Non-Alcoholic Beer

Beer Connoisseurs

PBS has a small video series called the Origin of Everything, that does in depth explanations of interesting topics. I ran across this series by accident last week, and they had one on Beer. So from this, I learned that the earliest example we have of beer was found in 1992, where researchers found residue in a pottery vessel dated to 3000 BCE. The word “beer” is first found in the Epic of Gilgamesh (dated to 1700 BCE). There was a Goddess of Beer in ancient Samaria, and Egyptians used it as a form of payment. Meanwhile, in China a brewed rice beer-wine hybrid was found in a village occupied nearly 9000 years ago. In Israel, they found archeological evidence of beer making nearly 13000 years ago. PBS reports on all these facts, so to say beer has been with us a long time is an understatement.

Today, there are lots of beer people out in the internet wilds. There are also lots of books, magazines, recipies, and craft breweries. According to the Brewers Association, the number of US craft breweries exploded from 1,511 in 2007, to 6,372 in 2017. Wow.

But I do not want to get into all aspects of beer, or non-alcoholic beer (often abbreviated as NA Beer). There are many sites created by people who are beer connoisseurs, which I am not. Yes, I am German and have had beer as part of my life for a long time, but I am just interested in which non-alcoholic ones I would recommend, since there are so many to choose from these days. (Keep in mind I have not bought and tasted them all!)

Views on Non-Alcoholic Beer

Before I address beer, alcoholic or not, let me give an overview on some of the laws and legal facts regarding non-alcoholic drinks.

• Each country has labeling laws regarding the amount of alcohol by volume (ABV) that can be in a non-alcoholic drink.
• Most countries require .5% ABV or lower for the label “non alcoholic.”
• Some countries, like Germany, also have versions of the German 1516 purity order or law (Reinheitsgebot), which dictate what ingredients MUST be in a drink for it to be called beer.

In terms of being allowed to drink the non-alcoholic beers:

• Wikiepedia: In the US, because of its very low alcohol content, non-alcoholic beer may be legally sold to people under age 21 in many American states.
• LawStackExchange: According to German law (Jugendschutzgesetz), §9: Minors 14 years of age and older may drink undistilled alcoholic beverages, such as wine and beer, when accompanied by a Custodial Person, Minors 16 years of age and older may drink undistilled alcoholic beverages, such as wine and beer, without accompaniment.
• Wikiepedia: The Middle East accounts for almost a third of worldwide sales of non-alcoholic and alcohol-free beer. Notable Islamic clerics in Saudi Arabia and Egypt have issued fatawa  permitting the consumption of “alcohol-free” beers that can be proven to contain zero traces of alcohol.

Medical Advice on Drinking NA Beer

Consistently, medical advice seems to be that pregnant women, people with alcohol-related liver damage, and alcoholics should avoid non-alcoholic beer. The reason is that mainly, those beers with <.5% ABV are not zero alcohol.

My History of Non-Alcohol Beer

I remember, in my early adult days, that non-alcoholic beer was made, and we treated it as, a novelty. Clausthaler is one of the first brews I remember seeing in the 1970s. It is an awarded beer company, and I remember my first taste was that it clearly was a German-style beer, but quickly realized the lack of the alcohol seemed to change the taste and mouthfeel of the drink. But, I liked the drink enough to occasionally pick up a 6-pack.

At this time I remember Miller’s (now MillerCoors) Sharp non-alcoholic beer, and then later came O’Douls (Anheuser-Busch Co.). I remember finding both a mild American beer, but nothing much to talk about. There was a saying in Bavaria that, American beer taste like piss water. So when Miller and others joined in on making non-alcohol beer, I felt the saying had some merit.

Recommended Current Options

Things have changed. The US market for non-alcoholic beer is around 1% of the beer market, or about 5M cases annually. These days this is a small market, but clearly the non-alcoholic beer business is growing, and many brands on the market offer different flavors and styles of beer, such as: pilsners, saisons (highly carbonated pale ale), lagers, sour beer, and so on. All these brewers and companies are aiming for today’s market by adding a mouthful of flavor to the historical bland non-alcoholic drinks. Put another way, the craft of beer making has changed the quality of the NA beers.

So I went to my local BevMo and a few other stores to see what non-alcoholic beers I could buy for a week’s long taste test. I skipped my tea drinking, and drank these non-alcoholic beers as a taste test chore done just for you!

