Ethanol fermentation of fresh sugar beet mash (SBM) could give a benefit on reducing energy input for sugar diffusion, juice separation, and water evaporation as used in conventional practices, thus offering promise as a low energy process. Actions of cell-wall degrading enzymes provide a mash with low viscosity, which can be easily fermented to ethanol. However, a several-fold higher enzyme loading was required for viscosity reduction of SBM compared with that of potato mash. In this study, the use of dilute alkali treatment (0.025-0.15 N NaOH, 25 degrees C, 1 h) in enhancing enzymatic viscosity reduction of SBM was evaluated. The results showed that higher NaOH concentration enhanced demethylation and deacetylation of SBM, resulting in greater performances of the enzymes on reducing viscosity. Efficient enzymatic viscosity reduction of SBM was observed with the 0.1 N NaOH treatment. On the other hand, untreated SBM was highly resistant to viscosity reduction, even though a 20-fold more enzyme loading was used. The resulting mash containing 12-13% (w/v) sucrose yielded 7-8% (v/v) ethanol after 24 h of fermentation (90% efficiency). Accordingly, alkali treatment can be applied for facilitating the use of fresh sugar beet for ethanol production. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.