Is Estrella Damm gluten free?

Estrella Damm is one I answer with a question, because the name covers two very different beers and for anyone with coeliac disease the gap between them is everything. The standard Estrella Damm lager is a normal barley beer and is not safe. Daura, brewed by the same company, is a separate gluten free beer that is. Get the two confused at a bar or on a supermarket shelf and the label is the only thing that will save you.

The standard lager: not safe

Regular Estrella Damm is brewed from barley malt with no gluten removal step and no gluten free claim. That makes it an ordinary barley lager, so it contains gluten and is not suitable for people with coeliac disease. The old line you still see repeated online, that all Estrella beers are gluten free, is simply wrong. Only the Daura and Free Damm products carry the designation. If the can does not say gluten free, treat it as a normal beer.

Daura: the gluten free one

Daura is a deliberately different product, on sale since 2006 and brewed from the same barley base as the standard lager. An enzyme is used to break the gluten protein down into fragments through a process called enzymatic hydrolysis. Damm then tests every batch using the R5 ELISA method through the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), and the result comes in below 3 parts per million. The legal threshold for a gluten free label in the UK and EU is 20 parts per million, so Daura sits at less than a sixth of it.

Daura is also one of the easier gluten free lagers to find. It turns up in supermarkets and is often the only gluten free option on draught in a UK pub, which is worth knowing when you are out and the choice is otherwise nothing.

As with every enzyme treated barley beer, the pack still says contains barley. That declaration is there for people with a barley allergy, a separate condition from coeliac disease, and it does not undermine the gluten free claim. The two lines cover two different reactions.

What gluten reduced means for very sensitive coeliacs

Daura is what the labelling rules call a gluten free beer, but it is the gluten reduced kind: it starts with a gluten grain and the gluten is removed, rather than being absent from the start. For the large majority of coeliacs, a beer tested below 3 parts per million and carrying the gluten free claim is recognised as safe, and that is the position Coeliac UK takes on beers that meet the 20 parts per million standard. A small number of very sensitive coeliacs still prefer beers brewed without any barley at all, for extra peace of mind. That is a personal choice rather than a safety requirement. Our guide to naturally gluten free versus gluten reduced beer sets out the distinction, and our explainer on what 20ppm actually means covers the testing.

Is Estrella Damm 0.0 gluten free?

Yes, with one point of confusion worth clearing up. The 0.0% alcohol free lager has been sold for years as Free Damm, and Damm lists it as gluten free and suitable for coeliacs. In April 2026 Damm also launched a newer alcohol free beer in the UK called Daura 0.0%, certified gluten free with each batch tested below 20 parts per million. They are two products with overlapping names. Both are barley beers with the gluten removed enzymatically, the same method as standard Daura, so the same caveat for very sensitive coeliacs applies to both.

What to drink instead

If you want to skip the label roulette entirely, our directory has the safe Damm beers and other certified gluten free lagers worth a look:

• Daura Lager, 5.4%. The original enzyme treated lager from Damm, crisp and clean. We could not confirm this beer’s gluten status from our current data.
• Daura 0.0%, 0.0%. The alcohol free version from Damm. We could not confirm this beer’s gluten status from our current data.
• Celia Organic Lager, 4.5%. A crisp organic lager for a change from the Spanish style.

For more in this style, see our guide to gluten free lagers, or browse the full beer directory.