In recent years bars and shops have been offering non-alcoholic beer. While sales have increased, these increases have not been to the levels that the industry has hoped. The availability of non-alcoholic beer is seen as something positive by advocates keen to reduce alcoholism rates.
One of the reasons why sales are not increasing is because many consumers state that the taste does not match that of regular beers. According to Sotirios Kampranis, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, the consensus is that most alcohol-free beers taste somewhat flat and watery.
Professor Kampranis has pinpointed this down to the aroma from hops – something associated with regular beer but missing from the alcohol-free varieties. This loss of aroma occurs due to the main process of transferring a beer to an alcohol-free state, which is by heating the beer. An alternative technique involves minimizing fermentation. This too creates a poor aroma.
To address this issue, Kampranis, through a biotech spin-off company called EvodiaBio, has cracked the code of how to make non-alcoholic beer that is full of hop aroma.
As Laboratory News reports, this has led to the researchers developing molecules called monoterpenoids (a class of terpenes, found in many essential oils). As an added ingredient, these provide a hoppy-flavor when added towards the end of the manufacturing process.
The process involves the use of a genetically engineered yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The modification enables the yeast organelles, that normally oxidize fatty acids, to produce geranyl diphosphate (the monoterpenoid responsible for the flavour).
In addition, the researchers class their method as one that is sustainable in terms of no longer requiring hops to be transport to breweries. The transport process invariably requires the use of refrigerated trains or trucks. Furthermore, processing hops requires a lot of water. The new process reduces these contributors to carbon.
On the environmental balance sheet, the scientists argue that one kilogram of their new hop aroma requires 10,000 times less water and more than 100 times less carbon dioxide to be released.
Trials using the new method have been undertaken at breweries in Denmark. The aim is for the technique to be ready to be made available for the global brewing industry by October 2022.
The research appears in the journal Nature Biotechnology, where the paper is titled “Synbio salvages alcohol-free beer.”
