London, Nov 5 (IANS): Do you find alcohol-free beer tasteless? Do not fret. Researchers have developed a technique that extracts aromatic compounds from regular beer, then add these to alcohol-free beer.

For this, scientists used a special beer with 5.5 percent alcohol and another reserve beer with 6.5 percent alcohol from which they extracted three aromatic compounds: ethyl acetate, isoamyl acetate and isobutyl alcohol.

They then added these substances to low-alcohol and alcohol-free beers.

A panel of experts tasted them.

Nearly 90 percent of tasters preferred enriched low-alcohol beer instead of their original factory counterparts and this percentage rose higher for alcohol-free beer.

"This technique uses a semi-permeable membrane to separate two fractions from alcoholic beer: one liquid phase in which alcohol is retained, and the other gaseous phase where the aromatic compounds come in," said lead researcher Carlos A. Blanco from the University of Valladolid in Spain.

"Then, this gaseous phase can be condensed, the aromatic compounds extracted and added to non-alcoholic beer," he added.

The alcohol in beer acts as a solvent for a variety of aromatic compounds.

When it is eliminated, as in non-alcoholic beers, the final product loses aromas and some of its taste.