Hoegaarden 0.0 alcohol free beer?

Let me say that I don't have a problem NA's. I do have a porblem with: A. naming one Hoegaarden and B. making it even after your own employees hate it.

http://blogs.wsj.com/brussels/2011/04/26/anheusers-new-0-alcohol-beer/

 

I get an ad for the Wall Street Journal. No article...

 

You need to copy and paste it, doesn't allow you to click through.

 

It works if you copy and paste the address for the link instead of clicking on it.

 

Its all owned by InBev, I dont see the problem.

 

“Some beverages, like water, and soft drinks,” are doing better than beer, Mr. Brito said.

In other news, water is wet and the sky is blue. Water? Seriously?

 

I don't see why they would try to make a non-alcoholic line of their good beers, in an attempt to hedge European market loss. I would think they would try something useful...like...making a new beer that Europeans would want to drink?

 

Yeah I know you wanna just have another excuse to show your beersnob superiority by bashing inbev, but as someone who hasn't been able to drink for the last 10 weeks, except for a handful of pretty insipid N/A beers, if it tastes even remotely like it's alcoholic counterpart I think it's a great idea. And would kill for one right now (you might too if you were in my shoes....)

And just maybe it will open the doors to other breweries, both big and small to start making some different STYLES of n/a beers outside of the typical light lager and indeterminant "dark" or "amber" non alcoholic beer. It would be great to see a n/a stout, porter, cream ale, IPA, barleywine or even a witbier that someone who can't drink alcohol would be able to enjoy. And if it were an homage to the late Pierre Celi's wonderful beer, all the better. If it opens the door, I'm all for it.

It's too easy just to look at this as something to bash the "evil empire" and not something there might me big news for folks like me (and maybe you some day, if you ever have to face a serious illness, that curtails something you are passionate about, like beer.) Why don't you try going 12 weeks without any beer, and tell me just what a lousy idea it is?

*shrug*

 

I remember seeing this stuff in the Netherlands when I was going to pick something up for my then-pregnant wife, but never tried it. The best we found was actually Bavaria 0.0% - "best" being relative, meaning it sort of tasted more like beer than anything else. I haven't seen it in the US, though.

 

if water sales are pitching over your beers sales its a sign that your beer is crap.

I can see the logic for making a better N/A beer line I have a friend who loves good beer but has a bad liver (genetic) so can only consume about a tablespoon full of regular beer without overloading her system. A decent line of N/A beers would be great for her. Unfortunatly IMO InBev is probably not the company to do it since 99% of their beer is crap anyhow. but they may provoke some one that knows good beer to do it.

to quote her "If my lifes on the line there is no way on gods green earth I'm drinking a F***ing budweiser" that was her reply when some one offered her a bud at a get together. it was pretty funny because the person offering her the beer was unaware of her liver condition. we did explain it to him after the fact (and after we all got a few chuckles)

 

Yeah, I've posted about a few that I tried here. So far in the States I've enjoyed Clausthauler Amber which tastes like some of my favorite Vienna Lagers, and iirc Labatt's Nordic (I think it was called) which I found in a bar but is different from the Labatt's N/A I've seen in the stores.

(Oh yeah, I see there's another demographic that would probably love this. You don't know how many beer geekettes I know, many who are brewers or are spouses of brewers, that hate having to give up beer during pregnancy.)

 

I understand your situation Revvy, and it sucks. But do you really think there's a huge market for non-alcoholic beers? I work with plenty of people who drink nothing but BMC who use non-alcoholic beers as the punchline for jokes. I really don't see the sense in this. Also, I know you would love to enjoy some of your favorite beers, but if you read the reviews in the article it doesn't sound appetizing at all. Beersnob seems to be a catchphrase people use when they disagree with an opinion. It really has nothing to do with AB/inBev...it's taking a good beer like Hoegaarden and giving it an evil twin. The same as when they came out with Bud Light lime...I will drink a Bud Light...but lime? No.

 

Well it's funny none of the craft breweries can be bothered to do it, yet companies who have multi-billions at stake seem to believe theirs enough of a market for N/a alcoholic beers. They'll drop unproductive lines at the drop of a hat, yet they all maintain at least 1 n/a beer. Corporations don't do **** out of the goodness of their heart, do they? Pepsi Clear's not around is it? SO obviously there must be a market for N/a beers if they're spending capital to make it.

You'll find there's a lot of folks who love beer, who for whatever reason, usually illness, can't drink. There's at least one brewer on here every couple of weeks who has to stop for some health reason. I've met a ton of them since I've started this heart journey, whether it's short term or not most of the folks in cardiac rehab can't drink right now. There's a bigger market than you think. Especially amongst beer geeks....those are the ones that suffer the most.

Again, I dare you to go 12 weeks without alcoholic beer, and see if what you might end up thinking about this topic.

