Non-alcoholic beer usually is less satisfying than regular beer because of its drab flavor and too watery mouthfeel. But scientists from Denmark now claim they have made a new non-alcoholic beer with all the complex flavors that a regular beer offers.

Scientists engineered a species of yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. It is widely used by brewers to produce molecules called monoterpenoids, found in hops. They add them to non-alcoholic beer at the end of the brewing process to give back its lost aroma and flavor.

Non-Alcoholic Beer That Tastes Like the Real Deal Made Using More Sustainable Methods Than Existing Techniques
(Photo : Pixabay/Alexas_Fotos)
Non-Alcoholic Beer That Tastes Like the Real Deal Made Using More Sustainable Methods Than Existing Techniques

Scientists Crack the Code in Putting the Hoppy Aroma in Non-Alcoholic Beer

Removing alcohol from the beer through heating could also kill the aroma of hops that give the beer its flavor. Similarly, limiting fermentation to make alcohol-free beer leads to a poor aroma.

Sotirios Kampranis, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, said that years of research led them to produce monoterpenoids that provide the hoppy flavor, which has not been done before. The team turned the baker's yeast cells into micro-factories that can be grown in fermenters and release aroma hops to give back its original taste that people love.

 "It actually makes the use of aroma hops in brewing redundant, because we only need the molecules passing on the scent and flavor and not the actual hops," the news outlet quoted him.

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Sustainable Method in Making Non-Alcoholic Beer

Aside from improving the flavor of non-alcoholic beer to make it taste like the real thing, Phys.org also reported that the method researchers used is far more sustainable than existing techniques in making beer.

Researchers explained that farming aroma hops in the western US require transportation and cooling down the crops in refrigerators. Also, it requires lots of water at around 2.7 tons to grow one kilogram of hops. When these two are combined, it is not a very environment-friendly production.

Kampranis said that this method skips the aroma hops altogether as well as the water and transportation in the production of the non-alcoholic beer. That means they can produce one kilogram of hops aroma using 10,000 times lesser water and 100 times lesser carbon dioxide.

Mail Online reported that the researchers are pleased to contribute a healthier lifestyle and hope that their new product will help more people stop or limit their alcohol intake. Kampranis concludes that they are looking forward to the long-term application of the method to change the brewing industry and beer production.

Today, the method is being tested in breweries in Denmark and is set to be ready for the entire brewing industry later this year. 

Researchers described the full method in their study, titled "Synbio Salvages Alcohol-Free Beer," published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

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