How to Make a Non Alcoholic Beer: Brew Recipe & Instructions

Experienced brew geek Bryan Samoy explains how to make a non alcoholic beer. He shares a recipe for a zero-alcohol blonde ale, using traditional all-grain techniques, and explains how to bring it all together.

Ever wondered if you could enjoy a pint of beer without feeling tipsy? Yes, nondrinkers can grab a beer (or two) without having to sabotage their sobriety. Thanks to non-alcoholic beer, we can now enjoy the same great taste without the whole ‘I think I’m drunk’ experience.

Alcohol-free beer is enjoying a warm reception, especially from those who wish to rock a healthy lifestyle. It’s no surprise that these days, more and more folks are reaching for the non-alcoholic option at social gatherings or corporate events.

In this post, we’ll spill all the details on how to whip up your very zero-alcohol beer, with step-by-step instructions on how to make a non alcoholic, from all-grain and extract kits.

This article assumes that readers have some home-brewing experience with brewing. If you don’t, you might like to go back and read these articles first:

• How is Alcohol Removed from Beer?
• Non-Alcoholic Beer Brewing Ingredients 101
• Non-Alcoholic Beer Brewing Equipment 101

How Non Alcoholic Beer is Made (Recap)

Traditionally, removing alcohol can be achieved by heating the beer to evaporate the low-boiling point ethanol. The downside? It tends to mess with the flavor of the beer.

Thankfully, brewers have uncovered some pretty cool techniques to craft non-alcoholic beer without sacrificing its great taste.

Considered by many homebrewers as the most doable approach in crafting non-alcoholic beers, distillation is the go-to method for both micro and commercial brewers. It’s a physical process where they effectively separate the beer’s various elements in a mixed stream based on their boiling point.

Some brewers turn up the heat to the boiling point of alcohol to distill the steam. Alcohol easily evaporates, given that it’s got a lower boiling point than water. Unfortunately, heating beer dissolves its aroma and flavor.

Thanks to high school chemistry, we now know that heating beer at low pressure helps keep its delightful taste intact while evaporating its alcohol. Not only does this method get rid of the beer’s alcohol, but it also leaves us with brews that yield high-quality flavors.

If you want to read more about the different alcohol removal methods, check out my previous article on how alcohol is removed from beer. For now, let’s get into brewing.

How to Make a Non Alcoholic Beer at Home

Prepare Your Brewing Stuff

Alcohol-free beers are stealing the spotlight from our favorite regular brew these days, and for good reason. So, whether you are a seasoned homebrewer or just dipping your toes into the craft, we’ve got your back on making your very own non-alcoholic beer. But before you dive into learning how to make a non alcoholic beer, you’ll need to gather all your supplies.

Essential Equipment

If you’ve already tried brewing, chances are your stash is loaded with all the gear you’ll need to start this brewing adventure. If you are just starting out, consider grabbing a home brewing starter kit first. It will include all the basic equipment you need and help you get familiar with the whole process of fermenting beer.

So, besides the hot water and fermenting jug, you’ll also need:

• Brew kettle
• Oven or stovetop
• Brewing spoon or paddle
• Bucket fermenter
• Thermometer
• Hop bag
• Grain bag

Essential Ingredients: Non Alcoholic Blonde Ale

This recipe is for a refreshing Blonde Ale, brewed using the all-grain method. If you’ve never brewed all-grain before, see the note further down.

How to Make a Non Alcoholic Beer with Specialty Yeasts

One technique for how to make a non alcoholic beer is to use specialty yeasts designed for brewing low alcohol and non alcoholic beer. For this recipe, you can substitute the yeast with one of those, to further limit the alcohol content. Learn more in our article on low alcohol brewing yeasts.

Never Brewed Beer from Grain? No Problem.

Never brewed beer using the all-grain method? No worries! You can take the easy route when first learning how to make a non alcoholic beer, and use a kit (liquid extract, canned extract) to craft your batch of non-alcoholic beer instead.

First, find a quality Blonde Ale extract kit such as Black Rock Pilsner Blonde or Coopers Canadian Blonde. Follow the instructions on the extract kit to brew your beer as normal. Then jump to Step 2 (Alcohol Removal) to learn how to make a beer non alcoholic.

How to Brew a Non Alcoholic Blonde Ale Beer

Step 1: Brew Beer Like You Always Do (All-Grain Method)

Keen to know exactly how to brew a non alcoholic beer? Kick things off just like you would with a regular batch of beer. Keep in mind that the recipe you pick makes all the difference. I suggest snagging a can or two (or six!) of your favorite brew, as it’s all about taking your sweet time and savoring the moment.

