Is it possible to home brew NA (non alcoholic) beer? How does this differ from the high octane variety? Would it be completely non alcoholic, or just really low? I just started brewing beer in very small batches, and I want to try some new things for relatives who don’t drink - one for religious reasons, one for AA reasons. I figured any place with an Uncle Beer could answer this?
Welcome to the SDMB, Mock Suds!
I sppose you would have to find out how much sugar NOT to add and not add it, and then find some sort of preservative to prevent spoilage, to start with. I’m not at all sure how well this would work out, but… you can try this. .
There are some good articles on the subject here.
I’ve done some homebrewing and I’ve been in on this discussion before, and the general concensus is that it’d be rather difficult to make a fairly non-alcoholic beer; most of the commercial methods involve processing huge amounts of beer to get a smaller amount of non-alcoholic beer, or subjecting the beer to various chemical processes which extract the alcohol.
You’re probably better off making root beer.
NA beer does contain some alchol, apx 0.5% or 1 proof, it is not suitable for AA members as it may trigger cravings and illegal for under 21 people to buy.
Not to mention that it’s the sugar (right?) that the yeast eat in order to carbonate the beer (aside from making alcohol).
Just made our first batch of “Mr. Beer” and it came out great – now I’m looking for the “professional” amateur stuff.
k2dave: It might be possible to make up a batch of wort and put something in it to kill any yeast that might be there, then force-carbonate it, but the problem then is that a lot of the taste in beer comes as a byproduct of the fermenting process. If there’s no fermenting, then all you’ve got is a bunch of sweet malt tea. With bubbles. Yum.
well, since homebrewing involves the classic yeast+sugar=alcohol+CO2, I’d say it’d be a losing effort. If you’re looking for something NA that you can make at home I’d second Ethilrist’s root beer recommendation. I’ve had homemade root beer and it just knocks the socks off the commercial stuff. And the ingredients are available at most well stocked homebrew shops.
**hammerbach **
Thanks for the link! Have you tried it? Judging from the responses here, I am wondering how it would actually taste…
Number
That’s a whole lotta linking going on! I’ll read what I can, but it seems that most of the links there are for bewing at home in general. I’m sure I’ll gleam some good info and tricks from the now-bookmarked page, but I didn’t see anything that pertained to my question specifically.
As far as root beer goes, yeah, that’s an option, but Birch Beer is better should I decide to go that route, assuming that’s something I can do - maybe Sasparilla… Or is that another thread?
Thanks… MS
I have a great book on the subject of homemade non-alcohol drinks, the title of which escapes me for the moment, but if you are interested, I’ll try to find it for you…