Heineken 0,0: A well known beer company, has with a new and cute ad campaign for this new beer specifically. Great straw look, smells like beer, and has a fruity, fuller taste than some other non-alcoholic beers. My spouse gave it a swig and said “great taste,” from one who also likes Corona Light. Nutrition: 69c, 16k, 0 sugar, vegan, non-GMO.

WellBeing Brewing Co., offers a Dark Amber, Golden Wheat, Victory Wheat, and an IPA in wonderfully colorful cans. By far, they have the most interesting designs and logos. I like Hellraiser Dark Amber because it smells great and hoppy, has a fruity taste, and has that American beer, limited aftertaste. I would call it refreshing. According to the label, this is a brew made regularly, but then was “gently” de-alcoholized. Nutrition (12 fluid oz): 80c, 15k, 0 sugar, vegan, non-GMO.

Erdinger is a German beer that calls itself a malt beverage. It smells malty, but not skunky. This drink seems to me highly carbonated, and instantly, after my first swig of the bottle I had to burp. Surprised the dogs, and me, with that! Just look at the header on my pour above, and the bottle contents, and it shows how carbonated it is. That said, it was tasty. Nutrition: 82c, 17.5k, 1.3p

Clausthaler is an award winning German beer featuring two brews. The original (left above) is a regular NA beer, lightly carbonated, a very light straw color, and an easy beer to drink (96c, 19.9k, 1.1p). The dry hopped beer (above right) is very hoppy, unfiltered, amber colored, and a fuller drink (89c, 20k, 1-1p). I really do prefer the dry hopped beer and found myself drinking it after work.

Kinderbier

I was watching England’s Time Team, and the episode was talking about the 13th-14th century Templars. Specifically, they were reviewing the common beer making techniques of their monasteries. Turns out, the water was so polluted that no one drank it, they all drank beer but there were differing strengths. Essentially, by reusing the mash three times, they were able to produce 3 versions of beer, and all with different ABV.

The first Monastery pour was the “strong brew,” that was most likely in the upper teens ABV; The second pour was their “table beer,” and is limited to ~2.75 to 4% ABV or similar to our regular beer; and the third use of the mash was the “small beer,” or children’s < .5% ABV beer (or lower).

• In those olden days in England, history indicates that beer then served three purposes, 1) safe hydration, 2) alcohol for the adults, and 3) a source of energy, aka carbs.

In Germany there was a brew we called Kinderbier (Children’s Beer) or Malzbier (malt beer) that takes the barley, hops, water of beer, and add carbon dioxide, and in some cases glucose or fructose syrup, to make a kid’s version of NA beer. In fact, according to my mom, my first real sentence was “Oma, noch Bier bitte?” referencing Kinderbier. Now, these children’s non-alcoholic drinks are called malt drinks in advertisements and marketing. But of course, kinderbier remains in the day-to-day language.  

Vitamalz

Vitamalz, a type of “beer” only in the sense of it being a dark, malty, carbonated drink; it was created in the 1920’s at Weihenstephan in Upper Bavaria and attributed to Ferdinand Glaab. He seemed to have come up with the idea of taking a malt-type beer and fortifying it so it was healthy.

Vitamalz is one well known malt drink brand that I have seen and tasted. It is marketed as a soda in Germany, and is advertised as both a vegan drink and nutrient rich; but not gluten free obviously. However, if you decide to drink this I should warn you it is NOT beer tasting, but an ”acquired taste.” Very few Americans who have tasted this drink, expressed any interest in having more than one sip!

Cheers!, Tschüs!, Prost!, Servus!, Tschau!, Zum Wohl!

So what have I learned from this exploration? People have definite opinions about beer, some are clear specialists and are highly specific when recommending what to drink. They use terms similar to wine, to describe their favorite drinks.

• My mother hated beer, preferring wine. So not everyone, or every German, loves the bitter, malty taste of carbonated water (90% of beer is water).

I also learned that beer has a legitimate place in food history, has been part of human culture for a very long time, and has its own regional variations and preferences.

Its a Woman’s Drink

It seems that although, in the West, beer is often seen as a “man thing,” for most of the world’s history it started out really as a “woman’s thing.”

• Ambar: A little more than 7,000 years ago, beer brewing began its development in Mesopotamia; it was women who mixed the grains of cereal with water and herbs. They cooked them… and from that intuitive mixture driven by the need for nutrition came a brew that fermented in a spontaneous manner.
• Wikipedia: Women have been active in brewing since ancient times. Though Western societies have viewed brewing as a male-dominated field for the last 150 years, traditionally, it was an activity engaged in by women. Ethnographic and archaeological studies have shown that brewing was an outcropping of gathering or baking traditions, which were predominantly women’s roles throughout the world. From the earliest evidence of brewing in 7000 BCE, until the commercialization of brewing during industrialization, women were the primary brewers on all inhabited continents.

