I never did understand the appeal of “near beer”. Now, granted, I have come to love the taste of beer in all of its variety. I could be convinced to forego the alcohol if it could be taken out without destroying the flavor. However, they can’t. Every non-alcoholic beer I have ever tried—admittedly, only a handful—has been godawful. So, really, what is the point?

Of course, I used to say the same thing about decaffeinated coffee. I loved my coffee nearly as much as my beer, until I got older and caffeine started doing terrible things to my body and my neuro-chemistry. Thank goodness the decaffeination process nowadays is not nearly as harsh as it used to be and one can get a decent cup of coffee with most of the caffeine removed.

This is not “Java Talk”, of course, so I’ll move on.

So, yeah, while I don’t understand why anyone would be willing to drink non-alcoholic beer, someone must be doing so because they keep making the stuff. Doing a bit of homebrewing I understand how beer is made, but the process for getting the alcohol is something of a mystery to me. Food and drink blog CHOW has an article describing how non-alcoholic (actually, very low alcohol) beer and wine are made. Here’s an excerpt:

But do nonalcoholic beers and wines taste the same as alcoholic ones? Almost. Most of the flavor of real beer and wine comes from the grain or grapes, plus flavor compounds from the fermentation and aging process. Nonalcoholic beers and wines still have all that. Alcohol in the real stuff contributes mouthfeel and a small amount of flavor. It actually makes wine taste sweeter, says Jeff Meier, vice president of winemaking for J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines, which makes Ariel nonalcoholic wines. This means that a dealcoholized wine needs about 2.5 percent residual sugar content to best match a completely dry (no residual sugar) alcoholic wine.

I thought the first comment on this blog post was very telling:

I always thought non-alcoholic beer was the work of the devil.

I can’t say that I disagree.

(via Cocktails with Camper English)