Glossary
De-alcoholisation
Removing alcohol from finished beer, principally by vacuum distillation or by membrane separation such as reverse osmosis.
Also called dealcoholization, alcohol removal, vacuum distillation, reverse osmosis.
The full record
De-alcoholisation has its own catalogue entry with the detail this page summarises — causes, thresholds, related styles and evidence.
Vacuum distillation — Remove alcohol from finished beer by distilling under reduced pressure, so ethanol boils off at a temperature low enough not to cook the beer.
Vacuum distillation lowers the pressure so ethanol boils at a much lower temperature — around 35 °C rather than 78 °C — which removes it without cooking the beer. Aroma compounds are stripped alongside it and are often captured and returned afterwards.
Reverse osmosis pushes beer against a membrane that passes water and ethanol but retains larger flavour molecules; the permeate is then distilled and the water returned. It runs cold, which is gentler on flavour, and it is correspondingly more expensive.
The alternative approach avoids removal altogether: arrested fermentation stops early, and maltose-negative yeasts such as Saccharomycodes ludwigii ferment only simple sugars and so cannot produce much alcohol in the first place. Each route has a characteristic weakness — arrested fermentation tends to leave a sweet, worty character, removal tends to leave a thin body.
Related
- Alcohol-free — The labelling tier this produces.
- Arrested fermentation — The alternative approach.
More vocabulary
Arrested fermentation · Barrel ageing · Batch sparging · Biotransformation · Blending · Bottle conditioning · Bottom fermentation · Burtonisation · Cask conditioning · Centrifugation
See every term on the glossary index.
Last reviewed 2026-08-16.