Tools To Make Better Low- and No-Alcohol Beers: The Sensory Impact

Brewers making, or wanting to make, no-alcohol beers face many choices and challenges, from recipe development to addressing food safety concerns. To help brewers meet these challenges, the Siebel Institute of Technology is introducing a new training tool: a No-Alcohol Sensory Kit, as well as a No-Alcohol Package for recipe development. This provides brewers with an option to pilot their own low- or no-alcohol beverages.

Identifying off-flavors in low-alcohol beers

The No-Alcohol Sensory Kit allows Lallemand Brewing technical experts to guide brewers through a tasting of aldehydes — compounds that contribute to the sweet, malty, and worty flavors often associated with no-alcohol beer. These compounds are a primary reason why many no-alcohol beers taste different from their traditional counterparts.

The purpose of this kit is to train brewers on aldehydes and their specific tastes. The kit also teaches brewers how to counteract, or prevent, their formation in these low-alcohol beers. The kit contains the following compounds, with the Lallemand Brewing team guiding the tasting to detail how not to exacerbate these in no-alcohol beers:

Tools to limit off-flavor formation in low-alcohol beers

All these compounds originate in the malting, mashing, and boiling phases — essentially they are heated byproducts. Therefore, in no- and low-alcohol brewing, it is essential to limit the amount of highly kilned malts used, as well as incorporate shorter mash and boiling times. For a comprehensive take on no-alcohol beers and aldehydes, check out Lallemand’s No-Alcohol Best Practices and Newsletter.

Introducing the no-alcohol package from the Siebel Institute of Technology

To further assist brewers with no-alcohol beer recipe development, Siebel has recently introduced a No-Alcohol Package that allows brewers the opportunity to use the Siebel pilot system to trial, or get assistance with, no-alcohol recipe formulation. The package includes recipe formulation using LalBrew® LoNa™, an award-winning maltose-negative yeast designed for no-alcohol beer production, as well as ISY Enhance™, an inactivated yeast packed with mannoproteins that naturally boost mouthfeel and body in beers. Later hop additions in no-alcohol beer fermentation are notoriously tricky due to the natural sugar components in hops. One solution is Yops™, a range of aroma terpene blends designed to boost hop aroma.

The low- and no-alcohol toolkit will continue to expand, and our team is committed to offering brewers innovative solutions in this space. The Siebel package highlights our products and services available. If you are planning to launch a low-alcohol beer in the near future, contact us for support.