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  • Brewing non-alcoholic beers

    Hi all,

    We're looking into brewing a non-alcoholic beer and I was hoping to get some ideas on where to start and how to do it. Does anyone have experience and good results with it? We've got a 40 hl brewing installation.

    I've been reading up on it a bit and there seems to be a plethora of methods ( these people ) seem to have listed most of them in an article). However, our brewery does not have a way to pasteurize, filter or vacuum distill at present.

    By way of a vacuum distiller seems like the most 'professional' way to do it, but probably also the most expensive one. The way I'd like to do it, is at least by using S. Ludwigii. Other than that, I've no ideas yet on how to get it to below 0,5%. Dilute? Or would it be possible to just make a 0,5% beer without doing anything to it, when working with this strain? I'll work in a really really sanitary fashion and probably find a pasteurizer somewhere.

    Any advice is more than welcome.

  • #2
    Alfa laval has a neat piece of kit as does Centec. Production of de-alcoholized beer is difficult. The process is susceptible to oxidation of substrate, unwanted removal of essential beer flavours (higher alcohols and esters), and some systems (RO) can be very energy and water intensive with huge impacts on your effluent stream. Engineered systems take all of that into consideration. Pervaporation is intriguing and likely the best method (Centec) all around. All methods will require unique recipes to tweak your NA beer into an enjoyable one. Hopping, mashing, fermenting and dilution (using de-aerated water) regimes will all need to change. NA beers will require pasteurization or addition of preservatives, or both, to satisfy food safety concerns of Health Departments in most jurisdictions. By removing alcohol, you are changing the alcohol/acid balance in your beer. This has much to do with alcoholic beers inherent low-risk food safety concerns. I suppose you could dose with acid to drop pH, but that will change the flavour profile entirely.

    Other NA beer production methods could work (like S. ludwigii) but would require much bench testing of strains, recipe development (trial and error), and you will end up with a fermented product, for sure. Whether it will meet your organoleptic expectations is your call.

    Pax.

    Liam
    Liam McKenna
    www.yellowbellybrewery.com

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    • #3
      Limited Fermentation

      You can brew a non alcoholic beer through a brewing process known as limited fermentation, a process used by big breweries.
      There is an article in the Spanish brewing magazine Cerveza y Malta, No. 199, 2013, pages 22-29.
      Now 3 microbreweries in Spain have achieved it, Chula, Salvaje and Mica beers.

      Basically the process involves the blend of two beers, one standard beer and the other goes under a limited fermentation, as well, a special mash program.

      Article is in Spanish, however, if language is not a problem, I can share it, can't post it, too big.

      A link to Chula beer;

      Last edited by Fausto Yu-Shan; 06-22-2019, 02:09 PM.

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