Why No NA Beer?

Breweries talk cost, demand, and safety when it comes to making non-alcoholic beers

Back in Dry January, we set out to find a local non-alcoholic beer and found…almost nothing. While alternative sips like seltzers and hop waters are common Up North, NA beers akin to Athletic Brewing or O’Doul’s are tough to find on taproom menus.

Within the last decade, the U.S. has witnessed a significant shift in drinking culture, as the younger adult generation—in particular, Gen Z and Millennials—have drifted away from alcohol consumption. Though there’s no definitive reason for this, experts point to a host of factors, including health concerns (the Surgeon General recently called for updating warning labels on alcohol products), competition from other substances like marijuana, and the rise in well-made NA alternatives.

“People are just drinking differently,” says Rick Schmitt, co-owner of Stormcloud Brewing Company in Frankfort. “It’s important to recognize that craft brewers are also doing things differently because that’s what consumers are asking for.”

What’s blocking the local NA beer funnel, and what would it take to crack it open?

Brewing Tech

According to northern Michigan craft brewers, the answer is nuanced.

In the U.S., the non-alcoholic beer movement began around the 1920s—though the actual production of NA beer is hundreds of years older than that—when beverage powerhouse Anheuser-Busch began boiling its beer to remove the alcohol in response to nationwide Prohibition.

This technique for producing NA beer is what Tyler Glaze, chief operations manager of Short’s Brewing Company in Bellaire, calls the “old traditional way,” and though effective, the result is a beverage that tastes “cooked” and generally isn’t all that delicious, a stigma which still follows NA beer for many drinkers.

As equipment advancements hit the beer-brewing scene, so did better and tastier methods of producing non-alcoholic suds. Key strategies here include vacuum distillation (boiling, but at a much lower temperature)—a process brewers can take a step further by fractionating alcohol distillates before separately reintroducing flavor—as well as reverse osmosis, which essentially acts as a dealcoholizing filter.

A drawback to reverse osmosis is that it often limits production to light-bodied brews, like lagers and pilsners, as more robust or hazy styles would foul the filter by getting clogged. “I would never try to push a wheat beer or flavorful IPA through that process,” Glaze says.

The latest innovation—one that could be a game changer—was the introduction of specialized yeast that has put non-alcoholic beer production within reach for small-scale breweries, including the team at Short’s. During typical fermentation, yeast is introduced to a beer wort (malted grain and water), which chomps away at the sugars, leaving alcohol as a byproduct and imprinting on the beer’s final palate. These special NA strains, however, produce very little alcohol, while still packing a serious flavor punch.

“It’s so much easier, it tastes great, and your style isn’t limited to a certain type,” Glaze adds.

It’s Not Easy Being NA

With options like this now available, why haven’t more northern Michigan breweries hopped on the NA-beer bandwagon?

For starters, “Making a non-alcoholic beer is incredibly expensive to do,” says Schmitt, and often requires large-scale equipment and facility space that many breweries can’t justify. From this perspective, systems like reverse osmosis look especially attractive, as they can multitask by contributing to other beverages, like seltzers, from alcohol and water byproducts.

Safety is also a critical concern. Alcohol is a preservative agent, which, among other things, helps safeguard traditional beer from contamination by foodborne pathogens like salmonella and E. coli that can seriously sicken the drinker.

“If we make an NA beer, we have to ensure that it’s going to be safe for a consumer to drink,” Glaze underscores.

Brewers can’t always do that if their product is going out to other bars and eateries, where they can’t control the service environment or the integrity of the tap system, which can actually compromise an NA beer if the taps haven’t been cleaned properly. It’s for this reason that Short’s flagship NA beer, Total Consciousness, is only available onsite.

There’s also the law to think about, which, per Schmitt, prohibits Michigan pubs in possession of the common microbrewery license to serve beer they didn’t make. So, rather than selling creations from NA brewers, this has also contributed to the stronghold of other less-intensive NA alternatives, like hop waters, in the regional market.

Schmitt adds that the Michigan Brewers Guild, the trade organization for the state’s craft beer industry, is working toward dismantling the law prohibiting microbreweries from selling outside products, including NA inventory.

Who’s Drinking?

For breweries weighing in on whether or not to take the NA beer plunge, the audience those products might speak to is another key consideration.

Though our sources collectively note an overall increase in zero-proof beverage demand, Short’s marketing and brand director Christa Brenner stresses that a typical NA beer consumer belongs to a different crowd than those practicing a sober lifestyle. This is because most NA or “near-beers” aren’t totally zero-proof. Per Michigan laws, they can contain up to 0.5 percent ABV.

As Brenner points out, that’s often too much of a gamble for sober consumers or those committed to personal challenges, like Dry January or “Sober October,” when products like sodas and hop waters tend to shine. Those looking for a lunch beer, or to reduce but not eliminate alcohol (cue the compromise of “Moist January”), are more likely to experiment with an NA beer offering.

These two consumer categories, however, still account for a very small minority of overall craft brewery sales. Consequently, there hasn’t been much to report as far as NA impact on taproom traffic, excluding typical dips in barroom business during the winter season.

Staying Power

As for whether NAs are here to stay? The answer is a resounding yes.

“I don’t think [they’re] going anywhere,” says Sales and Marketing Director at Beards Brewery in Petoskey Emily Hengstebeck. “As a category, it has so much intentionality, and that importance resonates with consumers—both as a great option for so many folks, but also as a high-quality product.”

So far, local sales support this notion. Data from Short’s reflects a 60-percent jump in their Thirst Mutilator hop water alone throughout the last year, and their NA brew Total Consciousness has recently taken up permanent residence on the pub’s mainstay tap.

Beard’s Brewery’s also offers hop water, called Michigan Hop Water, crafted with copper hops, and Stormcloud is in the midst of the development process for a low-ABV beer.

Glaze also hints at a potential retail shift, which could make packaged NA products more widely available. “When that happens, that’s going to open the door to a ton of craft breweries making more packaged NA products for the shelves, which I think will be a big trend moving forward.”

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