 

Yeah, that is true. I understand there is a group of individuals who are either pregnant or medically unable to drink beer. It must be a much larger category than I expect. I can't say that I've had many non-alcoholic beers (only o'doul's while deployed) so it's not anything I've endeavored to enjoy. Most people I know that can't drink because of medical reasons just continue drinking anyway and most women that I know that become pregnant would prefer a virgin daiquiri. If they ever release this drink, I hope for the sake of those who drink it, that it does not taste as aforementioned. Meanwhile, this has put me in the mood for a wit!

 

actually, I've been looking into the process, I absolutely love the taste of a good stout, heff or what have you. If I could take the alcohol out of it and make it some what taste the same, i'd stick with it! From what I've been reading, you have to heat up your brew to 180F, stir and keep it there for 30 minutes and most of the alcohol should be burnt out. Add yeast and priming sugar and carb like natural. Thats just me though, I don't really care for alcohol, but man do I love a good brew. Im a big fan of odouls amber when im in the mood for a N/A beer.

 

Yeah, actually I've posted some links on it. This is like the bible of articles on it, and there's a few threads here on it. http://www.byo.com/stories/article/...l-brewing/265-brew-a-great-non-alcoholic-beer

http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=75174

http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=70811&p=655313&hilit=non+alcoholic#p655313

Heck I was just talking to one of the owners of one of the LHBS I frequent and he say's he gets at least one person a week or so asking how to make good tasting N/a beer. He really didn't know about the BYO article, or how to go about doing it.

But at least there's 52 homebrewers in one shop in metro Detroit who might be a possible market for good tasting n/a beer.

Even after going back in the next week or so, I'm still going to drink it on occassion, I'm not after a buzz as much as a good taste.

 

Right on! thanks Rev!

 

I'd LOVE to start a team to brew up a decent tasting NA stout! I figure brewing a stout does half the work for you, since your bound to have flavor that would normally be lost on a lighter beer. I'll check out those links and see what they say.

In fact, I have a batch of stout to brew for a guy at work, so it might be a good chance to try the same recipe side-by-side and see what happens. It might not be the best stout ever, but no doubt it should turn out better than most all of the light NA beer out there.

 

Even though I couldn't really brew during this time off (I planned to do some N/a beer experiments myself, but honestly even trying to lift over 1 gallon messed with my ribs), and I'll be drinking soon, I really think having good n/a beers is important now.

It's simple logic to me why this is important....If the craft/micro brew market is increasing every year, and every year people get sick or pregnant and have to stop drinking for awhile, it's not too far fetched to think that a few of those folks who can't drink are gonna be beer geeks like us, and even may be homebrewers....I think this is more important, and even of a market than some folks want to think. Heck Besides me right now I know for sure of 2 other members of this forum, who are not drinking right now. And one other who wasn't for part of my recovery time. Those are just the one's I know of right this moment.

I joked about this in one of the threads, but some folks thought it was a great idea, I think maybe I should host an HBT n/a beer contest. Maybe it will get folks interested in trying some experiments and seeing if we can come up with some good techniques. I know some guy on here last weeks was going to start playing with vacuum pumps, since he has access to them, and that's the other way besides boiling to supposedly get rid of alcohol.

Keggers can make n/a beer easy, once you get rid of the alcohol you can already force carb and even dry hop the beers in cornies, even pushing through a randall type thing.

Bottling is a little more difficult but I still think it's doable, you'd just need to add fresh yeast as well as sugar to prime. You could still rack the beer to a bright tank after you get rid of the alcohol and dry hop it for awhile before that.

So should we do a contest or some form of a challenge?

 

Hell yes!

The vacuum would lower the temperature that the alcohol would boil at, so you would get less affect (from temperature) on the beer.

I think for starters I'd try brewing a standard beer, then heat it up as per the article, and then while it's still hot, add more flameout hops (according to style) and filter and then carb.

The problem with most NA beers is that they try to emulate a lighter beer style and it's so easy to mess up the flavor balance in those. A stronger-tasting beer coudl probably hold up better. I mean, you'd miss the alcohol in a very strong beer like a RIS, yeah. But I think you'd have an easier time getting close to the flavor of a Guinness, since the alcohol flavor is already pretty low.

We should start a tech thread and have a competition. I like the alcohol just fine, but there have been plenty of days where I just wanted something to drink and not have the buzz afterward.

 

I think it would be great to have a NA beer line as long as it tasted decent. The people that make fun of NA beers are the ones that only drink to get drunk. I don't drink beer because it's alcohol. I drink it because I enjoy the taste. Hell, on an evening that I get a few new beers to try I dread the point where I must stop drinking just because i am going to get too drunk. OR, when I am the DD, I'd love to have a few NA beers for that occasion. I'd prefer NA as long as it tasted good.

