B fizz - A Beer? Everything you need to know about it.
In the Indian market, the B Fizz is a famous product which people are very unclear about its category and its nature. B fizz is a carbonated fruit based juice which people have much confusion about, like is it a beer, does it contain alcohol? How is the foam stable like beer? What are the ingredients used in it and many more. Is B fizz a variant of Appy fizz ? What is malt flavour?
In this article you will be learning everything about B Fizz so let’s get into the content. Read until the end of the article to get more information about the B fizz, and I have added bonus content at the end of the article which will make your spent time here as valuable as possible.
What is B Fizz?
We all know Appy Fizz which is a crazy carbonated apple juice drink. B Fizz drink is a refreshing addition to the known Appy fizz drink (both are different brands though), where the B Fizz comes packed with a Bold Beer flavour with tingy apple taste.
There were other variants of Fizz, once available such as Grappo FIzz (grape fizz) and Frooti fizz, you guessed it Mango Fizz. But currently these are not available in the market.
What is malt flavour in B fizz?
The malt flavour is the flavour produced from the malted grains, where the grains are subjected to a process called malting. This can be seenin beer production in the late part of the article.
What are the ingredients in the B Fizz drink?
The ingredients in B Fizz drink are water, sugar, apple juice concentrate, carbon dioxide, acidity regulators, nature identical flavouring substances, preservatives, colours and antioxidants.
To know why these ingredients are added and what their roles are in the B Fizz drink click here. You can know every bit of information about B Fizz. Make sure to check it out after reading this article. Open it in a new tab so that you don’t forget.
Before knowing about how B Fizz drink gets its beer flavour, let us know how beer is produced and how Beer gets its ‘beer flavour’.
How does beer get its Beer flavour?
The process of Beer getting its flavour is a long task, to make things very short and not to get in detail about the technical aspects of the production and covering only the basic concept of beer production.
Basic ingredients used for beer production are water, malted barley/rye/wheat, hops and yeast.
Malt/Malted- product is a product which undergoes a process called Malting.
It involves two basic steps.
1). Malting
2). Brewing
1). Malting
What is malting?
Malting is a process of soaking, germinating and drying the grain to convert it into malt. Barley is the most used grain for malting, other grains and can also be added to produce mixed malted grains as well.
How is Barley Malted?
Malted Barley is produced from the Barley grain which undergoes the malting process. In this process the Barley is soaked in water and then is led to germinate, when the sprout appears, it is subjected to kilning (heating process) which stops germination.
This process is called malting and the product obtained is called malted barley.
Any grain can be used for malting and can be called malted ‘Grain name’. (grain name – barley, rice, rye, wheat..).
This malted Barley acts as a base ingredient for the production of beer.
2). Brewing
Brewing is the process in which the malt is let to steep which helps in infusion of malt flavour, adding hops and followed by fermentation.
For example:
Brewing coffee is where the flavour and other compounds of the coffee bean are infused to the water.
The brewing process starts by milling the malted Barley or malt by hammer mill or any other type of milling equipment followed by mashing.
The obtained malt flour is further mixed with hot water and is stirred such that the compounds from malt barley are infused into water.
The mashed grains (solids) are removed by filtering and then it is moved into another container. The water infused with the malted barley is called ‘Wort’.
The wort liquid is heated, along with it, ‘hops’ are added. The hops are added in order to give the bitterness to the Beer. Then wort and hops are allowed to boil for a few hours, then cooled down and strained.
The yeast is added in order to start the fermentation process which leads to the production of alcohol. This is how beer is produced.
Based on the alcohol percentage and type of fermentation the Beer is named accordingly.
So how does beer get its flavour?
The beer thus produced gets flavour from the malted grain, hops added and the process it went through (fermentation). The chemical compounds present in the malted barley & hops are the reason for the flavouring of the Beer.
Chemical compounds are the reason for the flavour in every natural product; these chemical compounds can range from few to hundreds of them to give the authentic taste of that particular product. (Explained later in this article with example)
The naturally present chemical compound in the malted barley and hops followed by the fermentation process gives unique taste to the Beer. This is how the Beer gets its ‘Beer flavour’.
How does B Fizz get its Beer flavour?
As we can see the ingredients list of B fizz, the B fizz is not made up of ingredients such as malted barley or hops.
Still B fizz gets its exact taste and smell by the addition of Nature identical flavouring substances. There is no mention of raw ingredients such as malted barley or hops as base ingredients added to produce B Fizz.
These Nature Identical Flavouring substances are the reason for ‘Beer flavour’ in the B Fizz.
What is a Nature identical flavouring substance?
As we can see flavour in every product that can be a fruit or any other natural product.
The flavour is produced by chemical compounds present in them which range from a few in number to hundreds in number.
The specific compound which gives the utmost exact flavour of a particular product can be chemically made in a laboratory to produce flavour that is identical to the original flavour.
As they are not made by the exact number of chemical compounds like it is found in nature. One or few chemical compounds are used and so they don’t taste as exact as found in nature.
And that is the reason the nature identical flavourings give near identical flavour and not the exact flavour.