Go for one that uses complex sugars such as dextrins. Why? Because it cannot be fermented by the beer yeast and turn it into alcohol. It also helps add body to your beer.

Here’s a heads-up: steer clear of recipes that call for cornstarch. They are a source of easy-to-ferment simple sugars that can turn into small doses of alcohol.

If you want your beer to have that killer combo of more body and less alcohol, crank up the heat while mashing the grain. Aim for 160°F, and let it soak in for an extended period.

1… Steep Your Grains

Steeping requires soaking the milled grain in water. Wrap the grains up in a grain bag. Fire up the stovetop and fill a brew kettle with 5 gallons of water. Once the temperature reaches 150°F, gently lower the grain-filled bag into the water and mash it for 60 minutes.

After 60 minutes, raise the temperature to 160°F for 10 minutes.

Take out the grains, sparge it with some pre-warmed water, and then let it all drain. Once the water is completely drained, remove the grain bag.

2… Drop the Hops

Raise the wort to a boil and throw in the hops at the suggested hop schedule.

Adding the hops at various stages adds a layer of complexity to your beer. Sure, throwing in some bittering hops would do the job, but your brew will be missing that special touch. When you toss some aroma hops into the mix, you add a whole new dimension to your beer.

Adding hops early in the boil gives it that bitter kick; mid-boil brings in the flavor, and the hops added at the end of the boil create an aroma. So, please make sure to FOLLOW the suggested hop schedule.

3… Cool the Wort

When you mix water, grains, and malt extract, you get this magical concoction known as wort. Many home brewers plop their kettle into an ice bath to cool the wort down immediately.

The wort needs to be properly cooled down so the yeast can survive and perform effectively in turning your creation into the awesome beer it’s meant to be.

The quicker you cool your wort down to the yeast-friendly 68°F, the less chance of contamination by bacteria and wild yeast. Plus, you end up with way less DMS (an off-flavor in beer) in your final brew.

DMS (Dimethyl sulfide) is a sulfur compound that can mess with your beer’s taste, especially if it shows up in big amounts. I remember the time I slacked off on cooling my wort fast enough, and my beer ended up with a hint of sourness. Luckily, I was brewing a porter, and the coffee vibes managed to cover up that off-flavor (wink, wink.)

The absolute top-notch and most sanitary way to swiftly cool down from boiling to perfect pitching temperature is by using a wort chiller. It does the trick by exposing your wort to circulating cold water. Trust me, they are way more efficient than the old cold-water bath method because they create a much bigger cooling surface area.

REMEMBER TO SANITIZE ALL EQUIPMENT BEFORE YOU START FERMENTING.

4… Get the Wort Ready for Fermentation

Pour your cooled wort into the fermenter, add water to hit the 5-gallon mark, and give it a good swirl. Make sure the yeast gets the oxygen it needs to aerate and turn that liquid into beer.

Homebrewers understand that giving the wort some oxygen is vital to nailing the fermentation process. Aeration is just stirring (or, in my case, shaking profusely) the wort so the yeast can thrive and multiply during fermentation.

5… Add Yeast

Pitch the yeast into the fermenter with the wort. Oh, and don’t forget the golden rule of brewing – sanitize everything – including the scissors, before you snip open the yeast pack. Gotta keep everything (and the beers) clean for your drinking buddies, you know.

6… Stash Away Your Beer

Lock up that fermentation container and tuck it away in a cool, dry spot. Wait two weeks for the beer to ferment and transform into that perfect combo of CO2 and alcohol.

Once you have your brew, the next step is to strip away its ethanol content.

Step 2: How to Make a Beer Non Alcoholic (Alcohol Removal)

Working out how to make a beer non alcoholic is our first major challenge. Taking the booze out of beer requires skills, and brewers have some tricks up their sleeves. Some use the time-tested method of boiling off the alcohol, while others swear by fancy filtration techniques like reverse osmosis. There’s even the option of vacuum distillation and a few other unique methods.

To break it down, you can remove alcohol from beer in two ways. One is boiling the beer. The other involves tweaking the brewing process to limit the fermentation of wort into alcohol and CO2. We’ll go for the easiest one, which we believe is the boil-off method.

The Distillation / Boil-off Method

Boiling the alcohol off is the most commonly used method in crafting non-alcoholic beer. Flashback to our days in chemistry class days, when we were told that alcohol has a lower boiling point than water.

In this method, we heat up the beer to 173°F (78.3°C), burning off its alcohol content until it reaches the desired 0.5% ABV.

