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flamenco

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Due to a recent medical drama, I am suddenly very interested in low and no alcohol beers. Does anyone know of any kits or tweaks that work in producing a decent low alcohol beer? This is not a subject I’ve been interested in until now, and I know it seems a little sacreligious, but... anybody?
 
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I'm sure that I read a thread on here this week about this topic. Someone was going to try the Nanny State recipe from DIYDog.

If you use the search facility for the words Nanny State, it should come up.

Edit : it was actually in the 'Regulators as Spunding Valves' thread where someone mentioned brewing Nanny State but don't think there are any recipes in that thread
 
I've brewed Coopers Dark Ale kit in the past, which I liked and have tweaked with a bit of blackstrap (50g). I don't brew many kits these days, but this one sticks out... I'm sure you could squeeze it down to around 3%...

Made with a selection of superior roasted malts from the finest South Australian two-row barley. Combined with selected Tasmanian hops this produces a dark, full and flavoursome beer called Classic Old Dark. How strong is your beer? You can change the approximate alcoholic strength of your beer by altering the amount of sugar you add to the wort in the beginning. A minimum of 250g ensures good fermentation. Here's a guide: Grams added Strength 1,000= 5.2% , 750 =4.6% ,500 =4.0% , 250= 3.4%​
 
A recent discussion here: https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/lallemand-danstar-london-esb-anyone-tried-yet.77429/. Some **** hi-jacking a thread to prattle on about making beer with only 0.5% ABV. The discussion is towards the end of the thread. "Low alcohol beer"? The guy's obviously had a bang on his head … what's that? He has? Oh … Err, okay, any resemblance to me is entirely coincidental.

You probably need to be prepared to cut your own path on this subject, there's currently a bit of shortage on guide material but there are people doing it. "Nanny State" is one of the few recipes to be found and might be good to start with, but it is a bit rank.
 
I brewed this Belgian Pale Ale in March of this year:
  • OG = 1.032
  • FG = 1.011
  • ABV = 2.76%
  • Kcal per Litre = 312Kcal/Litre
A beautiful taste and colour ...

img_0618-jpg.14325


The only box on Brewersfriend that it didn't "tick" was the ABV!

It's an AG recipe and the last one listed in:

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/duttos-brew-day.67659/

If you aren't up for AG recipes then I suggest that you:
  • Click on Recipes section above.
  • Click on Search.
  • Type in the type of drink you like best.
  • Select Extract as the Method.
  • Click on Search.
There are hundreds of recipes to choose from. You can then choose a recipe and start messing about with it to discover something that, like the Belgian Pale Ale above, "ticks all the boxes" but maybe not the %ABV because you want it so low.

Personally, I enjoy messing about with the recipe section in BrewersFriend and since I've started using it, I'm glad to say that I've never brewed a total catastrophe! :laugh8:

Enjoy! :thumb:
 
Hi Flamenco.

Reducing alcohol content is the easy bit, just a case of reducing the amount of fermentable sugars in your wort, by either using part of a kit or increasing the brew length. The problem is doing this without reducing body and flavour. Unfortunately, with Kits, you don't have the luxury of being able to alter mash parameters, or to an lesser extent the grain bill. Whilst lower ABVs down to 2.5% may be somewhat achievable, doing a no alcohol beer (sub 1%) will be extremely difficult.

Things you can do.

Use unfermentable sugars to add body and sweetness. Add maltodextrine and or Lactose.

Steep crystal malts to add sweetness, body and flavour. This will also add fermentable sugars so will need to be compensated for.

Modify a malty kit, so that more flavour remains after dilution. To get a pale ale, use an ESB or Ruby Ale kit as a base. This would be a similar approach to brewers that parti-gyle. For example Fullers London Pride is the same wort as ESB, just at a weaker starting gravity.

Add hops when steeping grains/dissolving extract to add hop character and some bitterness back. Or use hop bittering and aroma extracts.

Use yeast with low attenuation, such Windsor, to retain sweetness and malt character.

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk
 
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How low do you want it ie under 3% or under 1% and are you doing kits extract or all grain?
 
Thank you all for your thoughtful posts. I am currently drinking St Peters Without which looks and tastes surprisingly like a real beer with no alcohol. I am experiment8ng with blending (adding) other low alcohol beers to see if I can make something I can stand to drink more then an two of. I would l8ke to brew something of my own so looking at below 2% but as you rightly say the low alcohol is not as difficult as the body, taste, moth feel etc. The BrewDog Nanny State is an excellent fruity beer that really is a proper beer but at 0.5%. There seems to have been a revolution in Low alcohol beers from the sorry “drivers beers” of some years ago.

Thank you all.
 