Edit: Did a search...Here are instructions for turning your Homebrew into NA beer. It's as simple as stated before, heat it to 180 degrees for 30 mins. Then keg or bottle.

http://www.byo.com/stories/article/...l-brewing/265-brew-a-great-non-alcoholic-beer

 

I started reading this thread thinking "ew, NA beer is narsty" (based on experience with a few) but then I was thinking of how bloody often I DD because we have one car and wifey can't drive stick. I'd love to spend those nights sipping a Guinnless* or Noegaarden* instead of coke or water.

*Any competition winners or professional brewers using these names will hereby accept to payment of 5% royalty to me

 

how about "can i get a witless"

i'd be really interested in how to emulate the alcohol taste/bite with different spices. for example, V8 spicy always reminded me of a bloody mary (v8 and vodka, not bar mix).

It would be pretty cool if you could find a way to carry that over into N/A beer.

 

Why can't your wife drive a stick? Did she lose an arm or a leg in a freak accident?? Hell, even my wife knows how to drive a stick (although you may not want to be IN the car while she gets the feel again...)

 

Chiming in a little late here, but just wanted to make another related point on the subject.
#1. Craft beer is on the rise and more and more people are getting into it.
#2. As the younger population ages, there will be more and more craft beer drinkers who are no longer able to drink alcohol due to health problems and medications as many obesity related illnesses (and others) are also on the rise.
I think this definitely makes a market for that type of product. Especially over the next several years. Not to say that N/A Hoegaarden will sell as well as the real thing, but I think it's certainly plausible.

 

This is all very intreging for me. I like the flavor, but am not a fan of the Alcohol specifically.... If I could buy a good Hefe like texture and flavor soft drink, I would do so. I'm not really interested in alcohol as such.. it just seems the most direct way to get the flavors I like.

To FromZwelle comment of the flavor of the V8 spicy and could a similar be done with a NA beer - I think that is entirely possible. The question being what flavor is alcohol? On a base level, sour, bitter, tart, salt? certianly not 'sweet' while fermented beverages can taste sweet, that is sugar, not alcohol... I bet a little sour and bitter would be something to put in to a NA beer (on a bottle by bottle or glass by glass experiment).

 

I'd say alcohol is astringent... but that might not necessarily be the most accurate way to describe the alcoholic warming flavor you get from, say, a barleywine or big hefty RIS.

How does dry-hopping after alcohol removal work? I thought the alcohol in the beer was what brought the hop oils into solution in the first place...

Man, I'm 27 and can drink alcohol without problems, but I must say I'm really excited about the potential for this... my dad has nearly stopped drinking beer because of the alcohol, and he was a long-time homebrewer and turned me on to craft beer, and I know that he would absolutely die for an N/A Dale's Pale Ale or something like that...

 

That's the point, we're not really sure, but since dh is for aroma, and the hops are floral, you must get some transfer of aroma.

 

This is the part that seems the most problematic to me. It's not just that you'll miss the warming effect of alcohol in a n/a version of a big beer. There's more to it, and you'll miss it even in a small beer. But it's hard to describe alcohol's impact on flavor, maybe because it's always there. If removing the alcohol can be done without otherwise impacting flavor, it would be interesting to do some side-by-side comparisons.

Anyone have a better handle on how alcohol interacts with the other flavors in beer? Does it accentuate particular flavors, or aromas even? Isn't the flavor of the alcohol itself a little bit sweet?

 

Huh... yeah, I'm sure that just soaking them would impart at least a small amount of oil and thus aroma. Definitely worth investigating...

 

Read the article. InBev's employees don't hate it. The author of the article ("Your corespondent") and one of his "male colleagues" hate it.

 

Honestly having drunk Na beers for the last 10 weeks or so, if your N/a beer tastes great then you don't notice whether or not it has an alcohol burn. Clausthauler dark is a good example, it tastes a lot like a couple of my favorite vienna lagers, like Schell Firebrick.

If we make something flavor full, with decent body, and in those styles that need it, good hop or spice aroma. I tiny tongue bite isn't going to be missed.

 

In France some years ago I found a dark n/a beer called "Tortel Brune". It was amazingly much better than any n/a beer I've ever had in the US. Basically the n/a beers in the us are made from brews that didn't have anything going for them to begin with other than alcohol, so without the alcohol there's not any point, but if you take something that starts with a decent flavor, you don't lose nearly as much when you remove the alcohol. I found it delightful to be able to enjoy something like a decent (if not great) dark beer at times when I wanted to stay clear-headed.

My attempt to approximate it at home has been simply to mix some dark LME into seltzer water. The result actually tastes pretty good, in that it captures some of what is good about dark beer, even though nobody would mistake it for beer. But if a good n/a porter, stout, dunkel or schwarzbier were available I'd buy a case in a heartbeat.

 

I love beer, but I don't like the affects of alcohol. My first two brews were selected partly for the low gravity. If I could brew n/a beer that tasted good I would do it. After I get more experience I might try it. I would buy good tasting n/a beer, but all the ones I have tried don't taste very good.