We all know instant coffee, but how about instant beer? Well, a 500-year-old German brewery, ‘Neuzeller Klosterbräu’ has made just that. Beer lovers, rejoice.
It really is made in the same way as instant coffee or protein shakes. By simply adding water to 45g of powder, you create the same amount of beer as you would buying a 1kg bottle. Obviously, this could have incredible environmental benefits. Manager Stefan Fritsche says, “We have calculated that, if we now relate this to Germany, we can save about 3 to 5 percent of the CO2 emissions for Germany alone. And if you look at it globally, that would be about half a percent of CO2 emissions worldwide that we could reduce.”
From what we can gather right now, the beer is non-alcoholic but they are confident that they will soon be able to add alcohol and carbon dioxide in powdered form too. It’s worth saying that this isn’t only one type of beer either because Stefan says they can powderize any beer and are looking to share this method with other breweries… so your favourite beer could soon be bought from powder!
Of course, the taste has to be right, especially in Europe where beer is extremely popular and drinkers may be sceptical of its powdered form. But, with greener solutions always being searched out, could this be the future of beer?
To begin with, the brewery will target Asian and African markets where there is less of a traditionalist mindset over beer, and where the environmental transport benefits are even more relevant. It doesn’t look like a European arrival is any day now – the head requires a milk frother at the moment, and the alcohol isn’t ready to be added just yet, but with the taste pretty much there, it might not be far off.
So, what do you think? Would you give powdered beer a try? Or do you think it's sacrilege to mess with the traditional brewing process? Reach out on social media and let us know!
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