Advantages of the Distillation / Boil-off Method

This method is a homebrewer’s dream because it’s the most accessible and requires the least gear. Perfect for those who don’t have the space for a microbrewery in the backyard.

Drawbacks of the Distillation / Boil-off Method

The only downside with the boiling method is that the beer can taste flat, missing the flavor complexity we love in our brews.

But, with a few precautions and a dash of patience, homebrewers can craft some fantastic-tasting non-alcoholic wonders, be it an alcohol-free IPA, a stout without the buzz, or any other beer type that will have you thinking why you didn’t brew it this way sooner.

How to Remove Alcohol with the Distillation / Boil-off Method

So, you’ve learned the art of brewing your own beer, but it’s been two weeks since you last touched your brewing gear. Remember the golden rule of brewing, “sanitize, sanitize, sanitize.”

Although the temperature we heat the beer to is around pasteurization temperature at which most microorganisms should be killed off, it’s better to be safe than sorry and sanitize your gear anyway, just in case you don’t destroy them all from heating alone.

Equipment and supplies:

• Your freshly brewed, fermented beer
• Very large stainless steel pot or brew kettle, with lid*
• Equipment to transfer beer into pot or brew kettle, such as an auto-siphon
• Fan for ventilation
• Dairy thermometer – they are precise and cover the required temperature range

Safety note:

Alcohol fumes can be dangerous. Ensure your room is well-ventilated with several open windows/doors and a fan positioned to blow the alcohol fumes outdoors. Avoid breathing in the fumes, and if you feel light-headed or unwell, turn off the heat and leave the room immediately.

Here are the steps for making alcohol-free beer using the boiling method:

Take a peek at your brew. You’ll notice that it’s sitting on a layer of trub now. This sediment is just a mix of hop residue, dead yeast, and leftover malt. Totally safe to drink, but not really the tastiest. When you transfer the beer into the boiling pot, try to leave as much of the trub in the fermenter as possible. We just want nice clear beer in the kettle/pot.

1. Grab your freshly brewed, fully fermented beer.
2. Transfer the fermented beer into a trusty stainless steel pot or brew kettle. While transferring the beer, aim for as little splashing as possible, to prevent oxidation. Leave the trub (the mucky, yeasty layer) in the fermenter – you don’t want that.
3. Put your thermometer on the pot and fire up the heating process to a cozy 175°F (80°C). You’ve got options here: use the stovetop or toss it in the oven.
   • Stovetop: Heat the beer for about 15-20 minutes.
   • Oven: If you’re using an oven, warm it up to the lowest setting. Slide in your brew kettle for 20-30 minutes. This way, the beer heats up evenly, keeping its flavor consistent.
4. Turn off the heat, put a sanitized lid on the brew kettle/pot to prevent unwanted bugs or bacteria landing in there, and let it cool down completely.

*You can use an electric brewing system, such as a Grainfather, Digiboil or Brewzilla, if you have one. Once you’ve transferred your beer into the pot, set the temperature and let it go.

Step 3: How to Make a Non Alcoholic Beer Carbonated (and Bottling)

One of the other major challenges is working out how to make a non alcoholic beer that is carbonated. Non-alcoholic beers can be a bit flat because when we do the process of boiling the alcohol out, it sometimes takes some of the original brew’s flavor and aroma with it. And you’re left with a non-carbonated drink since carbon dioxide was also discharged during the process.

To re-carbonate your beer, we have two methods: natural or forced carbonation.

Natural Carbonation

Now you’re probably wondering, how to make a non alcoholic beer with natural carbonation? The problem here is that the yeast is killed off during heating, which we need for natural carbonation to work. If you pick natural carbonation, you must throw in some additional yeast with the priming sugar before bottling.

Natural carbonation will cause the alcohol content to increase slightly, but the increase is pretty negligible (approx. 0.5% abv increase).

Force Carbonation and Kegging

Or, you can choose to force carbonate by simply shooting some carbon dioxide straight into your keg. That’s a topic too complicated to cover here, but there are some great resources on how to keg and force carbonate beer around the internet that you can check out. If you’re curious about how to make a non alcoholic beer following the force carbonation method, check out this beginners kegging guide from KegLand.

For the next bottling steps, we’re going to use the ‘natural carbonation’ method since that is most accessible to newbie home brewers. If you’ve made beer before and already have a kegging and CO2 system at home, you know what to do.

How to Bottle Non Alcoholic Beer at Home

Before bottling your creation, make sure to sanitize anything that will come in contact with your beer.

