Abstract: A process of preparing a liquid hop extract suspension or a liquid hop extract is disclosed, comprising: (a) providing a hop material selected from hops, dried hops, hop pellets and combinations thereof; (b) combining 100 parts by weight of aqueous liquid with 1-20 parts by weight of the hop material to produce a hop suspension containing at least 95 wt. % water; (c) maintaining the hop suspension at a temperature of 8-40° C. for at least 1 hour to produce a liquid hop extract suspension; and (d) subjecting the liquid hop extract suspension to solid-liquid separation to produce a liquid hop extract and hop residue. A method of producing a packaged carbonated low alcohol beer having an alcohol content of 0-1.5% ABV with the liquid hop extract suspension or the liquid hop extract is also disclosed.

Abstract: The invention provides a method of producing a low alcohol beer, comprising the steps of: providing an alcoholic malt beverage; subjecting the alcoholic malt beverage to a de-alcoholization step to produce a low alcohol malt beverage; adding hops to the low alcohol malt beverage in an amount of at least 10 g/hl to produce at least 10 hl of a suspension; keeping the suspension between 1 hour and 20 days at a temperature between ?2 and 43° C. to produce a low alcohol beer; and optionally subjecting said low alcohol beer to a filtration step. This process results in a low alcohol beer which has a surprisingly good taste profile. Also provided is a low alcohol beer that is obtained by the aforementioned method.