Its Recipe is Simple

But of course simple recipes do not imply that there are not nuances, or that it is easy to make.

HealthLine offers two of the most common methods of making non-alcoholic beer. One method involves heating the beer, but this can significantly alter the flavor. Sometimes beer is heated inside a powerful vacuum that lowers the boiling point to preserve its taste. Another method involves straining out the alcohol using a filter so fine that only water and alcohol can pass through. Liquid is then added back to the remaining ingredients. Then, since these processes, vacuum distillation or membrane filtration, makes the beer flat they have to add carbonation back into the brew.

Two other ways to make NA Beer are mentioned by WhiteLabs, alter the beer recipe or its fermentation. For instance controlling fermentation can achieve a low alcohol brew. Increasing or decreasing the temperatures used to cook the mash can also produce low alcohol. Additionally, there are special yeasts that can be introduced that also produce low alcohol.

Some Beer Can Be Gluten Free

Some sites, like Heineken state that brewing beer with barley may be drinkable by gluten-intolerant folks since the clearer and blonder the beer, the more likely it has only traces of gluten. Wheat beer, of course, has plenty of gluten. Some also say that the specific brewing process may affect gluten content as well. But BeyondCeliac writes that beer cannot ever be gluten free.

However, there are “beer like” drinks such as Anheuser-Busch’s Redbridge lager, made from sorghum instead of barley or wheat. I cannot find the beer locally, and it is not on Amazon, so no idea how it tastes. The brewer states it contains 4.8% alcohol per 12-ounce serving, so this is not a NA Beer.

Side note the maker, Anheuser-Busch:

• Anheuser-Busch holds 48.8% share of USA beer sales
• The company brews: Budweiser and Bud Light
• Owns a 50% share in Grupo Modelo, Mexico’s leading brewer
• Owns a 27% share in Tsingtao, the #1 brewer in China
• Is one of the largest theme park operators in the USA
• Is a major manufacturer of aluminum cans
• One of the world’s largest recyclers of aluminum cans

Can I Get Drunk on NA Beer?

This drink still contains alcohol, albeit <.5%. Erdinger sponsored a study to verify that non-alcoholic beer was okay to consume. Basically, the study shows you will not get drunk drinking these types of beer. However, I suppose it is possible to drink a LOT of NA beer and you might get a buzz — frankly, given all the carbonation, I think the amount you would need to drink would probably lead you to explode first.

Beer as Water

More pertinent to my interests, a weak beer <.5% has been a safe liquid, available to many people as hydration when local water is contaminated, and as a source of energy and nutrition from the malt, barley, and hops that are mixed to make the brew. In Germany beer is jokingly called one of the food groups, but perhaps that is not so much a joke as having a kernel of truth. When the weather is running hot, and water will just not do, and soda may be looking good — grab a NA Beer instead. At least you will be getting some nutrition from the carbonated drink.

Beer Nutrition

Finally, I had stopped drinking beer due to the high calories and carbs the normal brew contains. If you are on a strict calorie count diet, do not drink beer. One 16oz non-alcoholic beer can contain 175c of which, LivingStrong reports: Carbohydrates amount to 156 of the total calories, or 89 percent of the total calorie content. Two percent of the calories, or about 4 calories, are from a trace amount of protein. Another 3 percent of the calories, or 5 calories, are from a small amount of fat. The final 10 calories, or 6 percent of calories, are from alcohol.

WebMD: Take your pick: want fewer calories or fewer carbohydrate grams? Non-alcoholic beers have fewer calories than light beers but “light” beers have fewer carb grams and “low-carb beers” fewer still (averaging 95 calories and 2.6 grams of carbohydrates). Choose either kind of brew and you’re ahead of regular beer drinkers, who imbibe 140 calories and 13 grams of carbohydrates with every bottle or can. 

My Life

I already mentioned I had cut beer out of my diet due to calories, but the NA Beer are pretty light in that area, and did taste good. So I have decided to reintroduce the NA Beer back into my diet for those special occasions when I cook Tex-Mex or German food. My choice of beer right now will be, not in any particular order, the Heineken, Well Being, and Clausthaler.

—Patty

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FACT: Did you know there are over 4k types of rice in the world?

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