The NA Beer Boom is a Boon for Local Breweries

Move over Dry January and Sober October because non-alcoholic beers (and mocktails) continue to gain market share year-round. In fact, non-alcoholic beer keeps enjoying record growth year after year, up some 30% in 2023 for a reported market segment worth over $360 million. While one brand, Athletic Brewing, commands roughly one third of that market, it’s not surprising that larger craft breweries are investing heavily in the NA category, including three Bend breweries: Crux Fermentation Project, 10 Barrel Brewing and Deschutes Brewery, while several others are formulating NA beers or NA beverages such as “hop water” (hopped seltzers).

Credit: Courtesy Crux Fermentation Project

Whereas beer is brought to life via fermentation because yeast is very much alive, NA beers used to taste rather stillborn given that the fermentation process is arrested before alcohol can develop. In the category’s early days, every NA beer I tried tasted like dormant yeast cells lounging in a glass like a packet of Fleischmann’s soaking in plain LeCroix.

“This growing demand underscores the need for better tasting NA beer options,” says Tom Donda, director of media strategy at Deschutes Brewery’s public relations agency, Praytell.

10 Barrel’s senior innovation brewer, Shaun Kelso, says, “There are several different methods a brewer can use to make NA beer. Techniques include dealcoholization though evaporation, dealcoholization through membranes and arrested fermentation.” Try not hearing that in Ron Howard’s “Arrested Development” voiceover narration. “We use the arrested fermentation process (because) we feel (it) gives the beer a truer beer character since it goes through the fermentation process.”

Crux, whose flagship Gimme Mo IPA is built on Mosaic (hence the name) as well as Citra hops, boasts 6.2% ABV. Those same hops feature in NØ MØ IPA which boasts less than 0.5% alcohol. As a further selling point, there are only 3 grams of carbohydrates and 30 calories per can.

“We were looking to develop an NA beer that actually tasted like beer,” says Crux brewmaster Cam O’Connor. “We didn’t want any off flavors you find in many of these products.”

Launched in 2021, NØ MØ became Crux’s very bestselling brand halfway through 2023. The brewery has since expanded its NØ MØ line to include a hazy version hopped with BRU-1 and Sabro hops and the brand-new Galaxy Gazer featuring Galaxy hops from Australia. O’Connor says trials are underway for dark ale, red and gold ales, and even a fresh-hop version that should debut late summer. While the NØ MØ beers are brewed with Crux’s house yeast, each one yields the same ultra-low carb and calorie count, which consumer feedback indicates factors almost as much as the alcohol content (or lack thereof).

Kelso says 10 Barrel assigned him to develop N/A IPA in 2020 though it didn’t see the light of day until summer 2022. “When we first released our N/A IPA we watched people in our pubs ordering…and drinking it by alternating between regular beers. I’m told this is called a ‘betweener’…not to over imbibe.”

Kelso adds that 10 Barrel N/A IPA “is definitely gaining traction (and) we have a few recipes in our back pocket for future N/A styles. Possibly a N/A Sinistor in the future?”

Deschutes released its first zero percenter, Black Butte Non-Alcoholic, in 2022. Its NA porter was joined by Fresh Squeezed Non-Alcoholic last month. “Drawing on five years dedicated to non-alcoholic R&D,” says Dondo, “(Deschutes is) becoming the first brewery of scale to install Sustainable Beverage Technologies’ BrewVo technology, which allows them to gently remove alcohol from the beer while preserving all of the sensory elements.”

“Creating a product with less than (half a percentage of alcohol) and having it taste like a real beer without any off flavors is the most difficult (part),” says O’Connor. To my palate, IPAs and hoppy NA beers are even more difficult to stick the landing compared to NA stouts and other dark—or fruit flavored—near beers. The same is true for hop waters or brands like Hoplark hopped iced teas (available locally at Whole Foods). O’Connor says the key, simply, is, “Making sure we have the correct hops in the beer to get the most flavor impact from those hops.”

Concludes Kelso, “Introducing hops to an NA is a tricky one. Too much and you get grassy and harsh flavors. It’s a fine line getting the hop character you want with the delicate malt body NAs have. We feel we nailed it!”

This article appears in Source Weekly April 18, 2024.