Replacing malt with sugar for diet beer?

Well, this is more for my SWMBO than for me. I want to create a diet (low calorie) beer. I thought that I could use half the malt I usually use and use a sugar supplement to keep up the ABV.

What do you think?

P.S. I know that this will probably detract from the taste but it might be low calorie.

Alcohol itself has caloric value (90 cal/oz I think), you'd be better off brewing a low abv session beer. Replacing malt with sugar will only detract from the taste of the beer, it's not worth it, you may actually boost the caloric value while still making some nasty pseudo-hooch.

thebikingengineer said:

Alcohol itself has caloric value (90 cal/oz I think), you'd be better off brewing a low abv session beer. Replacing malt with sugar will only detract from the taste of the beer, it's not worth it, you may actually boost the caloric value while still making some nasty pseudo-hooch.

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That sounds like the ticket...low OG with high antennuation via beano or some such tomfoolery would take it even further.

Just brew an ordinary bitter or blonde at the low end of the OG range. If you want to get really crazy, brew a 4 gallon batch at 1.040, ferment it out to 1.008 and add back in a gallon of preboiled (sanitized) water prior to bottling/kegging.

Maybe lots of specialty malt. They don't covert, their effect on caloric intake should be minimal, but they'll add a ton of flavor.

Guinness advertises how lo-cal their beer is.

Bud Light has 110 calories per 12 ounces.
Guinness Draught has 126.

Is it worth the extra 16 calories? :cross:


I would think that a 4.5%ABV dunkelweizen would be a VERY heavy drink, with quite the minimal number of calories..

If one is really concerned about calories, I'd recommend water or vodka straight. I really wouldn't compromise the flavor of the beer.

Bobby_M said:

If one is really concerned about calories, I'd recommend water or vodka straight. I really wouldn't compromise the flavor of the beer.

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A 12er of Guinness has 36 more calories than a shot of vodka. Not bad...

But a single malt scotch also has only 104 calories per 1.5 oz serving. While I really enjoy my Guinness clones and all my other home brews, I love my Lagavulin/Laphraoig/Glen Morangie and McCallan.

Go Hashing. Burn as you earn.

7 calories per gram of alcohol
4 calories per gram of carbohydrate

you'd be better off with a low OG, a higher (unfermentable sugar) FG, so your alcohol doesn't kill the calorie count.

malkore said:

7 calories per gram of alcohol
4 calories per gram of carbohydrate

you'd be better off with a low OG, a higher (unfermentable sugar) FG, so your alcohol doesn't kill the calorie count.

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In other words, you're saying you'd be best off avoiding the production of alcohol? That may be good on a calorie-basis, but let's be realistic, it is contrary to the point of brewing beer. Sure, weaker beers have fewer calories, but that doesn't help anybody brew a good "light" beer... especially if the drinker is going to drink more of them as a result in order to catch a buzz.

I think the trick is to encourage more flavor, use lots of adjuncts, and keep the ABV respectable.... maybe just a little on the low side...

English Ordinary Bitter OG: 1.033-38 FG: 1.006-12 ABV: 3-3.7

Millions of Brits been drinking this stuff for decades...

Tastes Great! Less Filling!

brewt00l said:

That sounds like the ticket...low OG with high antennuation via beano or some such tomfoolery would take it even further.

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What's this beano reference? is there some way to boost atennuation with Beano that I should be trying?

Focus

Alright, I can't claim to understand all of that, aspecially because I'm more than a few homebrew's down. But the general idea is that less ABV = less calories. However, I don't really see the point of going below 3%, after all, then I could just buy her a bottle of vodka that she could mix in.

I flavour the beers that I give to my SWMBO, so the actual flavour the beer turns out to have is not too important. I've found that even my first (terrible) larger that I made was ok when I added some lime flavouring before giving it to SWMBO.

Anyway, thanks for your suggestions, I just wish there was a way...

This method sounds pretty interesting, in producing a lighter, milder tasting beer.