Know Before You Go

As demand for non-alcohol beer grows, brewers are looking for ways to get in. According to the Brewers Association and Nielsen, NA beer beer has made a large gain off a low base. It accounts for 2% of scan sales by volume, but it has increased 119% since 2020. But before going all gas and no brakes toward brewing beers with low or no alcohol, there are critical safety concerns that must be considered. After all, the ​“safety” that alcohol provided beer was one of the main reasons we started brewing it in the first place. It’s well known alcohol helps prevent pathogens from surviving in beer. Without it, consumers are more exposed to potential visits from a host of baddies including E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella, and Staph to name a few. And with that, brewers are also saddled with a slew of potential legal and ethical concerns. These considerations, along with the substantial costs of sterile filtration, pasteurization, or de-alcoholization equipment, should give brewers pause as they consider going down the NA path.

NA is more food than beer 

The key to wrapping your head around safely brewing NA beer is to treat it as a food rather than a beer. When brewing regular beer, brewers are typically thinking more about protecting themselves against the process and the chemicals and equipment involved. With NA brewing, it’s about protecting the beer from the brewers and the facility. Once the wort hits the cold side, it’s susceptible to picking up unwanted ambient yeasts and bacteria floating around the brewery, or on equipment or clothing. 

The spoils of wort 

Other sources of beer spoilers that can ruin your non- and low-alcohol beer:

• Brewers/employees
• Water source (what’s in it?)
• Brewery environment
• Other beers in production
• Dry hop additions
• Get rid of those birds, like now!
• Draft lines

Document, document, document

With that mindset, NA brewers should develop their own Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) plans to identify and address risks in their recipes, ingredients and processes. Brewers should also work with a local process authority to independently test and cosign their plans and results to ensure safety. Process authorities are individuals who have demonstrated expertise in thermally processing low-acid foods for humans and can be found at private companies or most state universities. On top of that, if NA products are more than 5% of the brewery’s revenue, brewers must register with the FDA and follow their Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls (HARPC) and Supply Chain Program. Basically, NA brewers must be able to demonstrate to regulators that they’re an expert in the process. If something goes wrong, regulators need to see that everything was validated and documented. In their eyes, if it wasn’t documented, it didn’t happen.

To protect and preserve

Outside of costly specialized equipment, there are other steps brewers can take to safeguard vulnerable beer. Added preservatives may help prevent further bacterial growth in the finished beer, but they’re not silver bullets. Some developments are being made with chitosan from mushrooms, which is a natural antimicrobial additive that can reduce spoilage without affecting flavor. Heads up, chitosan is also a clarifying agent. Chemical preservatives like sodium benzoate or potassium sorbate are biostatic, not biocidal (they’ll prevent microbial growth, but they won’t kill what’s already in the beer) and also are most effective at lower pH ranges that are typical for NA beers. None of these preservatives provide license to be loose with the process upstream. An abundance of microbes or other sediment will just lead to an NA beer that ages poorly and creates off-flavors over time. Removing unwanted particulates with a centrifuge or filter before pasteurization is a better path. Regardless of how alcohol is prevented or removed from the beer, the packaging and finishing steps are most critical for quality, safe NA beer. Tunnel pasteurizing packaged beer after filtering is the standard for safety. Flash pasteurization leaves the finished beer vulnerable to potential contamination from packaging equipment and materials, as well as whatever may be floating in the air in the time the can is filled before it’s seamed. The entire production process is only as effective as the last step.

It’s a package deal

Once the beer leaves the brewery, it’s out of the brewers’ hands, but it’s still their liability. As with all beer, cold chain storage is ideal, but with NA beer the continued possibility of microbial growth is still a concern, especially at warmer temperatures. Draft options, while rarely seen in the NA market for good reason, create additional points for contamination. Draft systems are target rich environments for beer spoilers and their inherent lack of (or low level of) alcohol make NA beers especially vulnerable. Even if the beer was packaged in a sterile manner, spoilers can be introduced when the beer is put on the draft system. (When was the last time you had a regular beer on a dirty draft line?) Some breweries like Athletic have created draft test markets for certain NA brands, but these limited engagements are closely monitored with select partners, and employ far stricter than normal line-cleaning routines. Others are experimenting with replaceable/disposable draft lines and short-draw systems. All of these options require vigilance on the part of the brewery and the retailer. Throughout the production process and after the beer has left the brewery, brewers must maintain and document a rigorous program of testing to identify traces of microbial growth.

Growth in the NA segment may be enticing, but there’s an entirely new mindset that must be adopted to make these beers safely. Is NA brewing right for your brewery? Honestly, probably not.