# Effect of Production Technique on Pilsner-Style Non-Alcoholic Beer (NAB) Chemistry and Flavor
## 3 Results and Discussion
### Assessing the Importance of Pre- and Post-Processing Decisions on Pilsner-Style NAB Flavor  
In agreement with [PERSON], [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] [18], pre-processing steps (ex. V2 work construction) and post-processing steps (ex. C9 and MI2; dry-hopping) also had a major influence on the resulting NAB flavor profile (Figure 2A). As stated previously, ABV concentration is a critical consideration in NAB production from a legal perspective. In this study, as ABV increased the NABs became more harmonious (i.e., as one moves from the bottom of the plot to the top right in Figure 2). ABV was also significantly correlated with overall harmony (Table 3). One can also see that the combined treatments generally performed better from an overall flavor perspective than the treatments made only utilizing one technology (i.e., biological or physical dealcoholization) (Figure 2). In practice, commercial brewers consider the blending of several liquid streams as a reasonable way to balance beer quality and achieve optimal product consistency. As reported by the brewers of the NABs in this study, many of the C NABs were produced by blending an RF, V, or M NAB with fully-fermented alcoholic beer. In comparison, for the production of \"0.0\" NAB, minor word and/or RF beer volumes are added to vacuum dealcoholized beer. Based on our discussions with multiple commercial brewers, for NAB production, the addition of up to 10% (by volume) of fully-fermented beer with 5.0% ABV has been suggested to yield more desired flavor profiles, whereas the addition of word or RF beer to vacuum dealcoholized beer for \"0.0\" NAB can be helpful to enhance mouthfeel, palate fullness, and foam properties. Although increasing ABV is not an option for products marketed as 0.0% ABV, blending in full-strength beer had a drastic impact on the resulting overall harmony, taste, and aroma qualities. For example, both C2 (i.e., a 0.0% NAB) and C6 were made by the same brewery but C6 was perceived to be more harmonious (Figure 2 and Table S6). These NABs represent a physically dealcoholized stream blended with either a NAB coming from a restricted fermentation (i.e., C2) or with a full-strength alcoholic beer (i.e., C6). Although 0.0% NABs are marketed/produced for specific reasons, such as religious, health, etc., the addition of full-strength beer up to the legally permissible limit (i.e., 0.5% in Germany) resulted in NABs which had more harmonious flavor profiles. This observation agrees with previous studies that showed NABs with higher ABV were more beer-like [16] and more preferred by consumers [15]. Interestingly, two NABs produced through combined treatments were relatively low in ABV (i.e., C7 and C3 containing 0.08% and 0.16% ABV, respectively). It remains unclear why the brewers of these NABs did not take advantage of the legally justifiable ABV margin (i.e., 0.5% in Germany). The flavor perception of these NABs might be further improved if they were simply blended with a higher percentage of full-strength beer. However, when developing products that require blending different streams; issues such as cellar capacity, achieving thorough mixing, colloidal stability, etc. are also unique challenges that brewers need to consider/overcome from a practical standpoint. Further, the impact of the chemical profile for the full-strength alcoholic beer to be used for blending (i.e., BU, concentrations of hop/fermentation volatiles, SO2, etc.) on NAB flavor should be explored further in future studies. The NABs with the most hop-forward chemical and flavor profiles, such as MI2 (i.e., the IPA) as well as C9, were also scaled highest in quality of taste, quality of aroma, and overall harmony (i.e., top right-hand quadrant Figure 2). Hop aroma was also highly correlated with overall harmony and bitterness quality (Table 3). Previous research has shown that consumers prefer NABs with hop-forward flavor profiles to varying levels [13; 18].