Low Alcohol/Alcohol-free

Alcohol can be created by a natural fermentation process, not only in beer, but also in fruit juices or unripe bananas, for example. This often happens unintentionally and has not been checked by the manufacturer. It is therefore not mandatory to state the alcohol percentage (<0.5%) on the product. This is done on a voluntary basis.

To remove alcohol from beer, it is important to understand how alcohol is formed in beer. Beer is produced from malt, with the starch in the malt being converted into fermentable sugars during cooking. These sugars are then converted by yeast cells into alcohol and carbon dioxide during the fermentation process. The alcohol content depends on the amount of sugars: more sugars lead to more alcohol.

Alcohol-free beer can be brewed in two ways: by filtering the alcohol from the beer afterwards or by preventing alcohol from being formed during the brewing process.

Removing alcohol from the beer

One way to produce non-alcoholic beer is to eliminate fermentable sugars before they can be converted into alcohol. This is done by filtering fermentable sugars from the beer using a membrane, making them no longer available for the fermentation process. However, this method is expensive and patented, and is therefore rarely used.

In vacuum distillation, beer undergoes the standard brewing process, but the alcohol is later removed from the beer through distillation. Before the alcohol evaporates, the aromatic elements are removed from the beer. However, this can be at the expense of the beer's characteristic taste and aroma, which is later restored by adding these aromas back to the beer.

Preventing alcohol from forming

Some yeast strains convert only a limited amount of fermentable sugars into alcohol, but this process is slow and increases the risk of infections.

To limit the formation of alcohol, the fermentation process is interrupted as soon as the sugars want to convert by lowering the temperature to 0 degrees Celsius. The resulting alcohol percentage depends on the yeast strain used, while retaining the flavour.

No alcohol is used at all in this process. Various ingredients are combined to approximate the taste of real beer as closely as possible, often with an extensive list of ingredients.