A bit of history
Dry Jan is here so … whether you are part of the 35% of American doing it or not, there’s going to be a lot of talks about it. And if you’re more into “Sober October” or “Tournee Minerale” in France and Belgium all I’m going to say is still valid.
Abstinence is nothing new. There’s been many historical times during which the consumption of alcohol was forbidden. Think about Prohibition in USA (1920-1933), in Canada (1918-1920), in Finland (1919-1932) or the very intense pressure from Temperance organizations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries (mostly in English speaking, protestant countries). I’m Belgian and as far as I remember, I have never known any prohibition.
Brewing non alcoholic
Dry Jan is a different story though, in the sense it is a personal decision! A kind of lifestyle personal challenge whichever way you take it. In all disclosure I never do it. I just feel like my consumption is about right so…
Let’s clarify the concept of “non alcoholic” first. For most people, non alc beer is… beer without alcohol. But how much is that? Yeah that feels like a dumb question but look in UK Alcohol Free must be below 0.05%abv, while dealcoholized can go up to 0.5% and low alcohol must be below 1.2%abv. In USA you can claim non alc if your beer is <0.5%. In Mexico you could go up to 0.9% vol.
Anyway! If you want to know a bit more about how non alcoholic beers are produced, have a look at the infographic I built below. There are many ways to brew non alcoholic beers and fundamentally it’s all about preventing the production of alcohol (while trying to get all the other “fermented” flavors we love) or figuring out a way to remove the alcohol after fermentation without removing all the other tasty things. This is also true for non alcoholic wines and ciders!
With the growing interest for the non alc category, new technologies have emerged but fundamentally they keep using a form of ethanol separation and flavor recovery systems which are based on distillation and membrane separation (reverse osmosis, diafiltration,…). BevZero, AromaPlus Pro and BrewVo are 3 interesting examples of modern technologies playing with combined technologies.
Another big difference from the past is that brewers are designing beers for non-alcoholic instead of taking a beer from their portfolio and removing its alcohol. By designing a different beer upfront, brewers can define the sugar profile in particular which is key in the metabolism of ethanol.
My favorites
Let’s be honest, I don’t know anyone exited by the idea of non-alcoholic beer but maybe we are still all living with the memories of what we tried long ago. There’s been so many improvements in the art of producing awesome non-alcoholic beers that I truly recommend you give it a go. Not only they are way better but also there’s choice. Compared to what was on the shelves 10 years ago – just your regular pils in a non-alcoholic version – there’s now a plethora of choice covering just about every beer style, from IPA’s to Stout!
And that makes a hell of a difference. Instead of trying to be at best as good as your “reference product” (Say Heineken 0,0% versus Heineken) you can be a fantastic non alcoholic beer that doesn’t compare to anything (but the general expectation people have from beer).
Here’s a mouthwatering selection of non alc beers from breweries dedicated to the craft of non alc beer!
Athletic Brewing (USA)
Established in Stratford, Connecticut, in May 2018, Athletic operates now also in San Diego, CA and in a brand new facility in Milford, CT since 2022.
By far the #1 non alc craft brand, it ranked second-fastest growing food and beverage company (and 26th overall) in the U.S. in 2022.
They brew all possible styles of beers you can think about in their non alcoholic form aka less than 0.5%abv.
Big Drop Brewing (UK)
Big Drop was launched in October 2016 by the-then City lawyer Rob Fink, along with his school-friend/band-mate, designer and entrepreneur, James Kindred.
Their beers already collected awards in most of the world serious beer competitions which tells a lot. The wide-range of beers includes Stout, Lager, Pale Ale, IPA, Brown Ale, Golden Ale, Winter Ale and a Sour… at 0.5%abv.
Bravus Brewing (USA)
The range of Bravus beers is produced in Anaheim CA. Seem to be the first Craft brewery dedicated to non alcoholic.
Wellbeing Brewing (UK)
Another brewery dedicated to non alcoholic in UK. Their range is smaller but some great beers dealcoholized with a vacuum distillation system.
The next NA ?
As I said previously, I don’t drink non alc beers. When I want to drink something that doesn’t contain alcohol there’s so much choice available that I don’t really need to stick to beer but it’s a fascinating category and I can see many other ways to rethink the category:
- Build beer from scratch. Many studies published by TUM (Munich University) in particular identified the top 40 / top 20 components needed to create the taste and mouthfeel of beer (out of the 10000+ different molecules present in beer). Yet, to date I have not yet tasted a synthetic beer that was anywhere near real beer.
- GMO yeast. Yeast producing plenty of fermented flavors but none of the alcohol. Spoiler alert… GMO yeast is already in the market, Omega yeast for instance distribute Cosmic Punch, a GMO yeast that produces tons of flavors (and alcohol).
- Selective Resin Absorption of all aromatic components during distillation (and fermentation)… To recover everything but the alcohol. Could that be a thing?
- Completely rethink the non alcoholic beer concept. Could we simply design a product that is based on grains and/or hops, that brings people together, is accessible, affordable, easy to understand, instagramable, innovating, crafted…. but doesn’t need to taste like beer? Well, there’s one I can think about that is growing very fast these days…Hop Water.
