# Is It Possible To Brew A Non-alcoholic Beer?



## beau jasnos (27/6/10)

Hey guys!

Just wondering whether there is any possible way to brew a beer that contains little to no alcohol.

My old man doesn't drink alcohol anymore due to health issues and he has taken a bit of a liking to the Coopers Birrell beer that you can buy off supermarket shelves. I believe it contains about 0.5% alcohol which is OK(unless of course he drinks about 100 stubbies in one session).

Does anyone know how this can be achieved? I was thinking that maybe i could boil the wort after it had finished fermenting. I believe that when adding wine to cooking the heat removes the alcohol so figure the same would apply when cooking the fermented wort.

Does anyone know if this would work or would it taste like $hit. Or do you have any knowledge on how to make non-alcohol beers? The beer will also be bottled, not kegged

Cheers.


----------



## Bongchitis (27/6/10)

G'Day mate,

You can boil off the alcohol of course but I wouldn't go to 100 deg c as alcohol boils at 80 deg c. I am thinking the lower the temp the smaller impact on the flavour but I've never done it so what do I know? Who knows how long it will take and if you would remove all of the alcohol anyway, the more dilute the alcohol, the harder it is to separate out.

Also if you are bottling you will have to reintroduce yeast into the bottles with your priming sugar as the heat would have killed the previous yeast.

I say give it a go and good luck.





beaujazz82 said:


> Hey guys!
> 
> Just wondering whether there is any possible way to brew a beer that contains little to no alcohol.
> 
> ...


----------



## manticle (27/6/10)

Just found this article in BYO magazine:

http://www.byo.com/stories/article/indices...-alcoholic-beer


----------



## Newbiebrewer (27/6/10)

G'day

You can do it just boil the results at 78 celsius but (and this is out of a lack of knowledge and the fact I haven't touched non alcholoic beer) but you make a suitable beer then just bottleit with carb drops? or am I just being naive?


----------



## MHB (27/6/10)

Good article might not be a good idea to try it in a gas oven not to smoke near the oven for that matter.

MHB


----------



## manticle (27/6/10)

Generally a good idea not to smoke near your gas oven I reckon. Good point though - Naked flame and evaporating alcohol could be disastrous - probably should have featured in the article.


----------



## Florian (27/6/10)

No idea on how to do it (haven't read the article yet), but I know that alcohol free beer is very popular in Germany. About every big brand and even some smaller ones produce their own alcohol free range, some supermarkets have a full isle only for these beers. Taste wise they come close to the original, but never 100%. They are very popular with the driving folks, because it means you can have one or two Becks and then continue on Becks alcohol free (or any other brand to that effect), and still feel like you're not missing out like you would when having soft drinks. They are also stocked in most night clubs, bars and restaurants.

Florian


----------



## cooperplace (27/6/10)

beaujazz82 said:


> Hey guys!
> 
> Just wondering whether there is any possible way to brew a beer that contains little to no alcohol.
> 
> ...




Just add less fermentables, and bear in mind that you can add all the hops you like. Do some calculations and give it a go. I would go that way rather than boiling, after all you will boil off everything with a BP <that of water, and a lot these volatiles are contributors to flavor & aroma.


----------



## manticle (27/6/10)

To take out the amount of fermentables required to get to 0.5% wouldn't you basically just end up with a hop tea and some maltodextrin?


----------



## MHB (27/6/10)

If you read the article manticle posted it covers the options fairly well, you will need the flavours from the mashing and fermentation processes to make it taste like beer, rather than soft drink.
I did try something similar many years ago, but in a pot on a hotplate and was underwhelmed by the results; there were obvious flavours from yeast autolysis - a real vegemite twang.
Haven't tried using an oven but it makes sense as the heat is coming from all sides, rather than just the bottom where the yeast is getting basted.
Probably not on my to do list more interested in getting alcohol into beer than out of it at the moment, but it's always good to see some lateral thinking going on.

If you want to make a very low alcohol beer i suspect that following the instructions as given would be a good start.

MHB


----------

