Guinness launches alcohol-free version after four-year bid to replicate its distinctive flavour
- Guinness launches alcohol free version after working on it for four years
- The Irish brewer will add a cold filtration stage at the end to remove the alcohol
- Draught Guinness 0.0 is due to be available in pubs as soon as the new year
Guinness has launched a new alcohol free version of its famed stout after a four-year endeavour to replicate the same taste.
The Irish brewer says Guinness 0.0 is a response to a growing consumer appetite for non-alcohol, lower-calorie beverages.
The product was developed by an innovation team based at Guinness’s brewery at St James’s Gate in Dublin.
The Irish brewer says Guinness 0.0 is a response to a growing consumer appetite for non-alcohol, lower-calorie beverages
Aisling Ryan, one of team’s lead brewers, said ‘hundreds and hundreds’ of versions were tried until they finally landed on one they were happy with.
She said: ‘It’s been a long time in the making’.
‘We’ve been working on this for over four years now, so it’s really exciting to get to this stage and finally get it outside the gates.’
The early stages of the brewing process mirror those of standard Guinness, with the same main ingredients used – water, barley, hops and yeast.
The key difference is the addition of a cold filtration stage at the end to remove the alcohol from the brew.
Ms Ryan said finding a way to take out the alcohol in a ‘gentle way’ without using heat was crucial in maintaining the Guinness taste.
‘Removing alcohol can be quite harsh and a lot of non-alcohol beers out there compromise on flavour,’ she said.
‘It’s not easy when you take away the alcohol to be left with a beer that has the quality we deem essential at Guinness.
‘We knew from the start we didn’t want to put the beer under any thermal stress or to heat treat the beer to remove the alcohol.
Guinness insists the feedback from independent taste tests has exceeded expectations. It will initially be rolled out in off-sales in Ireland and the UK, with draught Guinness 0.0 due to be available in pubs from the new year
‘We looked at a lot of different technology solutions to be able to do that and we’re really happy with the one that we landed on because there’s no compromise on the quality at the end.’
Guinness insists the feedback from independent taste tests has exceeded expectations.
Five years ago, Guinness trialled an alcohol-free malt-based drink in Indonesia in response to the introduction of stricter drink laws in the south east Asian country.
Guinness 0.0, which is destined for a worldwide market, is a different product created with a different recipe and process.
It will initially be rolled out in off-sales in Ireland and the UK, with draught Guinness 0.0 due to be available in pubs from the new year.
A global launch of the product is pencilled in for next summer.