Maltster Muntons is helping brewers get to grips with no-alcohol beers with the launch of an expert guide and a series of workshops.
An extract from Muntons’ guide to brewing no-alcohol beer
Muntons launched its Premium Alcohol Free Malt Extract in March 2021 with the goal of helping all brewers easily produce 0% ABV beers that didn’t just taste good as alcohol-free beers, but tasted great as beers in their own right.
The no-alcohol beer market was worth just shy of £300 million in 2022 and is expected to grow annually by 12.68%. This is why specialist brewing technologists at Muntons have continued to focus on perfecting methodology and accessibility to this market by running free workshops for brewery customers and now releasing an expert guide, revealing new flavour ideas and techniques.
Rob Urquhart, new product development champion and brewing technologist at Muntons, said: “By helping brewers more easily create their own styles of alcohol-free beer, we hope to support a revolution, increasing the richness of choice for consumers and improving the overall quality of great tasting alcohol-free beers.
“In creating the recipe for our Premium Alcohol Free Malt Extract, which took our team over two years to perfect, we had to find the balance between bringing mouthfeel, depth, and flavour to 0% ABV beers, but keeping it versatile as a base to which brewers can add their own craft and personal approach reflecting their style.”
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The result is an extract which is already being trialled in a significant number of breweries around the world, and which has been successfully used in commercial beers ranging from black lagers and stouts to IPAs and pale ales.
Jordan, chief product officer at low-alcohol brewer Mash Gang, said: “With the help of the team at Muntons, we embarked on a project to create a low-ABV beer using their Premium Alcohol Free Malt Extract.
“I have a deep love of all things fermented and have had bad experiences with low-ABV beers, so I was sceptical of the extract at first. I expected the project to take some time, but we liked the first prototype so much we entered it in the Brussels Beer Challenge, hoping it would do well, and it didn’t disappoint — it won gold!”
