In a World first, Lithuania’s AF Alaus Darykla (AF Brewery) has pioneered a technique of making beer from just air and water. The equipment used in this process looks reminiscent of the apparatus that brought the monster to life in Universal’s 1931 film of Mary Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’ and literally, through sparks and alchemy, sucks one methyl (-CH3) group, one methylene (-CH2-) group, and one hydroxyl (-OH) group of molecules out of the air and combines them to form C2H5OH – Ethanol, or Ethyl Alcohol. The alcohol is then collected in small vessels (the process is extremely power intensive and only produces very small quantities). How the malt and hop character is obtained is nothing short of ingenious. Jets of the produced alcohol are literally squirted at super-high speed through compressed blocks of the desired hops and malts. The velocity of …
