Non-Alcoholic Beer

Non-alcoholic beer dates back to the dawn of prohibition in 1919, when breweries were trying to find ways to stay alive. Some turned to making soda or root beer, while others continued to make beer that had a very low alcoholic content, which was allowed by law to be less than .5% alcohol by volume. During prohibition, these beers were called "non-intoxicating". Over time the name evolved into "non-alcoholic", even though they do contain a small amount of alcohol. This differs from the term "alcohol free" which legally in the U.S. means there is no detectable alcohol at all. Once prohibition had ended, there remained a small market for non-alcoholic beers, and for good reason. Pregnant women, designated drivers, those on medication or those that have quit drinking but still like the taste of beer all make up the market for non-alcoholic brews.

There are several ways to make non-alcoholic beer. The most common is by brewing the beer as normal, and then removing the alcohol prior to bottling. One way to do this is to boil off the alcohol. Since alcohol has a much lower boiling point than water (about 173 degrees at sea level), the beer can be heated to slightly above that point until enough alcohol burns off to bring it below .5%. However, reheating the ingredients in the beer changes its flavor significantly. Some brewers get around this by using a vacuum to lower the boiling point of the alcohol, thus reducing the temperature needed to boil off the alcohol and minimizing the effect of heat on the remaining ingredients. Another way to remove alcohol from beer is to use reverse-osmosis by running the beer through a very fine micro-filter through which only alcohol and water can pass. The alcohol is then distilled from the water using conventional means, and the remaining liquid is added back to the ingredients that didn't fit through the filter. This method is more labor intensive and requires more equipment.

Other less common ways to reduce the alcohol in beer are to limit the malt/water ratio in the mash to lower the original gravity and thus the alcohol level, to ferment the "second runnings" from a stronger beer mash where the amount of fermentable sugars has been reduced, to use a cold contact method of fermentation by pitching the yeast at near freezing temperatures which limits the fermentation but still provides some flavor development, or by stopping the fermentation at a desired point by pasteurizing or crash cooling the batch.
We did a blind tasting of non-alcoholic beers with the staff here at West Vail Liquor Mart, and it was quite interesting. While all of the beers tasted quite light, and perhaps a little sweet, there was quite a bit of difference in the way they each tasted, and in how our staff rated them. The over all favorite was O'Doul's, which, despite being quite light, had enough going for it that everyone put it in their top five. The other beers that received a majority of votes were Buckler, which was considered to have some hop character for an N/A beer; Clausthaler Premium which was considered to be light and drinkable with just enough malt taste and Clausthaler Amber, which exhibited a good malt flavor, without tasting too sweet or having a weird aftertaste. Becks N/A and Erdinger N/A also were favored by a majority, with Becks being considered a little sweet and Erdinger a little malty. We generally keep Thomasbrau N/A in stock, but the distributor had been out of stock for several weeks prior to the tasting, so we weren't able to compare that one.

We generally keep 5 flavors of non-alcoholic beer in stock, and will rotate between those mentioned above. We encourage any requests and feedback that you, our customers, may have.

Cheers!
Chip
Beer Buyer