Anyone ever try to make a <1% alcohol beer?

I for one love beer but I don't particularly care for the effects of alcohol. anyone ever try to make a sub 1% session beer that still has flavor? and if i may ask how did you do it?

Well, there's always malta, a soft drink popular in Latin-American/Hispanic/Carribean communities, brewed with beer ingredients (caramel malt, tiny bits of hops, and water, but apparently without yeast, hence no alcohol or way under 1%) and some corn syrup.

I'm mad for the stuff myself, but I really love sweet stuff. If I could brew a malta with alcohol, I'd be thrilled. It looks, when poured, like a gorgeous stout, but it's sweet, not unlike a soda. The body and carbonation are closer to beer than soda--not overly carbonated or fizzy--and it smells beery enough. I've been known to pour one into my snifter and thistle glasses and just enjoy it. Great on ice, too. No kidding.

There's an all-grain recipe for it here, but the guy's not forthcoming with replies via email, sadly:
http://askthebeerguy.com/beer-recipes/malta-non-alcoholic-malt-beverage-caribbean-and-latin-america

You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta_(soft_drink)

I'd say to go for it, seriously. Many supermarkets carry it in the international aisle, and many corner stores/bodegas in cities stock it. Common brands are Malta Goya and Malta India, but there are a great many "brewed" worldwide. Bring some of that to your next party and watch people's reactions! It looks the business when in a glass; definitely pour it into a glass, 'cause it smells GREAT and looks like a lovely dark beer.

I hope you like it.

As for brewing a <1% beer, my guess is that it wouldn't/couldn't have enough malt (or hops) in it to really taste like much at such a low gravity, and the body'd be all water.

Malta may be your best bet if you enjoy things on the sweet side. Better yet, don't think of it as beery and just enjoy the stuff.

Well, you could get a regular beer recipe, reduce the base grain down to what'd give you 1% (keep the specialty grains the same) and then adjust with maltodextrin and malt extract when it's done to make it taste right.

Basically, during fermentation the yeast are turning the simple sugars (most of which come from the base malt) into alcohol and co2. The base grains also contribute complex sugars which give beer body and that "malt backbone" you hear about. Reducing the base malt reduces simple sugar, thus lowering alcohol, but you'll need to compensate for the reduced complex sugars and residual simple sugars by adding maltodextrin and malt extract after fermentation.

Pretty sure it was BierMuncher that had success a couple years back at making an n/a beer. Basically made himself a good session beer and boiled off the alcohol. Might go looking for that thread.

EDIT: Here.

You could always cold *ehem* distill it - but for the purposes of removing the alcohol. Basically - brew your favorite beer - ferment as normal, then freeze the heck out of it... remove the ice, leave the unfrozen liquid (*ehem*) - let the ice melt to liquid -- then carbonate... Note, you would need to either add yeast and sugar to carb into bottles or keg and force carb.

Oh and save the portion of liquid (*ehem*) that didn't freeze and send to me for proper disposal.

ericd said:

Well, you could get a regular beer recipe, reduce the base grain down to what'd give you 1% (keep the specialty grains the same) and then adjust with maltodextrin and malt extract when it's done to make it taste right.

Basically, during fermentation the yeast are turning the simple sugars (most of which come from the base malt) into alcohol and co2. The base grains also contribute complex sugars which give beer body and that "malt backbone" you hear about. Reducing the base malt reduces simple sugar, thus lowering alcohol, but you'll need to compensate for the reduced complex sugars and residual simple sugars by adding maltodextrin and malt extract after fermentation.

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so basically provide less fermentable sugar and more fermentable sugar?

nigel31 said:

Well, there's always malta, a soft drink popular in Latin-American/Hispanic/Carribean communities, brewed with beer ingredients (caramel malt, tiny bits of hops, and water, but apparently without yeast, hence no alcohol or way under 1%) and some corn syrup.

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I tried Malta India when I was Puerto Rico this past summer. Interesting taste, somewhat beer-like with a peanut/nutty aftertaste.

My non drinking buddy thought it was the worst tasting beverage he'd ever had.

mash at 165

remilard said:

mash at 165

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+1 that! As I was reading the thread I was thinking that exact same thing. And there it was in the last post!

I think you have few options to brew a low alcohol beer
1) start with a low OG and some good amount of unfermentable sugars, so the yeast doesn't have much to convert to alcohol. You will get a thin and watery beer.
2) start with higher OG and with a huge amount of unfermentable sugars. That will end with a very sweet beer.
3) start with normal OG, let it ferment at low temp for a while to get the alcohol you want, then pasteurize the beer.

I tried process #2 for a malzbier and it worked fine.

The thing with mashing so high or using tons of unfermentable sugars is you are going to end up with insanely sweet beer...like the malta.

Your best bet is to boil off the alcohol, but in the process of recarbing, there will be trace amounts of alcohol produced from the yeasts creating the c02.

The reason I mention that is if you ever give it to a recovering alcoholic thinking it is completely free of alcohol, that could put you in a tough situation

the_bird said:

Pretty sure it was BierMuncher that had success a couple years back at making an n/a beer. Basically made himself a good session beer and boiled off the alcohol. Might go looking for that thread.

EDIT: Here.

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I've done this as well. Admittedly I never tried it since it was a xmas present for my friend's dad, but he dug it. Unfortunately I was still kitchen brewing at the time and my kitchen stuuuuuuuunk. I didn't realize how bad until I went outside for a minute and returned, almost hurled.

I'd think that if you don't ferment or you drive off the alcohol then you are going to need to pasteurize the product somehow.

Hermit said:

I'd think that if you don't ferment or you drive off the alcohol then you are going to need to pasteurize the product somehow.

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If you boil off the alcohol, there shouldn't be any issues. The readily fermentable sugars would have already been fermented, there would still be some dextrins that Brett could ferment but no more than with any other beer.

It's not the alcohol that keeps the beer from getting infected, it's good sanitation practices. If you're going to get a Brett infection, it's as likely to happen in a 6%-ABV "regular" beer as it is in a 1% beer that's been neutered.

The other "beers" that are basically non-fermented; I'd think you'd just have to be especially careful about sanitation, as you'd have a lot of simple sugars kicking around for any wild yeast.

nilo said:

I think you have few options to brew a low alcohol beer
1) start with a low OG and some good amount of unfermentable sugars, so the yeast doesn't have much to convert to alcohol. You will get a thin and watery beer.
2) start with higher OG and with a huge amount of unfermentable sugars. That will end with a very sweet beer.
3) start with normal OG, let it ferment at low temp for a while to get the alcohol you want, then pasteurize the beer.

I tried process #2 for a malzbier and it worked fine.

Click to expand...

Mashing high doesn't make beer sweet. Dextrins are not sweet.

if O' Douls can do it, you should be able to as well, so look for an O'Douls clone. lol. anything below 0.5% is considered by the federal government as non alcoholic.

the_bird said:

If you boil off the alcohol, there shouldn't be any issues. The readily fermentable sugars would have already been fermented, there would still be some dextrins that Brett could ferment but no more than with any other beer.

It's not the alcohol that keeps the beer from getting infected, it's good sanitation practices. If you're going to get a Brett infection, it's as likely to happen in a 6%-ABV "regular" beer as it is in a 1% beer that's been neutered.

The other "beers" that are basically non-fermented; I'd think you'd just have to be especially careful about sanitation, as you'd have a lot of simple sugars kicking around for any wild yeast.

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Doesn't fermentation also lower the PH making it harder for bacteria to live? I think packaging had better be thoroughly thought out on this one.

I did it once... made a 6 pack for a buddy from my oatmeal stout... boiled ( actually simmered at about 200 degrees for almost an hour)the finished beer, cooled and pitched a small amount of yeast and priming sugar....he loved it... I won't do it again....if I ever get a head injury and decide to try it again, I will do an entire batch.. seems as if it would be much easier.

so you boil it and the alcohol separates from the beer and you have to drain it off somehow?

What about long rolling boil after fermentation and adding tabs for carb, perhaps a dry hop as well? Pretty sure AB boiled of the alc.

sportscrazed2 said:

so you boil it and the alcohol separates from the beer and you have to drain it off somehow?

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No need to drain it off. Alcohol has a much lower boiling point than water. If you get your beer up near boiling temperatures the alcohol will become a gas and simply escape into the air.

Keep in mind all, that if you're evaporating the alcohol post-fermentation that you're going to have to pitch fresh yeast along with the sugar if you're bottling. If you're kegging and force-carbing, then obviously no worries.

nigel31 said:

There's an all-grain recipe for it here, but the guy's not forthcoming with replies via email, sadly:
http://askthebeerguy.com/beer-recipes/malta-non-alcoholic-malt-beverage-caribbean-and-latin-america

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I am curious as to why you say that? I have nothing to hide, but maybe your email was missed?

Please let me know what your question was.

Hi ATBG,

You'd actually eventually replied to my post about it as an all-grain venture (as I'm now into all-graining), but initially, I'd asked about it as an extract, and didn't ever receive a response. No big deal, and thanks again for the eventual reply. I'd need to keg it, and I haven't that gear yet, so no malta making for me at this stage. I'll have to keep my corner shop in business for a while longer, then.

You could technically do it as an extract, but again, you need to have CO2 since priming sugar would be happy to make it an alcoholic beverage

my book of commercial brew clones has a recipe for a 1.3%abv beer, here's the recipe:

Carib Shandy Lager Flavored with Ginger

Crush and steep in 1/2 gallon 150*F water for 20 minutes:

- 1oz 20*L crystal malt

Strain water into brew pot. Sparge with 1/2gallon water at 150*. Add water to the brew pot for 1.5g total volume. Bring to a boil, remove from stove and add:

-1lb corn sugar
-1/2lb M&F extra-light DME
-8oz lactose

Add water until total volume in brew pot is 2.5g. Boil 45min then add:

-2oz peeled, chopped fresh ginger
-1tsp Irish moss

Boil 15 minutes, remove from stove, cool 15 minutes. Strain cooled wort to primaryy and top up to 5 gallons. Pitch yeast below 80*:

Wyeast 2007 Pilsen lager yeast, or Wyeast 2035 American lager yeast.

Ferment 5-7 days then transfer to secondary and add 3oz natural ginger flavoring.

Prime with 1cup corn sugar.


there's also instructions for a mini-mash and all-grain, let me know if you want either of those

I'm just curious what it would taste like after you boil off the alcohol? Would it taste much like the original beer or would most of the flavour disappear with the alcohol? Whenever I've drank those commercial non-alcohol beers they've not tasted much like beer to me, more like water with a little dash of beer plus a touch of skunkiness.