The strong coupling constant is determined from the leptonic branching ratios, the lifetime, and the invariant mass distribution of the hadronic final state of the τ lepton, using data accumulated at LEP with the ALEPH detector. The strong coupling constant measurement, αs(mτ2) = 0.330+/-0.046, evolved to the Z mass yields αs(MZ2) = 0.188+/-0.005. The error includes experimental and theoretical uncertainties, the latter evaluated in the framework of the Shifman, Vainshtein and Zakharov (SVZ) approach. The method allows the non-perturbative contribution to the hadronic decay rate to be determined to be 0.3+/-0.5%.