Would it be possible to do a standard weak kit brew and once finished fermentation - put it in a pot and bring it to 75c and let the alcohol evaporate off for a few hours?
Then bottle it with a couple of grains of dried yeast and a carb drop to fizz up in the bottle?
 
Would it be possible to do a standard weak kit brew and once finished fermentation - put it in a pot and bring it to 75c and let the alcohol evaporate off for a few hours?
Then bottle it with a couple of grains of dried yeast and a carb drop to fizz up in the bottle?

When I was at work I once had a manager who could silence a bar full of workers by saying to a Client "It's not impossible. It can be done!" He was 99% correct. It wasn't impossible and it could be done; but only if all of us worked like mad to modify something that was running perfectly well as it was designed!

With regard to your question the answer is the same except:
  1. Heating the brew to that temperature for that length of time would probably make it taste foul.
  2. Ethanol (the alcohol in a brew) forms an azeotropic mixture with water and it's an absolute swine to try and separate them. In industry the distillation process to remove alcohol from water before dumping it as "pure water" involves a 35 metre high tower with +/-32 separate distillation trays inside it.
An alternative is to freeze the brew. In this instance the water freezes in preference to the alcohol and therefore pouring off the liquid that isn't frozen will drop the ABV of the water left behind. However, with a single "freeze and pour off any unfrozen liquid" it will probably be around the -3*C mark before the whole lot freezes solid. The resulting liquid thrown away will severely reduce the amount of brew left behind, but it will only reduce the ABV by a small amount.

Sorry!
 
Not got much to offer with recipes etc but, due to family stuff, I've also had to spend a large amount of the year drinking non-alcoholic beers (NABs as they are 'affectionately' known in our house). I know how hard it is to get a decent one so thought I'd give a couple of recommendations lol.

1. Erdinger non-alcohol wheat beer
2. Pistonhead Flat-Tire (non-alcohol version)
3. Bavaria Lager NAB version

I would say Nanny State, as I drink it to feel like I'm drinking an IPA but, I'm really not a fan. Too much hop compared to malt IMO. The Flat-tire really is awesome. Bit pricey for not getting you drunk though.
 
Has anyone tried the Heineken 0-0 yet?

https://www.heineken.com/Heineken00

Their ordinary stuff tastes terrible so anything would be an improvement. :laugh8: :laugh8:

However, can anyone have a guess at what "Step 3 - We gently remove the alcohol by a natural process" could mean? :?: :?:

Apart from letting it "weather" so that the alcohol preferentially evaporates over a long, long time I personally can't think of any other "natural process" that would result in "Step 5 - The new Heineken is finally born and bottled at 0.0% alcohol."

Plus, there would still be traces of alcohol in there (alcohol + water = azeotropic mixture) and they are advertising it at "0.0% alcohol" ...

... so maybe this is a claim for the Advertising Standards Authority to investigate? clapa clapa
 
Reverse osmosis. If you argue that osmosis is a process that is common in nature.

In marketing terms, 0.0% isn't zero it's anything between 0 and 0.099999999999%, in the same way that 4.2% beers will unlikely be exactly 4.2% when measured.

Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk
 
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Not got much to offer with recipes etc but, due to family stuff, I've also had to spend a large amount of the year drinking non-alcoholic beers (NABs as they are 'affectionately' known in our house). I know how hard it is to get a decent one so thought I'd give a couple of recommendations lol.

1. Erdinger non-alcohol wheat beer
2. Pistonhead Flat-Tire (non-alcohol version)
3. Bavaria Lager NAB version

I would say Nanny State, as I drink it to feel like I'm drinking an IPA but, I'm really not a fan. Too much hop compared to malt IMO. The Flat-tire really is awesome. Bit pricey for not getting you drunk though.

Keep an eye out for these: https://www.bigdropbrew.com/
 
this is superb mate..will be buying tonight lol

Enjoy! I've only tried the Pale Ale but was massively impressed with how much it actually tasted like beer - it was genuinely something I would be happy to drink throughout an evening. Someone else on here bought some of the stout but don't think they posted back on how they got on with it. Would be interested to know which ones you try and if they are any good, as it's always worth having a few low ABV beers in stock.
 
Started my own thread on low-alcohol beer brewing here: https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/peebees-brewday-low-alcohol-beer.77965

The recipe is to try and recreate a "Big Drop" pale ale, but it'll be a few days before I know if I'm successful. I'm already thinking the hops might be overdone.

My early "low-alcohol" attempts follow the published "Nanny State" recipe. I tried a "real" Brewdog Nanny State last night and yes :thumb: … both Brewdog's and mine taste of rank older American hop varieties (Columbus, Centennial, Cascade, don't know which one, or all of them, is rank, but rank it is - in fact the Brewdog version was worse with "cardboard" adding to the rank flavours).
 

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