Is there such a thing as malt-free beer?

If you are not allergic to the substrate but are allergic to the malt, then it seems likely that the problem is from the enzymes produced in the malting process. Those enzymes get destroyed when the wort is boiled, so they are not present in the finished beer. In that case you should be able to drink beer even if you have a malt allergy.

If you are allergic to gluten, then you CAN make a "gluten-free" beer using Clarity Ferm from White Labs. http://www.whitelabs.com/other-products/wln4000-clarity-ferm

It is an enzyme that cleaves gluten proteins to reduce them to levels below 20ppm (the minimum standard to be considered "gluten free").

It does cleave hordein, the main allergen associated with barley, so it would stand to reason that you may be able to drink normally made all-grain homebrew using Clarity Ferm, but without knowing the exact allergen that causes you problems, I can't say for sure if you can drink it. But it's worth a try! Try adding some Clarity Ferm to a normal beer, recap it, give it some time at the proper temperature, then try drinking it to see if it works for you. If so, cheers! You can homebrew actual beer without compromising taste!

To clarify the "malt allergy" concern, you need to be more specific than that. Malt is any grain that has been sprouted to produce sugar producing enzymes. If you have allergic reactions to "malt balls", these are made with dairy, barley malt, and flour, so it could very well be an allergy to gluten or dairy that causes you problems. Best to get an allergy test to determine your exact condition.

I don't know if you'll actually ever see this answer but here goes. I am also allergic to malt. I don't understand where people are coming from with some of their answers as they bring gluten into the discussion. I believe malt is a separate ingredient. Aside from most beers, I also cannot drink a chocolate malt and I can't eat a couple blister packages of chocolate malted milk balls without getting waves of stomach pain. Been going on for a long time now. I have discovered though, that I can drink any of the common Corona beers, like their Corona Lite or their Extra variety. Found out by accident, and later, someone told me he heard or read that Corona doesn't contain malt. If they have a malted variety, I don't know about it. Good luck.

I've also been diagnosed with EOE and have avoided beer, ovaltine, Ben and Jerry's brownie ice cream, cheese nips, and anything else with malt for the last 20 years for the same reasons you have.

This may sound strange, but if you have the chance, try a small taste of an ale like Rodenbach Grand Cru (or other Flemish red brown ale) to see if your body reacts the same as it does to beer. Where I live it's available by the 750ml bottle at Costco. Yes, it does have malt, but immediately upon trying it (and smelling it even) I could tell I wasn't allergic to it. I think it has something to do with the very long fermentation process used in making it. If it works for you, then there are plenty of sources out there with home brewing this ale.

Good luck and I hope it works for you!

I thought the definition of beer was pretty much "fermented malt water". If you ferment grapes with hops, it's still not beer. If you distill from grains, it's not beer either. Beer without malt sounds like an oxymoron to me.

However, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer says "produced by the saccharification of starch and fermentation", not necessarily from malted grains. Guess you could try rice beer, corn beer, or even potato beer.

i also have a malt allergy. unfortunately since malt is a process, it seems malt-free beer would essentially be much like hard ciders and not considered "beer". Perhaps a hard cider using hop that tastes closer to beer than hard cider could be a solution for those like us, who have malt allergies and want to drink beer!

If you're brewing your own stuff and you want a gluten free recipe, try this. Instead of barley malt, use honey. Make a mead (honey wine). Water it down to beer strength (5-6%). Then add a bunch of hops in your boil to give it a bitter beery taste.

This will give you a nice hoppy boozy beverage that has no gluten. Also, you'll be a viking.

If you're just allergic to gluten in the malt, then you can use roasted chestnuts as a good gluten free alternative. You soak the chestnuts with Amylase enzyme at about 160 degrees for 12 to 24 hours to break down the fermentable sugars, and then you use this as the basis of your wort.

There's a lot of information about it over on the Homebrew Talk forum, or in the answers to this question about gluten free brewing.

Briess makes gluten-free malt substitutes. That particular product page is here: --> http://www.brewingwithbriess.com/Products/GF_Syrups.htm

As the comments and questions to your post have indicated, it sounds like a gluten problem. There are a few gluten-free beers (like Redbridge--an Anhueser-Bush product, unfortunately), so there are of course gluten-free homebrews. Most of what's available are sorghum-based.

Here is one recipe kit based on sorghum extract and Belgian candi sugar: http://www.homebrewers.com/product/ALP1051/Gluten-Free-Dark-Ale-Beer-Kit.html

You can still enjoy the pleasure of homebrewing with something like this, or I'd recommend acquiring a taste for mead (I'm not a mead-drinker myself, so my advice would be very limited here). You could do a lot with homebrewed mead without ever involving anything that could get you sick.

Cheers!