Drinks for Dry January

Biotech near beer

January is a time of asceticism for many, penance for December’s feasts, toasts, and eggnog binges. Some observe Dry January, a month-long alcohol sabbatical meant to reset tolerances and support healthy consumption choices. This endeavor has become much easier recently as a rush of high-quality nonalcoholic (NA) drinks styled like adult beverages have entered the market, claiming space on bottle shop shelves and cocktail menus around the world.

Thankfully, alcohol-free beer has gotten a lot better, and scientific savvy is the secret sauce. Chemist Dana Garves, founder of the contract analytical firm Oregon BrewLab, tells Newscripts that “companies have dialed in their processes and have figured out how to provide a beverage that is tasty both to the average consumer and the brewing professional.”

One trick, Garves says, is that imperfections make consumers perceive a beer as “real.” Brewers consider diacetyl, dimethyl sulfide, and 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol to be off-flavors, the products of poor technique. But in small quantities, beer drinkers associate the scents from these molecules with a genuine alcoholic beer, she says, and NA beer makers have learned to balance their professional pride with consumer acceptance.

Biotech ingredients offer another way to mimic the chemical subtleties that NA beers have historically lacked, especially the blends of aromatic and flavorful terpenes.

Normal beer extracts its terpenes from hops during long hours spent boiling and days or weeks spent fermenting. Brewers shorten or even omit those steps when making NA beer, though, because they’re trying to avoid conditions that will let yeast make alcohol, says David Shapiro, a food scientist at the synthetic biology start-up EvodiaBio.

The firm’s fix for that problem is a line of terpene concentrates it calls Yops, made by engineering terpene-producing enzymes into the peroxisomes of yeast cells. The biotech route lets the firm provide a consistent product without the seasonal variability and climate change risk of farming, Shapiro says, with a much smaller carbon footprint than growing hops and a cost similar to that of specialty hops or hops extracts.

EvodiaBio is one of several companies bringing new technology to the table, Shapiro tells Newscripts. “It’s amazing how much money and focus is being poured into nonalcoholic beer right now. It’s a really, really big deal in the industry.”

The spirit of temperance

Difficult as it may seem to remove the ethanol from a product that is 30% to 75% ethanol, alcohol-free liquor is a real and rapidly growing industry. Nonalcoholic (NA) spirits from brands such as Philters, Seedlips, and Ritual are now easy to find in most major US cities behind the bar at cocktail joints and on a growing shelf next to the mixers in high-end liquor stores.

As expected, some are skeptical that it’s even possible to make a spirit without ethanol. Tobias Emil Jensen is a food science engineer and founder of EtOH Spirits, a Danish start-up that uses analytical and process chemistry to accelerate the process of aging spirits. Aside from the inebriating effects, “ethanol is responsible for a cascade of important chemical reactions inside the beverage during aging,” he says, such as oxidation and esterification.

NA spirits will not replicate the experience of liquor-focused drinks like a martini or a snifter of whiskey, says Manish Shah, who launched Philters earlier this year as a sub-brand of his company, Maya Tea. Glycerol adds sweetness and body; capsaicin mimics some of the burn; botanicals and toasted oak bring in flavors and aromas—and the resulting potables perform well in cocktails, Shah says.

This Newscriptster tried a few NA spirits—for science, of course. Jensen and Shah are both right. Alone, they range from satisfying to unpleasant, with NA amaros most resembling their boozy counterparts. But mixed up right in a botanical, aroma-led cocktail such as a negroni or a long drink such as a Tom Collins, you’d be hard-pressed to tell anything was missing.

Please send comments and suggestions to newscripts@acs.org.