Yeast Free Alcohol – What types of alcoholic beverages do not contain yeast?

Yeast, for most people, is a safe bacterium that is the main ingredient in an enormous amount of food eaten every day in the United States. Yeast leaves bread, curdles cottage cheese, and ferments wine, beer, and any other alcoholic beverage. But for some people, medically prescribed diets limit all yeast intake. This can be devastating for those who enjoy a bottle of beer or a glass of wine, as there seems to be no alcohol without yeast.

So is there such a thing as alcohol without yeast?

All alcoholic beverages are fermented during the brewing process. This fermentation is what makes alcohol present in beers, wines, whiskeys, etc. For this fermentation to take place, yeast reacts with oxygen and alcohol is the product. This means that in order to have an alcoholic beverage, yeast must be present.

However, the fact that yeast is used in the production of alcohol does not necessarily mean that there is no alcohol without yeast. Wineries, for example, ferment their drinks with yeast. But through various distillation processes, including rigorous filtration procedures, almost all yeast residue is removed from the finished product. This is to ensure that the wine is clear, colourful, tasty, fragrant and that no further reactions continue inside the bottle. If there were still yeast bacteria present in a finished product, the yeast would continue to react and make the wine too alcoholic and ruin the flavor.

However, for beers, vodkas, bourbons, rums, and other spirits, great care must be taken, especially if the alcohol is imported. Some breweries aren’t as particular about yeast content as wineries are. In Russia and the Czech Republic, for example, vodkas and beers are not pasteurized and contain significant amounts of active yeast bacteria. The drinks take on a very different flavor as they age inside the bottle.

However, by law, all domestic beers must be pasteurized and filtered. This means that all domestically brewed drinks, such as Budweiser or Captain Morgan, are examples of yeast-free alcohol.

I recommend that you consult a doctor before making any changes to your current diet. I am not a medically trained doctor and cannot speak to each person’s tolerances; Not all types of alcohol can be treated as yeast-free, regardless of law or probability.