Nitro Beer

Nitro is often associated with traditional breweries, but more and more craft breweries are adopting the nitriding method and adding this type of beer to their lineup. With unlimited alcoholic beverages available to beer lovers all over the world, brewers are always looking for the next breakthrough to provide a more enjoyable drinking experience. The use of nitrogen in food products, such as nitrogen for modified atmosphere packaging, nitro cold brew coffee, and nitro beer, has recently become very popular.

most beers have been infused with CO2 to create a lively bubbly effect. But, some brewers are replacing carbon dioxide with nitrogen, creating a different perspective on their favorite wines.

What Is Nitro Beer?

Nitro beers are beers made using nitrogen gas instead of carbon dioxide. Nitrogen-infused beer has a smoother, more creamy appearance and taste, due to the smaller bubbles created when the nitrogen interacts with the beer. These characteristic effects are due to the fact that nitrogen is insoluble in liquids, thus giving a “heavier” mouthfeel to those tasting nitrogen beers.

Carbonization And Nitriding

Using carbonation or nitriding to complete a winemaking process has its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, we have carbonation, a long-standing traditional method of making beer. Carbonation creates a beer with larger bubbles that provides a lively, rough feel on the tongue. By contrast, the nitrogen beer setup resulted in a beer with smaller bubbles than a carbonated beer.

The experts’ debate over which process creates a premium beer can’t be over anytime soon. When done right, either method results in a superb beverage that consumers rate based on their subjective expectations of how the beer will look and taste.

How Nitrogen Changed Beer

By combining a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide under high pressure, brewers can create nitro beer. Nitrogen is very resistant to dissolution compared to carbon dioxide, a property that is exploited to get beer with high barrel pressure but low carbon. Depending on the type of beer being nitrogenated, the pressure applied is different. For a dark beer, about 8 psi of pressure is enough to nitrogenize the beer.

The cascading effect seen in a glass of nitrogenized beer is due to different rates of dissolution when interacting with the beer liquid. When drinking, nitrogen bubbles are pulled to the sides of the cup, while carbon dioxide bubbles rise from the middle. Additionally, using a restrictor placed in front of the tap creates very small air bubbles in the beer you drink, giving it a thick, creamy head with a smoother mouthfeel and less acidity.

Gas Composition Of Nitro Beer

The gas composition of nitro beer is usually a mixture of 70% nitrogen and 30% carbon dioxide, known as “beer gas”. Nitrogenated beers have no oxygen, which allows them to keep their flavor longer because oxidation is minimized. When the beer is ordered, it is forced through a fine sieve and the beer smell mixture is forced into the beer. Nitrogen will remove carbon dioxide from the solution present in beer, producing a very carbonated beer.

Benefits Of Using Nitrogen In A Brewery

Also to the obvious shelf-life and taste benefits that nitrogen brings to beer, having an on-site generation system provides the brewery with a huge ROI and instant access benefits.

• Cost: Supplying nitrogen on-site can save 40-75% in gas costs compared to delivering nitrogen tanks or delivering carbon dioxide. Shipping rates for carbon dioxide and nitrogen vary, and depending on the brewery’s distance from the gas facility, the cost can be higher than other competing breweries. This adds to the expense and base cost of the beer.

• Can be mixed with CO2: When the recovered CO2 is not enough, the mixed gas of nitrogen and CO2 can be used, which is more cheap than using CO2 alone.

• Easy to use: It is not limited by the gas production of wine fermentation, and has the advantages of simple operation, quick start, and ready use at any time.