To meet growing demand, brewers are putting their expertise to work in the service of a new generation of beers. But how do they go about it?
Non-alcoholic beer is a bit like wine: either you limit alcohol production from the fermentation stage, or you remove the alcohol after a standard brewing process.
Fermentation at a low temperature helps limit the extraction of sugar from the malts and therefore, by definition, the production of alcohol. Choosing low-fermentable malts makes the process even more effective. The same applies to special yeasts that handle maltose and glucose less efficiently, thereby allowing a lower alcohol content. Hops then play a decisive role in building the aromas and will promote the natural preservation of your non-alcoholic beer.
In other cases, it is possible to produce a non-alcoholic beer from a standard beer through osmosis processes (alcohol filtration) or evaporation at a temperature of 80° to allow the ethanol molecules to escape. The challenge is to preserve the aromas while reducing the alcohol content to below 1.2% ABV.
The most dynamic beverage market segment
Non-alcoholic beers, even though they represent barely 3% of the total beer market in France compared to 10% in Germany or Spain, experienced spectacular growth of more than 30% in 2018, with over 1/4 of French people having purchased a non-alcoholic beer in 2018.
The major brewing groups even estimate that 20% of their beer production will be non-alcoholic by 2025.
€111.3M in revenue for non-alcoholic beers, up +31.8%, [in a total beer market worth €3.8bn, up +10.3%], of which:
- €43.1M for alcohol-free lagers, up +23.8%
- €68.2M for flavoured alcohol-free drinks, up +37.3%
Source: IRI, MAT as at 14 April 2019, all mass-market retail channels
