Nonalcoholic beer is still a tiny portion of the market, but its growth represents an opportunity for breweries to attract new customers. And while much of the equipment used to make NA beer is expensive and beyond the reach of most small breweries, specialized yeast strains are affordable—and brewers know how to use them.
However, making an NA beer worth drinking isn’t as simple as pitching an NA yeast. That’s why researchers at the University of Arkansas decided to test several no- and low-alcohol yeast strains, collecting insights that brewers can use.
“Most of the leading research into nonalcoholic yeast strains has been led by [AB InBev] and Heineken,” says Scott Lafontaine, assistant professor in food chemistry. “We wanted to find strains for craft brewers.”
Lafontaine and his team evaluated 11 strains of commercially available nonalcoholic yeast stains. “This is one of the coolest research projects I’ve been part of,” he says.
Yeast labs have put out a variety of strains in recent years—along with recommendations on how to use them—but there hasn’t been much research comparing what’s available. “Information on commercial strains is generally limited to the yeast laboratories’ own websites,” says Andrew Maust, PhD student at the University of Arkansas under a Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship and coauthor of the study. “So our study provides an independent, third-party review that cuts across the entire yeast market.”
"When looking at the published literature, a lot has been published on new yeast, but not a lot on what is in the commercial market," says Maust.
Evaluating the Options
The strains the Arkansas researchers studied were: