Non/Low Alcohol Beer

Hi All,

I had an idea, perhaps a bad idea, on a way to remove the alcohol from beer without heating it. The reason I'm trying to do this is because I have a friend who really enjoys my home brews, but is in AA. He'll take a sip to test the flavor, but that's it. After that he drinks a Kaliber, or a Becks N/A. I'd really like to be able to remove the alcohol from one of my IPA's or Porters so he can enjoy one or two with me.

At any rate would freezing the beer after fermentation work? I would think the alcohol will not freeze and can be drained off. Then I could thaw it, add the priming sugar, and bottle it. I wanted to see if anyone else has tried this with any success, or has a reason why it won't work.

Thanks in advance.

There may be a way to accomplish that, but there's actually a technique called freeze distilling that is used to actually increase the alcohol concentration that works the same way.

I think the trouble you'd end up having is that some or all of the non-water components would go with the alcohol, and you'd end up with really weak tasting non-alcoholic beer.

Edit: Apparently, the way it's done commercially is to expose it to a vacuum, which causes just the alcohol to boil off, or to use reverse osmosis filters.

Thanks for the quick reply. It sounds like a lot of work to get the alcohol out of the beer. I think my friend will have to just take a sip every now and then, and continue drinking the commercial N/A beer.

I just read an article that said just reheat the fermented beer at 180 for 30 minutes. Then cool add some yeast and sugar for carbonating and you are good to go. Shouldn't be too much more effort. I need to figure out how much yeast, but it said it would come out with about .5% alcohol. You could even split the batch so you carbonate half normally and do the other NA. You can both enjoy the same beer together.

jonlcrow said:

I just read an article that said just reheat the fermented beer at 180 for 30 minutes. Then cool add some yeast and sugar for carbonating and you are good to go. Shouldn't be too much more effort. I need to figure out how much yeast, but it said it would come out with about .5% alcohol. You could even split the batch so you carbonate half normally and do the other NA. You can both enjoy the same beer together.

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This doesn't work as well as it claims. Tried it twice and it comes with a re-cooked flavor. Also loses most traces of hop (bitter, flavor, or aroma). Biggest reason I assume you don't see N/A IPA on the market.

Does it come out better than the NA's on the market? Or just a complete waste of time?

If it is better than the NA beers out there, how much yeast and sugar did you add, or did you use CO2?

Did you try dry hopping after t=you cooked off the alcohol?

Thanks for the update.

jonlcrow said:

Does it come out better than the NA's on the market? Or just a complete waste of time?

If it is better than the NA beers out there, how much yeast and sugar did you add, or did you use CO2?

Did you try dry hopping after t=you cooked off the alcohol?

Thanks for the update.

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No, the NA beers are far better than the homebrew lower alcohol versions.

By far the commercial stuff has it down. Tried re-hopping/dry hop but it's a waste of time. Some seriously needs to make a NA IPA soon just because they'd own the market. Some days call for a beer... but a beer with no buzz attached. I'd love to have a good IPA on those few days a year.