The brewing industry has a brutal environmental footprint. Billions of liters of water are transported to consumers around the world, mainly because beer is made up of up to 90% water. And as this huge industry strives to be greener, an alternative to reducing its carbon footprint is gaining ground: removing water from the equation. Or at least temporarily.

A company in Germany has announced that it has developed the world’s first powdered beer. Compressing this production process as much as possible will save costs and resources in the production process. In addition to reducing the weight of posts by almost 90%. The question is: does it taste good?

An envelope of beer. aspect Coke. After two years of research funded by BMW and the German Federal Ministry of Economy, Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle has developed a powdered beer that will hit the market this year. This drink, which the company calls “dry beer”, differs from other powdered beers launched in recent years in that it contains alcohol and is carbonated. “This is the world’s first complete beer in powder form and it could change the world,” said Stefan Fritsche, managing director of the brewery.

How does it work? The idea is very simple: add the powder, add the water, stir a few times and the beer is ready. In the future, will be produced in large factories and delivered to local water bottlers. They can then mix and bottle it with water and sell it locally as beer.

According to the company, this dextrin-rich beverage is processed into a water-soluble powdered beer. Dextrins are starch breakdown products that consist of a few simple sugar molecules and are found in beer. The powder should be mixed with carbonated water or, in exceptional cases, tap water before consumption.

How does it taste? Like beer, including alcohol and carbon dioxide and a layer of foam. Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle says the first beer tastings with powdered beer are promising. “It tastes a bit like malt,” said a reporter from the regional newspaper Märkische Oderzeitung. And it can be made with any type of beer: stout, light, pale ale, etc. This means that in the future breweries will be able to take these powder packets and add them to the beverages they serve to customers.

Because? Because one packet of powder corresponds to about 10% of the contents of a bottle. This significantly reduces delivery and shipping costs. “It’s time to test classic beer production and logistics in terms of how we treat our environment,” the company says. In addition, the energy crisis, inflation and glass shortage caused by the war in Ukraine put many obstacles in this market.

“In the case of Germany, we calculated that we could save between 3 and 5% in CO2 emissions for Germany alone. And if you look at that globally, that’s about half the CO2 emissions of the entire world. Of course, that’s not much at first, but it’s a huge amount all over the world,” explained the idea’s authors.

But it doesn’t work for everyone. It doesn’t make sense to import glass bottles, fill them with German juice, and then ship the beer to Africa, China or anywhere. According to the creators, it would only make sense for brewers supplying far-flung markets, and predominantly small and medium-sized local brewers, to continue to brew and bottle beer traditionally.

a sustainable trend. In addition to agriculture and refrigeration, most of the emissions associated with this sector come from the transport of drums and other bulky containers to market via existing infrastructure, which is not very green. That’s why brewers are exploring new packaging technologies, such as concentrating the beverage, to reduce shipping.

For example, a Colorado-based company called Sustainable Beverage Technologies (SBT) has developed a machine that produces a version of beer that contains much less water than usual. The system uses a “nested fermentation” process that removes the alcohol and adds a sugary liquid extracted from the mashed beans. This produces a viscous concentrate, which, together with the extracted alcohol, can be stored in separate bags and easily transported. After shipping, the alcohol is remixed with the concentrate (or excluded in the case of non-alcoholic beer), and the beer is rehydrated and carbonated before being bottled or served.

Image: Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle

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