8 January 2022 | New Scientist | 37anything that pretended to be an alcoholic
drink”. However, neither fear appears to be
being realised at this point, says Anderson.
A bigger worry is that nolo drinks will appeal
to underage drinkers and lure them onto the
sauce. “That is a concern,” says Anderson. But
for now we just don’t know.
There are many other gaps in our
knowledge. “If you look at all the published
evidence on low and no alcohol, it’s tiny,” says
Anderson. The biggest unknown is how to
encourage more people to switch to them,
because, right now, the level of consumption is
still far too small to have a discernible effect on
public health. According to the Social Market
Foundation, the UK’s annual booze bill comes
in at about £45 billion, and just 0.25 per cent
(£110 million) of that goes on nolo products.
Even with strong growth, its market share will
remain modest, the research concludes. “To
make any significant public health impactMART
IN^ PAR
R/MAGNUM^ PHOTO
SWhen it comes to creating low or
zero-alcohol beverages, there are two
basic options: biology and physics.
Both have their pros and cons.
The biological methods involve
making sure the sugars in the mashed
grains (wort) or grape or apple juice
(must) don’t ferment completely.
There are various ways to do this:
ferment at cold temperatures, stop
fermentation early, or use yeasts
that are bad at it. Biological methods
were widely used to make “near
beer” in the prohibition-era US. But
incomplete fermentation usually
produces beers that taste more like
wort than beer and the biological
approach has fallen into the gutter.
The physical option entails allowing
a normal fermentation process to
run its course and then removing the
alcohol at the end. De-alcoholisation
is how the vast majority of low and
zero-alcohol beverages are made
today, though there is a lot of trade
secrecy. Again, there are various
options, some better than others.
The simplest method is to drive
off the alcohol with heat, but this
also strips away aroma, flavour and
fizz and can intensify off-flavours.
A gentler method is extraction,
during which the drink is mixed with
a solvent that has a higher affinity
for ethanol – usually liquid carbon
dioxide – then separated out again
minus most of its kick. This can
be done at room temperature,
so avoids spoiling the beer, but
is complicated and expensive.The state of the art is membrane
separation, in which semi-permeable
membranes are used to filter ethanol
and other unwanted compounds
out of the drink. Various techniques
are available, but according to Grace
Ghesti, a chemist at the University
of Brasília in Brazil, the best results
are obtained with nanofiltration,
which uses highly selective ceramic
or polymer membranes.
Unfortunately, according to
Barbara Stachowiak at Poznań
University of Life Sciences in Poland,
regardless of the de-alcoholisation
technique used, it is associated with
a loss of taste and body.
This is unlikely to be the last word
on de-alcoholisation, however.
Advances in nanomaterials and
membranes look likely to offer drastic
improvements, says Ghesti, as does a
technique called pervaporation, which
combines the best of nanofiltration
and old-school heat treatment.
There is also an experimental
method called adsorption extraction,
where the beer is forced to percolate
through a column lined with minerals
called zeolites that selectively
grab the ethanol along with other
undesirable molecules.
Combinations of techniques
have a lot to offer, says Ghesti.
And according to Tom Hallett, who
runs the Steady Drinker website,
brewers are also introducing new
yeast varieties to add interesting
flavours. Physics plus biology
looks like a potent cocktail.Getting to zero
>“ Nolo drinks do have
calories and sugar.
It is not the same as
just drinking water”
Tinkering with the
fermentation process
is one way to lower the
alcohol content of drinks
SEVE
NT
YF
OUR^ IMAGES/AL
AMY