Here’s a list of the things that you’ll need for bottling your non alcoholic beer:

• Your freshly brewed non-alcoholic beer
• Bottling bucket with spigot (view example bottling bucket here)
• Auto siphon (to transfer beer from fermenter to bottling bucket)
• Bottling wand (to bottle beer from the bottling bucket spigot)
• Beer bottles – plastic with caps, or glass
• Bottle crown caps (for glass bottles only)
• Bottle capper (for glass bottles only)
• Priming sugar
• Extra packet of yeast
• Boiling water

Step 1: Prepare the Priming Solution

Here is a simple priming solution recipe with yeast added. Priming sugar calculations can be complicated. A loose rule of thumb is 5 oz sugar to 5 gallons beer, but some brewers report this as being too high, causing exploding or swollen bottles. So, we’re going a bit lower: 3.5 oz per 5 gallons.

Remember, the yeast is a special addition in this non alcoholic beer recipe because we killed the yeast when we heated the beer to remove alcohol. Extra yeast isn’t normally added. The priming sugar can be regular table sugar or dextrose (corn sugar) designed for brewing.

Method:

A quick tip: activate the yeast before bottling because dormant yeast takes longer to carbonate. Remember to sanitize all equipment.

1. Place sugar and boiling water in a jug, and stir until dissolved.
2. Cover the jug with a lid, and cool the solution down to 68°F (20°C).
3. Add the yeast to the solution, allow it to rest for 10 minutes to activate, then stir well.

Your priming sugar solution with yeast is now ready to use.

Step 2: Setting up Your Bottling Bucket

Racking is the process of moving your beer away from the trub. In this recipe, we did it first when we moved the beer from the fermenter to boiling kettle/pot. We’ll do it again now, by transferring the beer from the fermenter into the bottling bucket. Pouring your creation into a bottling bucket fully allows you to mix your beer and priming solution. This allows the yeast to further carbonate your brew once in the bottle.

Add your priming solution into your empty bottling bucket, and ensure the valve is properly closed. Now, grab your auto-siphon and insert it into your bucket fermenter.

Stick your siphon in your beer about 3 inches deep – deep enough to let the liquid flow, but not too deep it stirs up the trub. Move it deeper as the beer makes its way into the bottling bucket.

Tips for moving beer from the fermenter to the bottling bucket:

• Keep an eye out when you are close to the trub. Keep in mind no one wants sediment in their drink.
• Move your siphon and bucket fermenter to the side and shift your focus to the bottling bucket. You may adjust the bucket to crack open the valve and slide in a beer bottle.
• Make sure your tube is long enough that it can rest within your bottling bucket. No splashing. We want our beer to slide smoothly as it enters.

Step 3: Bottling the Beer

For the most efficient way to bottle, get yourself a bottle filler (aka bottling wand). Attach it to a short length of tubing to your bucket’s spigot.

How much priming solution per bottle?

A standard 5 gallon (19-20 liter) batch of beer yields approximately 48 bottles, when using regular 12 oz beer bottles. To calculate the amount of priming solution per bottle, weigh your priming solution and simply divide by the number of bottles you have. In this example, 20 fl oz (600mL) priming solution would equal 0.42 fl oz (12.5mL) priming solution per bottle (48 x 12 oz bottles).

How to bottle the non alcoholic beer?

1. Sanitize and line up your beer bottles on the benchtop.
2. Add some priming sugar solution to each bottle (see note above).
3. Fill the bottles using the bottling wand. Leave around ¾ inch at the top to give your beer some space to breathe.
4. Cap the bottles; if using glass bottles, see note below.

Bottling with glass bottles

Gently pop the cap onto the bottle, then grab your capper and position it on top of both. Put equal pressure on the capper handles and pull down to the side of the bottle. Crimp that cap on, and you’ve officially sealed your first beer!

Allow the bottled beers to age in a cool, dark place for 4-6 weeks or longer, then crack one open and enjoy.

Congrats – you’ve just worked out how to make a non alcoholic beer!

Final Tips on How to Make a Non Alcoholic Beer

Non-alcoholic beers are making waves worldwide, and for good reason. They are an excellent option for those who enjoy a cold one but are steering clear of alcohol or embracing a healthier lifestyle. Plus, they actually taste pretty amazing.

Working out how to make a non alcoholic beer well takes a bit of time, but it’s totally doable, and the best part is that there’s no need for any fancy gear. The key is to start with a killer beer recipe and then work on extracting the alcohol from the beer.

Now that you have a good idea of how to make a non alcoholic beer, keep learning with more brewing tips in our Non Alcoholic Beer Ingredients 101 article and choosing and using the right equipment in our Non Alcoholic Beer Equipment 101 article.

Cheers!

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