Does Brewing Beer generate Methanol?

The question is: Does brewing beer generate methanol?

Brewing beer is not a source of chemical methanol or even produces a tiny amount of Methanol. The only kind of beer that could contain trace amounts of methanol is fruity because of the pectins found in fruit. But, the amount of methanol found in fruity beers isn’t harmful to your body because it is comparable to the amounts found in wine.

Injecting enzymes or grains into the wort in the mashing procedure can produce minimal methanol production. However, the amount of methanol produced is not a factor in the body or beer after consumption.

One way that the yeast in brewing could produce methanol is via pectins. Pectins are present in fruits but not grains, so malty grains beers aren’t affected by Methanol.

However, some fruity beers contain very little Methanol in the exact quantities as wines, so in beers made from fruit, Methanol should be one of the lowest concerns.

Methanol, however, is a severe issue for distillers. If you do not set the right temperature during the boiling process, you could produce an extremely high amount of methanol which could cause blindness, or other health problems, such as death. This is why moonshine distillation at home and other distillation techniques for alcohol is prohibited and legally illegal in most countries.

Injecting enzymes or grains into a wort may result in very little Methanol because phenols are made from the above sources, which happens by an oxidation-reduction process.

The reaction was slowed by performing this under acidic conditions and boiling the mash before placing it in the fermentation vessel. To put things in perspective, Methanol generated from these sources is so tiny that it can be ignored entirely.