Dealcoholisation of beer

The market for Low Alcohol Beer (LAB) and Non Alcoholic Beer (NAB) is continuing to increase in many regions of the world. This increase in LAB and NAB consumption is due to stricter drink driving laws, health and religious reasons.  Spinning Cone Column (SCC) technology has been applied for a number of years now to produce better quality beer products and has also assisted brewers in continuing to grow this market by producing better tasting low alcohol beer.

For low alcohol beer (<0.5%abv) and light alcohol beer (0.5% to 2.5%abv) the SCC system is normally supplied with two SCC columns operating in series. The first SCC column is used for recovery of aroma and the second SCC column to remove alcohol. Returning the alcoholic aroma fraction recovered from the first stage back to the de-alcoholised beer imparts the full flavour of the starting material back to the finished beer. The same 2-stage SCC system can be used to produce a range of low alcohol and light alcohol beers with flavour add back by simply blending the de-alcoholised beer with some full strength beer.

For non alcoholic beer (<0.05% abv) only one SCC is used as it is not possible to achieve a final alcohol level of less than 0.05%abv with add back of alcoholic beer aroma.

In this manner, a clean, refreshing, non alcoholic beer can be produced without the undesirable cooked or over processed characteristics that are often associated with non alcoholic beers that are produced on other technologies.
 
The low thermal impact of the SCC system due to the low temperature and low and uniform column residence time of approximately 20 seconds ensures that the quality of the de-alcoholised beer base is optimized.

Benefits of the SCC system for production of LAB and NAB beers include:

• Gentle treatment of the beer
• Low energy consumption
• No requirement for separate degassing due to the unique design of the SCC internals
• High level of hygiene with proven CIP process 
• Flexibility of system (can be used to make both LAB or NAB with only minor adjustments to operating parameters)
• Ability to process beer with either yeast present such as Wiezen (wheat) beer, unfiltered beer or green beer
• Continuous process operation 
• Compact design due to mass transfer efficiency
• Modular design for future capacity increases
• Plant supplied as factory tested, complete modules
• High quality alcohol spirit produced as by product 

Click here to find out more about the Spinning Cone Column.