns its premium. Vocation Heart and Soul is the session IPA to reach for: a craft brewery making a proper gluten free version of one of their core beers, not a watered-down concession. Gipsy Hill Bandit is the pick among the pale ales and one of the few things on any supermarket shelf that a craft drinker would choose without the gluten free caveat doing most of the work. Tempest Modern Helles is worth picking up for a well-crafted lager that sits in a different tier from the mainstream names. And Daura Damm remains one of the most thoroughly tested gluten removed lagers available anywhere, certified at under 3ppm, a long way below the legal threshold.

The limit of the Waitrose shelf, even this one, is style depth. No stout. No porter. No pilsner from a brewery that lives and breathes that style. The breweries that have built their whole identity around gluten free brewing, the ones where every beer they make is made to be genuinely free from, are not here.

That is what our beer directory is for. Browse by style, filter by naturally gluten free, and you will find things that no supermarket aisle has thought to stock yet. Our breweries directory covers the independent and dedicated producers worth knowing about. Use Waitrose for a genuinely good supermarket shop. Use the directory when you want to see how far this category actually goes.