Low Carb Beer, is it just an advertising gimmick to get more ladies to drink beer? are they using it to tell people they can drink more for the same kilojoule cost? does it actually even exist? Unfortunately we have to answer yes to all three of these questions. Shall I explain, bear in mind I have nothing against Low Card Beer.
The first two can be can be summed up in 2 words Increased Sales. Lets face facts, beer drinkers are predominantly men nothing new there but like the NRL and AFL, beer companies have just recently discovered there's a whole other sex out there that are not naturally inclined to like their products and this has them scrambling to grab as much of this emerging market as they can. This is why we are seeing pink beers, brewery's owned, run and marketed by and to women and the real reason behind the emergence of Low Carb Beer.
Lets not forget the section of the population that are actively dieting, watching their figure or have been fooled by advertising into thinking they can drink Low Carb Beer because it has less kilojoules than regular Beer. Unfortunately this is only partly true, while yes they have less carbs they generally have the same or higher percentage of alcohol and this is where they kilojoules are coming from. This also leads to people drinking more as they think 1 full strength beer = 2 or more Low Carb Beers.
Now here's the figures, Low Carb Beer has between 1 -2gm of carbs per 100ml, normal Beer has 3- 3.5gm carbs per 100ml soft drinks average 10gm carbs per 100ml. This answers our third question, yes they exist but are they better for you, you will need to decide that for yourself. As for me if I was going to choose on a health basis it would be full strength beer in moderate amounts.
So how do they make Low Carb beer, well there are several options the brewer can use and to understand these we need to go Beer nerd for a minute. It's all to do with the mash temperatures but it starts with malting the grain, barley or wheat kernels are soaked in water and allowed to start to germinate, before the plant breaks out of the kernel it is heated up and the germination is halted. At this stage the kernel has turned all the food available to it inside itself into starches. The malt is then roasted to different degrees, a light roast lots of fermentable sugars, a dark roast less fermentable sugars and lots of unfermentable sugars.
We then use this malt in our brews,we place the malt into the mash (really just soaking the malt in hot water for anything up to 90mins) and if we mash low 60 - 63*c we get mostly fermentable sugars and if we mash high 67 - 70*c we get mostly unfermentable sugars. Now as it suggests fermentable sugars are eaten by the yeasts and turned into alcohol, therefore the more you turn into alcohol the less there remains in the Beer as carbs, and its the same the other way round. Most brewers strive for a balance as those unfermented sugars are generally what gives a beer its body or fullness. So a Low Carb Beer is one that will have fermented all the way out and generally be a bit thinner in mouth feel / body than full strength. Some brewery's have been known to add fungus derived enzymes to the mash to convert any left over starches into fermentable sugars to help get rid of those carbs.
Now I ask myself, is it really worth it. Well as home brewers we can produce Low Carb Beers but I don't think they are as nice as normal beers but for the big brewery's it obviously is, Low Carb Beers outstrip all other beers in sales growth and unfortunately that's all they care about.
Go on brew your own
cheers and beers
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