A Beer without Fermentation??

[ListerH]

OK... hear me out here! Lying awake thinking about making beer... as we all do! And the following crossed my mind.
What kind of result would/could you get with the following... to make a beer style where you require low/no esters from the yeast fermentation (ie very little flavor contribution form the yeast)

Brew as normal, but only add say 20% of the malt (basically enough to hit what your target beer FG would be), hop as normal
Go through the normal process but then instead of pitching yeast, simply add food grade ethanol.
Throw it in a keg and carbonate.

I am not going to try this... and everything in my head tells me this would be a horrendous drink with no flavor / body... but I just wonder scientifically why that would be and I am sure there is someone out there that could answer that question in 2 minutes!

 

[Vale71]

You mean a Malztrunk with alcohol?
Malztrunk IMHO tastes horrible, I imagine with alcohol it would just cost more (taxes) and give you a buzz but as far as taste goes I'd expect no real improvement.

As for the scientific reason, there's like a thousand different flavor compounds released (or just further processed) during fermentation. Without them it just doesn't taste like beer at all.

 

[Lefou]

I'd expect something such as this to taste like a severely perverted energy drink.
Count me out.