Powdered Beer

[MrRING]

The Fortean drink of choice?
https://newatlas.com/lifestyle/powdered-beer

German monks create world's first powdered beer​

By Loz Blain
A monastic brewery in East Germany says it's created the first powdered beer. Just add water, and it'll froth up, complete with a foamy head and full flavor. The result promises massive savings on transport, because it can be shipped at 10% of the weight.
Klosterbrauerei Neuzelle worked together with "technology partners" and used funding from BMWi to create its first powdered product, a dextrin-rich zero-alcohol beer which has been brewed using conventional methods, then "processed and prepared into a water-soluble beer powder/granulate."
It's testing this powder on the market in small quantities until mid-2023, but the plan is to start making alcoholic beers soon, and scale things up – so long as people go for it. And the team believes there's a chance to ditch traditional brewing techniques as well, compressing the process to minimize the use of raw materials, labor and energy.
"The time is ripe to put classic beer production and logistics to the test in view of the way we treat our environment," says major Neuzelle shareholder Helmut Fritsche. “Billions of liters of water are transported to consumers worldwide, because beer consists of up to 90% water. From an environmental point of view, we are already saving on transport, but not yet on the use of resources and the costs of production.”

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I thought this might be an April Fool but it seems that powdered alcohol - palcohol - has been around for decades!

It has never caught on - indeed there are concerns that it could be snorted and injected . . .

 

[Tunn11]

Or swallow the powder and down a pint of water........

 

[charliebrown]

Coors Beer openly admits it ships it beer as concentrate which saves a huge amount of money in shipping costs.

At the destination plant just add water and mix and then bottle.

No one knows the difference.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

I gather the same is true of Nigerian Guinness, which is made from a Dublin concentrate, though I think the fermentation is done at the destination. Oddly, some of it is then imported into the UK, where it competes with the similar Dublin-brewed Foreign Extra Stout.

I had never imagined these concentrates as powders. I learned of palcohol today, for the first time!

I must have missed this playful Guardian article in 2014!

 

[Tempest63]

Coors Beer openly admits it ships it beer as concentrate which saves a huge amount of money in shipping costs.

Now all we need is powdered petrol/diesel or some similar concentrate to reduce the shipping costs of fuel and bring down the price per litre.

 

[kamalktk]

Let me just add some dehydrated water.

 

[His Extremely DeLux Self]

It has never caught on - indeed there are concerns that it could be snorted and injected . . .

And I'm sure it would be, too. Hell, I'd sample a line or two of Palcohol if the opportunity presented itself.

 

[Ogdred Weary]

I thought this might be an April Fool but it seems that powdered alcohol - palcohol - has been around for decades!

It has never caught on - indeed there are concerns that it could be snorted and injected . . .

As a kid I had a books of "Everyday Life in the 16/17th C" I forget which but one of them made a passing reference to traders selling small cubes of "dried beer" which would then be added to water.