Suffolk brewer sees big rise in demand for low and no alcohol drinks

Adnams says its doing well off of a move towards low or no-alcohol alternatives

Author: Samanta GladPublished 29th Jun 2022
Last updated 29th Jun 2022

A Suffolk brewer has been telling us it's seeing a rise in popularity for 'no' and 'low' alcohol beverages.

It comes as research by the IWSR has revealed that Low-alcohol and no-alcohol brews account for 3.1 per cent of the UK’s beer market, in contrast with 2.7 per cent globally.

Data has also shown UK consumers are favouring low-alcohol brews to classic lagers, as drinkers spent $454mn in 2021 on alcohol free brews in 2021, in comparison to $240mn in 2016.

Fergus Fitzgerald, Production Director at Adnams brewery in Southwold confirmed this trend with the sales in the Ghost Ship 0.5 Ale saying: “It’s our third best-selling beer, which, for a beer that we only actively started producing in 2018, that’s quite a phenomenal growth for us."

He explained the innovatory process behind the creation of the low-alcohol drink: “The original Ghost Ship is 4.5% Alcohol. Back in 2017, we started looking into whether we could make a low alcohol version of it.

"So we sort of looked around at what the various techniques out there, the method which we eventually chose, was something called reverse osmosis, which is essentially a filtration system.

"Essentially we make a normal beer and then put it through a series of membranes. And those membranes essentially only let out water and alcohol. So it allows us to keep all the flavour of the fermentation of the hops of the malt behind and just lose just lose the water and alcohol.

"So it goes through a cycle of sort of pushing out the water and alcohol for a period of time, until we get down to sort of less than point 5%. Because it's done cold, we then don't affect the flavours that we've taken from the hops and malt.

"The key was really to produce a beer that people would, would confuse with the full strength version, so it was the flavour was really driving what we were trying to do with it.”

As well as the increase in innovation in the brewing process, another driving factor in this surge of interest is consumers trying to make healthier choices. Fitzgerald noted, “it's not a compromised purchase. It's something that people actively go and choose to drink.

"Because I think generally people are more health conscious and are reducing their alcohol intake overall. In general that's been happening for a long time.”

A Beer Report conducted by Heineken showed no and low’s value has grown 22.5%, with now a third of consumers have said that they would drink no and low alcohol beer. The study also showed Generations Y and Z are the driving force behind this development, with 46% drinking less alcohol in general.

“I think part of the reason for the success over the last four or five years is really that the quality of ‘low or no’ generally has improved from where it used to be. So it's not a distressed purchase, it's not because you have to buy it, people are actively choosing to buy it because of the flavour.

"The quality of what we do is great, but also I think the quality of what lots of other people are doing now has improved so much as well, that the category itself is growing.”, Fitzgerald stated.

According to the IWSR consumer interest in low-alcohol drinks is anticipated to continue in this trajectory, with more exciting “innovation and evolution” across the industry.

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