Non alcoholic beer?

Had forgotten about Bass Shandy. They also used to sell Top Deck Shandy and Lager 'n' Lime in the local Kwik Save. Pocket money beers.


A couple of observations regarding Nanny State. The recipe calls for US05 and IIRC a mash temperature of 65C, both normally lead to higher attenuation, which appears to go against the aim of producing a beer with little alcohol.

Dutto said:

It will drive off SOME of the alcohol and the reason it quotes 80C is that the Boiling Point of Ethanol is 78C.

However, ethanol forms an azeotropic mixture with water so the ethanol will start to escape at 78C, but depending on the original concentration (i.e. the original ABV) and kept at 80C for an hour, as little as 0.5% of the ethanol may escape from the mixture.

Traceable ethanol would still be left behind in an ethanol/water mixture with an ABV to 1% even if it was brought up to the 100C boiling point of water. Azeotropic mixtures are an absolute bugger to separate!

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Pure ethanol and the ethanol-water (95%/5% approx) azeotrope both boil at just above 78*C at atmospheric pressure. My guess is that if you heated the original beer to 80*C you would flash off most of the alcohol fairly quickly as the azeotrope, especially if you kept up a rolling boil. However I would not want to do that since you would effectively cook what's left. Cooked beer, no thanks, unless it's with beef in a casserole. And on that subject I can provide a very nice beef with stout recipe. :thumb1:

foxbat said:

Was that the Bass Shandy? I used to buy that as well and recall it tasted rather nice though I may have a rose tint in my rear view mirror.

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I believe you might be right? Wikipedia has this to say:

Shandy Bass
Shandy Bass is a 0.5% ABV shandy made with Bass beer and lemonade. Introduced in 1972, it is made <now> by Britvic and is most popular in Northern England.

My memories are of buying it in the 70s from the corner shop ... in plastic PET bottles, which is of course nonsense. I sometimes worry about my memory.

Just an idea I thought of no idea how it would come out. What if you made a beer all grain or extract but miss out the boil and just ferment it without hops then do the boil after fermentation with all the normal hop additions and boiling off most of the alcohol at the same time.

terrym said:

Pure ethanol and the ethanol-water (95%/5% approx) azeotrope both boil at just above 78*C at atmospheric pressure. My guess is that if you heated the original beer to 80*C you would flash off most of the alcohol fairly quickly as the azeotrope, especially if you kept up a rolling boil. .......... :thumb1:

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As explained here ...

https://www.whisky.com/information/knowledge/production/details/distillation.html

... in a whisky distillery it takes four hours of evaporation in the Wash Still to take a 10% ABV brew down to 1% ABV and in the process they lose over 37% of the brew!

Azeotropic mixtures are an absolute bugger to separate. :UKflag:

peebee said:

I believe you might be right? Wikipedia has this to say:

Shandy Bass
Shandy Bass is a 0.5% ABV shandy made with Bass beer and lemonade. Introduced in 1972, it is made <now> by Britvic and is most popular in Northern England.

My memories are of buying it in the 70s from the corner shop ... in plastic PET bottles, which is of course nonsense. I sometimes worry about my memory.

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I used to love this when I was a kid in the 70s particularly as it came in cans with the Bass name and triangle on so we used to imagine people would think we were drinking real beer!

Could you do a grain steep, hop tea and then force carbonate (if you have the equipment)?

Edit: I have no idea what that would result in......

foxbat said:

Was that the Bass Shandy? I used to buy that as well and recall it tasted rather nice though I may have a rose tint in my rear view mirror.

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Sorry to go off topic but I hadn't thought about this for years. I loved this as a kid, it was our Saturday night visit to the Offie with pocket money in hand.

Just visited a mate of mine who is bedridden after a couple of major strokes.

Mike has been diabetic for over 45 years now and his memory is obviously going because when discussing the booze we had put away between us he tried to tell me that being a diabetic he had "never abused" his body!

Ha!! I brought him up all standing on two points:

1. He occasionally drank Kaliber instead of ordinary beer. It may have improved in recent years, but I reckon that it was one of the most foul tasting brews ever; and consider it a form of self-abuse that Mike drank it more than once.
2. I also reminded him of the times I went to the bar to get him a pint whilst he sat in a nice quiet seat at the back of the bar injecting himself with insulin, on the basis that he had better do it whilst he was still sober!

Selective happy memories anyone?

Hijacking the thread slightly, has anyone brewed a good low-alcohol beer that didn't require fractional freezing or heating off the alcohol? Would be nice to offer a proper homebrew pint to any drivers I might have come visit.

Well, I missed my last efficiency by 10%-points so my 4% ale might duck towards 3%

This is the lowest alcohol brew that I've made for some time at an ABV of just 2.76%.

INGREDIENTS
2.60kg of Maris Otter Malt
0.50kg of Cara Malt (EBC 145)
0.50kg of Crystal Malt (EBC 10)
0.04kg of Chocolate Malt
65g Hallertau Leaf
Harvested Wilco Ale Yeast
Protafloc Tablet
Yeast Nutrient
Mash
Strike Water = 3.0 litres per 1kg of grain = 14.0 litres at 82*C.
Dough in and Mash at 74*C > 72*C for One Hour
Sparge Water at 85*C
Lauter until clear then sparge until Boiler is at 30 litres. Cover Boiler and leave overnight.
Boil
Boil with 25g of Hallertau Bittering Hops for 60 minutes.
Add Protafloc tablet and boil for further 10 minutes.
Flameout.
Add 25g of Hallertau Leaf Aroma Hops and steep for 30 minutes before cooling.
Cool to 19*C, whirlpool, run off into FV, make up to 23 litres.
DETAILS
OG = 1.032
FG = 1.011
ABV = 2.76%

The recipe meets all requirements for a Belgian Pale Ale style for everything but the

ABV, which is slightly low.

The good news is that it tasted just fine and kept most of its colour even though it was a bit "lively" after three months!