As some of you know, I am an avid homebrewer. And, I love my IPA’s and Pale Ale style beers. Sadly, they’re often high in ABV (alcoholic content), and as I get older, I want to appreciate what I drink and not have to worry about the hangover the next day if I have too many.
That is where my interest in non-alcoholic beers came from. Not wanting to compromise on taste and mouthfeel, I set out to see if brewing a low-alcohol beer (<0.5%) without compromise was possible.
And that is where I learned about speciality yeasts specifically for brewing non-alcoholic beers. Specifically, the Fermentis SafBrew LA-01. What better way to experiment than an extract recipe? Because who wants to spend a day doing an all-grain brew only for it to fail?
So, I messed around in Brewersfriend to create a non-alcoholic IPA recipe at 0.5% ABV called Lightly Hopped Session IPA. By the way, if you’re a brewer and not already using it, I highly recommend Brewers Friend, a comprehensive recipe and brew app I’ve been using for years.
The speciality yeast gives you quite a bit of grace regarding the ABV, but you must watch the grains you use and how much you use them. 225g for each grain for a 23L fermenter was the sweet spot for this recipe, but you can experiment with different quantities and grains.
In a future post, I will let you know how it turned out.
