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How NA Beer Is Made

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Food and Drink
| Spring
2024 |
Volume 3,
Issue 1

How NA Beer Is Made

The nonalcoholic (NA) beer category has exploded over the last few years, growing 163% from 2019 to 2023 according to IRI, a data and market analytics company that tracks the sale of consumer packaged goods. We’ve come a long way since the days of dusty bottles of O’Doul’s hidden in the backs of bar fridges and lonely six-packs of St. Pauli N.A. on grocery shelves. Today there are thousands of nonalcoholic options available at retailers across the world. Unlike their alcoholic counterparts, the methods by which these beers are made tend to be shrouded in secrecy, with many breweries treating their processes as confidential trade secrets, which can leave a lot of sober consumers feeling uneasy about whether they’re safe to consume. Author Mark LaFaro demystifies these processes and some of the common misconceptions about NA beer.

NA beer isn’t a new phenomenon; its roots go back to the beginning of prohibition in the U.S., where the Volstead Act prohibited the sale of any beverage above 0.5% alcohol by volume (ABV). Many breweries pivoted to making “near-beer” to survive, marking the first time that brewers intentionally tried to commercially produce these kinds of beverages. Bootlegging quickly crashed the market for these products, which went dormant in the U.S. until Budweiser introduced O’Doul’s in 1990.

 

In the U.S. an NA beer is still classified by the measure first set forth in the Volstead Act, meaning it must be below 0.5% ABV. Labeling laws require that all NA beers be labeled as “<0.5% ABV” and cannot be labeled as “beer,” but instead must be labeled as “near-beer.” While 0.5% ABV products might still turn away some sober consumers who stick to zero alcohol, you’ll find this amount of alcohol in a lot of common foods and drinks, like fruit juice, bread, yogurt, and vinegar. It’s worth noting that in the U.K. there is a designation for “alcohol-free,” which is defined as having less than 0.05% ABV (notice the extra zero), a distinction earned by beers like Heineken 0.0 and Guinness 0. But how do these brewers achieve these low levels of alcohol?

 

 

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