Why alcohol-free beer should be sold as a functional drink

Alcohol-free beer should be sold for what it offers, not what it lacks, believes Club Soda founder Laura Willoughby MBE, who would like to see the product classed as a functional drink.

In a podcast interview with the drinks business as part of its Desert Island Drinks series, Willoughby, who works to promote alcohol-free options to the trade and consumers, stressed the health benefits of beer without alcohol, having selected Big Drop Galactic Stout as one of her eight drinks to take with her into isolation.

Although containing a trace of alcohol, the beer is classed as alcohol-free in the UK, and is naturally brewed to a 0.5% abv using a process called ‘reduced amylase brewing’, which allows the beer to fully ferment leaving a negligible amount of alcohol.

Commenting on the process, she said, “It’s a new method that took ages to get right,” before adding that the product from it – a 0.5% stout – had converted her to the pleasure of beer-drinking, that is, in its alcohol-free form, both due to its functional benefits and flavour.

“I now drink alcohol-free beer because it’s healthier than a fizzy soda,” she told db, commenting that “But I didn’t think stout was for me – and then I tried it with chocolate dessert, and it all made sense.”

‘Really good quality drinks’

Pointing out that the combination of technology and trial and error were producing much better alcohol-free beers than in the past, she described the products on the market today as “really good quality drinks”, although for Willoughby, the natural process involved in creating the Galactic Stout make it “the winner, with a better mouthfeel and flavour” compared to a category leader, such as Guinness 0%, with has no trace of alcohol whatsoever, because the alcohol is completely removed from the product through cold filtration.

Whatever the process, she said, “Once you take the alcohol out of beer, it’s one of the healthiest things that you can drink: it’s not an ultra-processed food, it’s naturally sugar-free; it’s low in calories, it’s rehydrating and full of vitamin B12; its actually a functional drink.”

She then said, “It could happily sit next to all of those rehydration sodas on the shelves in [UK health store] Holland & Barrett – so we need to do more to talk about how amazing it is.”

A way to rehydrate

Turning her attention to a country other than the UK, she recorded, “You know, there’s a reason why alcohol-free beer is 16% of the [beer] market in Spain – it is because they drink alcohol-free beer instead of a soda to rehydrate during a hot day.”

She added, “I think we need to build that culture here in the UK – rather than selling it [alcohol-free beer] for what it lacks, we should sell it for what it offers – I mean, people are spending lots of money on vitamin B12 tablets; just have some alcohol-free beer and obviously also Marmite, which is a lovely by-product of beer anyway.”

Concluding, she told db, “So, you know, I think we underestimate it as a drink; it’s got a lot to offer, and it’s great that you can now get it in lunchtime meal deals, extending the occasions in which you can drink beer.

Finally, she said, “Beer is a winner, and I think a lot more women in particular when they give up drinking, are taking up drinking alcohol-free beer.”

Read more

The Big Interview: Laura Willoughby MBE

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