Non-alcholic beer has become a huge market in the last few years. We’re seeing more and more brands launching their own variations, moving away from the one bottle available in a pub of yesteryear.

It’s a thriving market that’s worth over $30billion worldwide, and more people are turning to it as a result of giving up alcohol or finding a healthier alternative. The rise of craft alcohol-free beer has been a complete gamechanger, helping people who are in addiction recovery or looking to go through an alcohol detox, as well as providing people with more options when they don’t fancy a night drinking the hard stuff.

One of the big questions many are asking is how is non-alcholic beer made? So, to answer that, we’ve decided to run you through the brewing process, from ingredients to shelves…

1. Selection of Ingredients

Just like any brewin of beer, it all begins with selecting the ingredients. Non-alcoholic beer isn’t a cheap afterthought, like any beer it requires care and attention to the ingredients. These include malted barley, hops, water and yeast.

2. Mashing

The brewing process begins in the mash tun where the barley is mixed with hot water. Here, enzymes break down the starches into fermentable sugars. This becomes a sweet liquid which is known as wort.

3. Boiling and Hopping

So far, nothing is different from alcoholic beer, and that continues with the boiling and hopping. Once the sugars are extracted, the wort is moved into a kettle and boiled. Hops are then added to provide the real flavour and aroma of the beer.

4. Filtration

Filtration ensures that the hopped wort removes any solids or unwanted particles, giving us a smooth and consistent texture in the liquid.

5. Fermentation

This is where it starts to differ slightly. You may be aware of the fermentation process in traditional beer making, which is where the liquid becomes alcoholic. That’s because of the yeast in the fermentation process. In non-alcholic beer making, special strains of yeast are used to minimilise the alcohol content, ensuring the sugar either doesn’t develop into alcohol

or smaller amounts do.

6. De-alcoholisation

The de-alcoholisation process then takes place. There are several methods that deliver this. Among them include vacuum distillation, reverse osmosis and evaporation. This ensures that alcohol is removed from the liquid but the great flavour remains.

7. Carbonation

Finally, carbonation adds the fizz and liveliness to a beer. This occurs after the alcohol is removed, with carbon dioxide introduced and providing us with a finished product ready for packaging,

8. Packaging

The beer is then either bottled, canned or in some cases kegged ready for drinking. Packaging allows the beer to remain fresh for that special moment when it hits our lips.

9. Quality Control

Prior to heading out into the world, like with any product there’s a stringent quality control system that ensures that the beer is flavoursome and, importantly, there is no alcohol content!

10. Distribution

Finally, it’s then onto distrubition, heading to the many shops, pubs and other outlets where more people than ever before are enjoying non-alcoholic beer. Cheers!