How Do Breweries Remove The Alcohol From Non Alcoholic Beers?

How Do Breweries Remove The Alcohol From Non Alcoholic Beers?

There are many trade secrets and tricks that breweries have in their back pockets to help in this process.  The big breweries have an unlimited budget to conquer any of its problems.  The smaller breweries have a bit more of a challenge on their hands.  I have spoke an award winning chemist about this process.

Boiling It

The simplest and probably least effective method is the make beer and boil out the alcohol.  This is crude and you’ll be left with alcohol in one vessel and a strange tasting, flavour changing beer.  But, the alcohol will be out of the beer.  This process is done in the distillation process for making spirits.  In spirit making they are not concerned about the result on the wort the focus is put on capturing the ethanol.

Specialized Yeasts

Back to chemistry.  Sugar and yeast mixed together gives you ethanol and carbon dioxide.  This has been in occurring in nature for thousands of not millions of years.

With this age old method breweries have been producing beer with alcohol but now with the advancement in science brewers are able to use specialized yeasts that “consume” the sugars in the wort but have a product with a very low alcohol content.  Low-Alcoholic beer can now be made using natural methods but without the higher alcohol content.

Filtering

This method is also used to product non alcoholic beer.  The beer is made exactly the same way as normal beer but after it is brewed it is forced through extremely fine filters which, in turn filters out all the alcohol and it is separated from the finished beer.  The recipe is then “topped up” with water and more ingredients and the result is a beer that have been brewed but with the alcohol removed.

No Fermentation

This method is very delicate.  Basically the brewery make a recipe and does not ferment the beer at all.  It is a very careful method of balancing subtle tones of the barley and hops but not allowing the yeast to do its thing.  

Good Stuff

With the advancement in the processing and brewing of non and low alcoholic beer all we know at Designated Drinks is that the breweries are making amazing tasting beers and you should check out our great selection to try some for yourself

 

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