dealcoholisation
Spinning cone column
Strip alcohol from finished beer at low temperature by running it as a thin film over rotating cones against a gas flow.
Also called spinning cone, centrifugal distillation.
What is actually happening
- Beer in at the top. Finished, full-strength beer enters the column and flows downward under gravity.
- Spread into a film. Alternating fixed and rotating cones throw the beer outward and inward in turn, spreading it into a film a fraction of a millimetre thick. The contact area is enormous compared with a heated tank.
- Gas passes upward. Vapour travels against the flow and carries volatiles away. Because the area is so large, this happens in seconds at low temperature rather than by heating a bulk volume — which is the whole reason the method exists.
- Two passes. Characteristically run twice: a first cool pass to capture aroma compounds, a second to remove the alcohol, and the captured aroma returned afterwards.
The third route to alcohol-free beer, alongside vacuum distillation and reverse osmosis, and the one that goes to most trouble to protect aroma.
Beer flows over a stack of cones, alternately fixed and rotating, which spread it into a very thin film with a large surface area. Vapour passes the other way. Because the contact area is enormous, the separation happens at low temperature and in seconds rather than by heating a bulk volume.
The characteristic use is two passes: a first at very low temperature to capture the volatile aroma compounds, a second to remove the alcohol, and the captured aroma returned to the dealcoholised beer afterwards. That is the step the other methods have no direct equivalent of.
BeerHQ records the method and does not attribute it to any particular product. Which route a brewery uses is a product fact, and a product fact needs a product source — the taste of a beer is not evidence of how it was made.
Styles where this step is decisive
- Alcohol-free pale lager
A pale lager produced at or near zero alcohol, now the largest and most refined part of the no-alcohol category.
- Alcohol-free IPA
An alcohol-free beer built around heavy dry hopping, since hop aroma is added after fermentation and survives the process intact.
- Alcohol-free stout
An alcohol-free dark beer where roasted grain does most of the work — one of the more successful conversions in the category.
Related steps and concepts
- Vacuum distillation — The route it competes with.
- Reverse osmosis — The membrane alternative.
- Arrested fermentation — The route that removes nothing.
Also at the dealcoholisation stage
Arrested fermentation · Maltose-negative fermentation · Reverse osmosis · Vacuum distillation
See the whole process in order on how beer is made.
Last reviewed 2026-08-16.