Finally, a Nonalcoholic Beer That Tastes Like, Well, Beer

(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- Just before noon at the O’Fallon Brewery O’Bar in Maryland Heights, Mo., the pub begins to fill with workers from nearby office parks. Scattered among the usual burgers and build-your-own flatbreads are more than a few pints of beer. This is a brewery, after all, in a suburb of St. Louis, the ancestral home of Anheuser-Busch.

A closer look at these midday libations, however, yields surprises. Among the standard lagers and India pale ales, the bar serves a Hellraiser dark amber to patrons who want to stay clear for the drive and alert for the afternoon—or just save a few calories. Although it looks and tastes like a craft ale, it contains barely any alcohol. The beer is one of four brews created in this building by the upstart WellBeing Brewing Co.

Opened in 2016, WellBeing says it’s the first North American brewery dedicated solely to the making of nonalcoholic, or NA, beer, a minuscule but fast-growing sector of the American craft beer industry. Younger consumers know of the bodily damage drinking causes; aging drinkers find that alcohol doesn’t mix with medications. Beverage Daily, a trade publication, has found that 84% of people who drink are looking to drink less.

Even though NA (0.5% alcohol by volume and below) and low-alcohol beers (2.8% ABV) constitute 5% of U.S. beer consumption, the “low-and-no” category overall grew at 5.2% from 2010 to 2016, says GlobalData Plc, an analytics firm—while the craft beer boom has slowed. Anheuser-Busch InBev SA/NV, the world’s largest brewer, predicts that low-and-no beer will grow from the current 8% of its sales to 20% by 2025.

Traditionally there have been two ways to make no-alcohol beer: either halt the brewing process before the sugars ferment, cutting short the period when beer develops its taste profile; or boil the alcohol off a finished batch, essentially scorching the flavor. Either way, what’s left is just plain skunky, too sweet, or too watery—have you actually ever tried an O’Doul’s? Enter Jeff Stevens, a marketing rep and recovering alcoholic who founded WellBeing after he grew tired of being the buzzkill at bars by ordering Diet Cokes.

Stevens brews his NA beer differently. In 2015 he found researchers at the University of Munich who’d developed a method of vacuum-distilling beer that lowers its boiling point, preserving the flavor. The result was an almost booze-free drink that had the texture and, most important, something approaching the taste of beer. He consulted with the brewers at O’Fallon, a regional craft mainstay known for a wide range of styles and experimental flavors, to formulate recipes and rented out a corner of its 39,000-square-foot factory. He ordered a vacuum distillation machine (they retail for about $800,000) and set to work.

Since then, Stevens has been joined by breweries such as Bravus Brewing Co. in Newport Beach, Calif., which does a nonalcoholic oatmeal stout akin to Guinness; Athletic Brewing Co. in Stratford, Conn., which markets its Upside Dawn golden ale to the marathon-running, Michelob Ultra crowd; and Partake Brewing in Toronto, whose blond is one of the few lagers in this space. Nirvana Brewery, in London, opened in 2017 as the U.K.’s lone craft supplier of low-alcohol pub draughts.

Some, like WellBeing, use vacuum distilling to remove the booze, whereas others, such as Bravus, manipulate the yeast to produce less ethanol. As with magicians, most brewers refuse to divulge their proprietary secrets.

Stevens’s flight is among the tastiest. At 68 calories per 12-ounce can, his flagship Heavenly Body golden wheat (0.2% ABV) is crisp, with the frothy texture of a Blue Moon. The Hellraiser (0.3%) could stand in for a Fat Tire based on how it maintains the malt and nuttiness of a dark ale. His Intrepid Traveler Coffee Cream stout (0.4%) won’t make anyone forget what a Samuel Smith’s tastes like, but it’s a robust treat with only 7 grams of sugar. Victory has enriched its citrus wheat (0.19%) with electrolytes.

WellBeing’s beers are already available in stores, and because the company isn’t bound by the interstate shipping restrictions placed on alcohol, it can mail its beers practically anywhere. The goal is to get retailers to move WellBeing off the NA shelves—what Stevens calls the “sad space.” Having conquered the basics of brewing, he now faces an arguably harder job: changing perception.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gaddy at jgaddy@bloomberg.net, Chris Rovzar

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