What are the main brewing methods to produce non-alcoholic beer with less than 0.5% ABV?

In short

You can adjust mash temperature to change the enzymatic profile and emphasize sugars that don't ferment well.

Guest · Non-Alcoholic Beers and the Importance of Water Quality · Unfiltered Brew · answer at 8:30

Key takeaways

• You can adjust mash temperature to change the enzymatic profile and emphasize sugars that don't ferment well.

Quote to remember

“Beer is like the whole grain bread, craft beer, and seltzer is like the candy bar. It's just usually alcoholic water back-sweetened with various flavors.”

The full answer · about 3 min

You can adjust mash temperature to change the enzymatic profile and emphasize sugars that don't ferment well. Another method uses specialized yeast engineered to not produce alcohol while still giving off ethyl acetate for flavor. A third way is arresting fermentation by dropping temperature or mechanically removing yeast via centrifuge. Since non-alcoholic beer retains residual fermentable sugars, pasteurization is critical to prevent cans from exploding if fermentation restarts when warmed.

Key facts

• Non-alcoholic beer must be under 0.5% ABV by law
• Alcohol-free beer must be zero% ABV, which is much more difficult to achieve
• Sucralose is approximately 30 times sweeter than sugar per unit
• Sugar Creek Brewing can make 500 gallons of wort in an 8-hour shift
• Sugar Creek Brewing can make 2000 gallons of wort in a 16-hour shift (four batches compressed)

People, companies and topics mentioned

More answers from this episode

• 23:14How long does it take to produce beer from grain to glass at Sugar Creek Brewing Company?