Aroma Can Make Alcohol-Free Beer Taste Like Your Favorite Brew

There are a lot of different reasons for drinking alcohol-free beer, but no matter what your reason is, you'll be hard-pressed to argue that they taste as good as a regular ale. That's largely because these drinks never went through the same brewing process as boozy beer, and thus lack the same properties.

Now researchers believe they have found a way to improve the taste of alcohol-free beer by giving them the aroma of a standard brew.

During traditional beer brewing alcohol acts as a chemical solvent for a variety of aromatic compounds - what gives a heady beer its distinct aroma. It has been argued by scientists and brewers alike that the aroma of a beer, released in the bubbling of its foamy head, actually heavily contributes to its taste. This could explain why alcohol-free beer, which lacks these compounds, just doesn't taste right.

So how do you get these aromatics into alcohol-free beer?  You steal it.

According to a study recently published in the Journal of Food Engineering, researchers from the University of Valladolid in Spain used a "pervaporation process" to recover some of the beer aromas that are normal only crafted with the help of alcohol.

"This technique consists in using a semipermeable membrane to separate two fractions from alcoholic beer: one liquid phase in which alcohol is retained, and another gaseous phase, where the aromatic compounds come in," study author Carlos Blanco explained in a statement.

He said that as soon as the aroma compounds are separated from the alcohol, they can be condensed and transplanted into non-alcoholic beer, making the beer taste better for anyone with a nose.

To prove their point, Blanco and his colleagues even presented two versions of the same low-alcohol beer to a panel of expert taste testers. One of the versions had been enhanced with the "stolen" aromatics, but it wasn't revealed which one.

Tellingly, 90 percent of the tasters preferred the enriched low-alcohol beer over its original factory counterpart.

The researchers admit that as things stand, the technique cannot yet capture all the aromas and tastes associated with alcoholic beers, however, they are hopeful about the future.