No/Low ABV Beer Trends

I recently attended the 2024 World Brewing Congress (WBC). The WBC is a joint meeting of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas, the American Society of Brewing Chemists, the European Brewery Convention, the Institute of Brewing and Distilling, and the Brewery Convention of Japan, and occurs once every four years. This year, over 800 attendees from 22 countries convened in Minneapolis, Minnesota, to talk about beer and brewing. The discussion of developments in non-alcoholic (NA) beers was one of the topical highlights of the 2024 WBC. Although the NA talks focused on methods and concerns specific to beers containing less than 0.5% ABV, the broader topic of NABLABs (non- and low-alcohol beers) covers beers up to 1.5% ABV.

Technical brewing meetings are a venue where brewing scientists share research, brewers share process advancements, raw material suppliers share advances and concerns about our supply chain, and where attendees listen and think about the future. Getting away from day-to-day workplace fires, routine emails, and phone calls is a nice escape that allows attendees to absorb, riff, and chat with colleagues over a few beers into the wee hours of the morning. A veritable beer nerd heaven!

One of the ideas I took away from the 2024 WBC is that NABLABs, particularly non-alcoholic beers, or NABs, are growing and will likely continue doing so for the foreseeable future. This is a space where breweries with financial capital and technological resources are set up to make the biggest gains. Today’s commercial craft brewer and homebrewer, however, are challenged by non-alcohol beer production, the sector of NABLABs receiving the most focus, because of the capital required to play in this space. Many of us will be asked by friends or customers (I see you, craft brewer!) to brew a NAB as the popularity of these beers grows. I suggest another path; offer your friends and craft beer customers a low-alcohol beer (LAB) instead.

LABs are easier for small-scale brewers to produce because, unlike NABs produced using maltose-negative yeast strains, most LABs are fully fermented and do not present the challenge of packaging beer containing lots of fermentable sugar. Another big advantage is that LABs contain alcohol, albeit a lower level, to help ward off the growth of potentially dangerous microbes (although the risk of this seems to be overstated based on the work presented by Grzegorz Rachon of the Campden BRI). LABs also typically have a lower pH compared to NABs that have not been pH-adjusted after fermentation.

Home and commercial craft brewers are both prone to pressures from the macro market. When it comes to brewing beer for the NABLAB space, consider playing with LABs because there is a hole in this market that is begging to be filled, LABs are a better fit for small-scale brewers, and LAB consumption decreases alcohol intake among consumers of beer, wine, and spirits. 

Response by Ashton Lewis.