On Food and Cooking

people who like beer but don’t want to
consume alcohol, or want to consume
alcohol but reduce their intake of calories.
A standard 12 oz/360 ml container of
American lager contains about 14 grams of
alcohol and 11 grams of carbohydrate, for
a total of about 140 calories. Low-calorie
“light” or “dry” beers have 100–110
calories, a savings produced by using a
lower proportion of malt and adjuncts to
water, and then adding enzymes that digest
more of the carbohydrates into fermentable
sugars. The fermentation then produces a
brew with only a slightly lower alcohol
content, but about half the sugar chains —
and very little body.
“Nonalcoholic beers” can be made by
modifying the fermentation so that the
yeasts produce little alcohol (very low
temperatures, abundant oxygen), or by
removing the alcohol from normally
fermented beer using a molecular version