# Effect of Production Technique on Pilsner-Style Non-Alcoholic Beer (NAB) Chemistry and Flavor
## 4 Conclusions  
Overall, it is clear from the results that the commercial pilsner type NAB produced from single liquid streams or production technologies (i.e., biological or physical dealcoholization) tended to achieve lower scores for taste, aroma, and overall harmony compared to products from hybrid/combined methods. NABs produced via physical dealcoholization tended to have the lowest aromatic profiles and were sourer, whereas the NABs produced with restricted fermentation were generally the sweetest and most worry. While this is evidence that the initial production method used to produce NAB has a critical influence on the resulting flavor profile, it does not mean that one technique should be preferred over the other. For example, physical dealcoholization techniques could be used to generate a base that would be more neutral in flavor which could serve as a blank canvas and be blended/adjusted with other streams to create a NAB with a more multifaceted taste profile. Additionally, pre- and post-processing steps were also determined to play significant roles in defining NAB flavor. For example, blending two liquid streams (particularly full-strength alcoholic beer) up to the legally allowable limit seems to be a practical approach to achieve NABs with multifaceted and more harmonious flavor profiles. Additionally, NABs containing detectable levels of hop aroma compounds were perceived to be the most harmonious by the sensory panel. Hops contain multiple volatiles (i.e., terpen, esters, thiols, etc.) [42; 43] that are directly extracted during dry-hopping and these volatiles can be far more flavor active than the volatiles which may be produced during the limited fermentation in NAB production via yeast metabolism (i.e., acetate and ethyl esters). Even low levels of terpen, terpen, and hop-derived esters were found to increase NAB flavor by compensating low levels of fermentation-derived alcohols and esters. This again shows that late kettle hopping and/or dry-hopping can serve as potential practical applications to improve NAB flavor. Given that fruity flavor profiles are not necessarily characteristic of the aroma profiles of pilsner style beers, brewers must consider how much hop aroma as well as which aroma qualities are acceptable to produce a NAB with their desired attributes. Nevertheless, brewers have a lot of flexibility in the flavors they can impart given the range of aromas that can be generated in beer from using the unique characteristics of single-hop varieties, blends of different hop varieties, and/or advanced hop products [34; 41; 42]. Additionally, because this study was specifically focused on evaluating commercial pilsner-style NAB available in the German market, as compared to the addition of natural/artificial flavoring which may be allowed in other countries but not Germany, dry-hopping has the potential to practically improve the flavor quality of NAB while still being in the bounds of the Reinheitsgebot (i.e., the beer purity law). Interestingly, the data presented herein suggest that additional compositional factors, other than just the presence of aldehydes, might also be responsible for the perception of worry character in NAB. For example, maltose concentrations were significantly positively correlated with the worry character, whereas pH, hop, and fermentation-derived flavors were shown to mask worry perception. Ultimately, it is up to the brewer to decide what techniques are the most suitable for them to produce NAB based on their existing infrastructure as well as which will lead to them to create products that will best meet their desired flavor profiles.