For example
Vanilla
Vanilla is obtained from Vanilla pods, the Vanillin and other chemical compounds gives the rounded vanilla flavour. Vanillin is the main chemical compound gives the most in the vanilla flavour.
This same vanillin compound can also be made in a laboratory and can be used in products which can mimic the vanilla added to it.
Since the Vanilin is present in nature, we also have added the same chemical compound produced artificially in the laboratory and as it is identical or similar it shall be called as Nature identical flavouring substances.
In other terms it is a replica of what is in nature but made in a laboratory.
1). Is B fizz drink a beer?
As per FSSAI rules,
Beer is a fermented alcoholic beverage made from barley malt or other malted grains, sometimes with added things like wheat, maize, corn, rice or other cereal crops, and with hops or hop extracts to impart a bitter taste and flavour.
On the other hand B Fizz contains no malted grains added as an ingredient. Only Flavouring substances are added which are just chemical compounds to mimic the Fermented beer flavour along with Hops for the bitter taste of the beer. From this we can conclude that B Fizz is not a beer.
Key point:
B Fizz is not a beer. It is a carbonated water based flavoured drink.
2). Does B Fizz drink contains alcohol?
No, B fizz contains 0% alcohol. In other words, B Fizz has zero percentage of alcohol.
It is a carbonated water based fruit juice which comes under Non-alcoholic beverages or also called as Soft drinks.
If a product even contains low alcohol or is alcohol free, then it comes under Alcoholic beverages.
How can we confirm B fizz is not an alcoholic drink?
It is clearly mentioned that it is a non-alcoholic beverage. This can be confirmed by looking into the ‘product category’ of B Fizz.
B fizz comes under carbonated water based flavoured juice drink and thus it is a soft drink and not an alcoholic or alcohol-free drink.
Not only with this product, people can refer to any product under which category the product comes in with the Food category code provided by FSSAI.
Just type food category code FSSAI in google search or click here to get redirected to the food category code page:
B fizz has mentioned it is a fruit juice based drink which comes under category 14.
Under which we can refer with the nature of the product, which is it is carbonated – where it is found in the category 14.1.4.
You can also find the product category by typing the FSSAI license of the product in this link Welcome to Food Safety Register (fssai.gov.in) to know what products are manufactured by the manufacturer and the particular product’s category.
Key Point:
B fizz is not an alcoholic beverage. B fizz contains 0 % alcohol. It is a carbonated water based flavoured drink.
Bonus content:
A product can be called an ‘alcoholic beverage’ only if it contains 0.5 % of alcohol. And in case it is a beer- alcohol free beer, the alcohol percent should be 0.0 %. And the beer should be categorized under Alcoholic beverage even though it contains no alcohol.
3). How is the B Fizz drink foam so stable than the other carbonated fruit beverages?
At first, we shall know how the beer gets its foam and how it is stable?
The foam formation is made by aeration, followed by the activity of the proteins and the chemical compound from the hops.
Now considering the B fizz, the possible ingredients that might cause the foam and its stability can be from the listings below
- The Foam stability can be possible because of the added Acidity regulator (E 331 (iii) – Trisodium citrate) as it can also help in stabilizing the foam in the B Fizz.
- The Foam stability is also possible if isohumulone (hops flavouring) is added as flavouring to the B Fizz. This ‘Isohumulone’ is the chemical compound that is the reason behind the bitter flavour and foam stability of beer. It is from the added hops in Beer.
Note:
These can be the possible ingredients that can help in the formation of foam. These are not exact reasons for the foam stability. This assumption is made because these ingredients are not found in Appy Fizz and these ingredients suit the case (Appy Fizz don’t form foam like B fizz). We are open with suggestions from people; let us know in the comments.
4). Difference between B fizz drink and Appy Fizz Drink? B Fizz Vs Appy Fizz
There is no major change in the ingredients list of both Appy fizz and B fizz. The changes between Appy fizz and B fizz is very few which I have listed below:
- Appy fizz contains more Apple juice concentrate of about 1.9%, B fizz contains about 1.5 % of concentrated Apple juice.
- Appy fizz contains three preservatives (INS 211, INS 224 and INS 202) whereas B Fizz contains only two preservatives (INS211, INS 202).
- B Fizz contains three acidity regulators (INS 296, INS 330 and INS 331 (iii)) whereas Appy fizz contains only two (INS 296, INS 330).
- B fizz contains two colouring agents (INS 150 d & INS 102) in them, whereas the Appy Fizz contains only one (INS 150 d).
- B Fizz contains two Nature identical flavouring substances (Malted barley (fermented), Hops) whereas Appy fizz contains only one Nature identical flavouring agent (Apple).
These are the major differences between the ingredients of B Fizz and Appy Fizz.
Hope you all guys came to clarity about B fizz and Appy fizz, if you find this article useful share it with people who need to know about these packaged products.
If you have read until here you’re one such gem that truly is interested in knowing about food products in detail. Don’t forget to check out the full review where each and every detail of the pack is covered as much as possible. Links are given below:
Rajesh Murugan
B.Tech Food Technologist, Published on February 16, 2022