More difficult to make beer without alcohol
It is actually even more difficult to make a full-fledged beer without alcohol than a beer with alcohol, says Ringnes’ experienced brewmaster Olaug Flakne.
– We must carry out many more analyzes of the beer. It is absolutely certain that the fermentation stops at the right time. If it passes, the beer cannot be sold. In Ringnes, we have people with high competence and the right equipment, but for a number of smaller players it is very demanding to have exact control over fermentation, she adds.
Full-fledged beer
Olaug has no doubt that beer without alcohol is full-fledged beer.
– Absolutely, it is the same raw material that either uses alcohol or not. And the quality of the alcohol-free varieties has only gotten better and better. In recent years, a number of new alcohol-free beer varieties have appeared on the Norwegian market, and today most beers are available as an alcohol-free variety. A few years ago we brewed alcohol-free maybe once a month. Today, we do it almost every week, she adds.
Stops fermentation
Olaug, who himself is a master brewer from the Brewery Academy in Copenhagen, says that the starting point for beers without alcohol is the same as those with alcohol; water, malt, hops and yeast.
– Alcohol-free beer goes through the same process as other beer, but different methods are used to get the beer. In Ringnes, we use a method where we start fermentation processes of the wort, but processes are formed before too much alcohol, she says.
Bittelitt alcohol
In Norway, beverages under 0.7% alcohol or alcohol-free are defined.
– Our variants are well within this limit with around 0.4%-0.5%. These are tiny amounts that are completely harmless. Similarly, you will find small amounts of mixed alcohol in other products such as yeast, for example in kefir, concludes Olaug.