Editing Low-alcohol beer (section)

==Production process==
According to the Birmingham Beverage Company, the brewing process of traditional brews consists of eight basic steps, nine for brewing non-alcoholic brews.<ref name=Brewing>{{cite web|title=Beer - The Brewing Process|url=http://www.alabev.com/brew.htm|publisher=Birmingham Brewing Company|access-date=11 August 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110730083824/http://www.alabev.com/brew.htm|archive-date=30 July 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref>

#Malting – Barley is prepared by soaking it in water and allowing the grain to germinate or "sprout". This allows the tough [[starch]] molecules to be softened and begin converting to sugars. Next, the sprouts are dried in a kiln; the temperature at which the sprouts are dried will affect the flavor of the finished brew.
#Milling – Next the malted grain is ground to a [[cornmeal]]-like consistency, which allows the sugars and remaining starches to be more easily released when mixed with water.
#Mashing – The finely-ground malted grain is mixed with water and pulverized. By pulverizing the slurry, most of the remaining starches are converted to sugars due to enzymes present in the malt, and the sugars then dissolve into the water. The mix is gradually heated to {{convert|75|C}} in a [[mash tun]]. The slurry is then filtered to remove the majority of particulates. This filtered sugary liquid is called "[[wort]]".
#Brewing – The wort is brought to a boil for roughly one to two hours. During this time, other grains that contribute flavor, color, and aroma to the brew are added. Boiling allows several chemical reactions to occur and reduces the water content in the wort, condensing it.
#Cooling – The wort is filtered to remove the majority of the grains and hops and then immediately cooled to allow the yeast to survive and grow in the next step.
#Fermenting – The cooled wort is saturated with air, and yeast is added in the fermentation tank. Different strains of yeast create different styles of beer. This step takes around ten days.
#Maturation – The freshly fermented uncarbonated beer is placed into a conditioning tank and, in a similar process to wine making, is allowed to age. If this step is rushed the beer will have an off flavor ([[acetaldehyde]]) that beer experts sometimes refer to as "green beer" because of its resemblance to green apples.<ref>[http://www.byo.com/stories/techniques/article/indices/8-aging/151-asking-the-age-old-question Scmidhausler, Gretchen. (March 2000). Asking the Age-Old Question. Brew Your Own] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120513051546/http://byo.com/stories/techniques/article/indices/8-aging/151-asking-the-age-old-question |date=13 May 2012 }}.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://howtobrew.com/book/section-4/is-my-beer-ruined/common-off-flavors|title=Common Off-Flavors - How to Brew|website=howtobrew.com}}</ref> During this process of aging, the majority of the residual particulates will settle to the bottom of the tank.
# Alcohol removal – Typical low- and non-alcohol beers go through an alcohol-reducing step right before finishing.
#Finishing – The beer is filtered one last time; it is then carbonated and moved into a storage tank for either bottling or kegging.

Typical low- and non-alcohol beer starts out as regular alcoholic beer, which is then processed to remove the alcohol.
* The simplest (and cheapest) method is to merely add water to it until the desired alcohol level is reached.<ref name="beer-advocate-criticism"/>
* Older processes heat the beer to evaporate most of the alcohol. Since alcohol is more volatile than water, as the beer is heated alcohol boils off first. The alcohol is allowed to escape and the remaining liquid becomes the product, in what is essentially the opposite of the process used to make [[distilled beverages]].
** Most modern breweries utilize vacuum evaporation to reduce the boiling temperature which better maintains flavor: the beer is placed under a light vacuum to facilitate the alcohol molecules going into the gaseous phase. If a sufficient vacuum is applied, it is not necessary to "cook" the beer at a temperature that destroys the flavor. Some heat must nevertheless be supplied to counter the heat lost to [[enthalpy of vaporization]].
* A modern alternative process uses [[reverse osmosis]] to avoid heating the product at all. Under pressure, the beer is passed through a polymeric filter with pores small enough that only alcohol and water (and a few volatile acids) can pass through.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-02-22 |title=How Is Non-Alcoholic Beer Made: The Complete Guide - One Club Sober |url=https://oneclubsober.com/beer-articles/how-is-non-alcoholic-beer-made/ |access-date=2023-10-09 |language=en-US}}</ref> A syrupy mixture of complex carbohydrates and most of the flavor compounds are retained by the filter. Alcohol is then distilled out of the filtered alcohol-water mix using conventional distillation methods. The water and remaining acids are added back into the syrup left behind on the filter,<ref>{{cite web |last=Horn |first=Jason |title=How Are Nonalcoholic Beer and Wine Made? |url=http://www.chow.com/food-news/53912/how-are-nonalcoholic-beer-and-wine-made |work=Chowhound |date=4 April 2007 |access-date=3 January 2022 |archive-date=15 August 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150815073424/http://www.chow.com/food-news/53912/how-are-nonalcoholic-beer-and-wine-made |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref name=John /> followed by the normal finishing process of carbonation and bottling.
* Another modern process is "dual-stage vacuum filtration". Flavor and aroma is captured first in a low vacuum stage, then the beverage is placed into an even lower vacuum until water and ethanol separate. The flavor, aroma and remaining beverage are then recombined to create a non-alcoholic stream of the input beverage (beer, wine, or cider), preserving the flavor, aroma, and color; the ethanol can be used to make a mostly flavorless [[hard seltzer]] base. In the [[United States]], the technology is classified as a "filter" by the [[Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau|TTB]], and therefore requires no additional permits or licensing.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Equalizer |url=https://www.abvtechnology.com/equalizer |access-date=2023-08-21 |website=ABV Technology |language=en-US}}</ref>

A different approach to making 0.5% non-alcoholic beer is to reduce the formation of alcohol in the first place, so that craft brewers do not need to pay the expense of having to dealcoholize a beer. Methods include using special low-sugar grains, yeast which converts less sugar to alcohol, or removing sugar from the wort before fermentation. These can be combined with limited fermentation, in which the fermentation process is stopped early.<ref>{{Cite web|date=4 January 2022|title=Does Non Alcoholic Beer Taste The Same? Plus the best ones to try. -|url=https://openingthebottle.com/does-non-alcoholic-beer-taste-the-same-plus-the-best-ones-to-try/|access-date=11 January 2022|website=Opening The Bottle}}</ref>