No- and Low-Alcohol Beer Options

Unless you’ve been drinking under a rock, you will have noticed the visible increase in no- and low-alcohol beer (and spirits) available in supermarkets, bottle shops, and bars. The fastest-growing category in the beer space, – recent statistics show that “this…sector of craft beer grew around 6% in 2021, making it a $10 billion global market, with a forecast that it will continue to grow volume by another 8% by 2025… Consumer research shows that 43% of adults who purchase non- and low-alc beverages are substituting in place of full-strength for certain occasions, rather than abstaining, and…a staggering 1/3 of shoppers plan to drink less alcohol over the next 12 months, including an option for non-alc alternatives.”

NoLo beers range from decent substitutes to unpalatable messes. It’s a hard balance to get right, honestly. Alcohol is one of the main factors that gives beer flavour, and that alcohol is derived from yeast (microscopic, single-celled organisms that are part of the fungus family) consuming sugars released during the mashing process (mixing grain with warm water to create a sort of grainy porridge) and converting them into booze (yay!) and bubbles (also yay!). If you get rid of the alcohol – and there are a multitude of ways to do that, but we’re not getting into them here – you get rid a lot of the sugar and the body. It’s kind of like cutting all the fat off your steak – it’s still okay, but not as juicy and delicious. (Sorry to any vegos out there).

What this tends to mean for the flavour is that it can be difficult to create well-bodied, malt-driven beer, so most NoLo options are lagers – which have a fairly mild flavour profile to begin with – or hop-driven styles like XPAs and Pale Ales that capture the bitterness and flavour predominantly from the hopping regime during brewing.

Avoiding the big-name breweries, who have more money for innovation and complicated techniques and equipment for producing non-alcoholic beers, we have decided to taste some of the craft options available around Australia to give our honest feedback for those looking to replace a few Christmas party bevvies with something that won’t push them over the limit, but still allows them to socialise without being bombarded with everyone asking “why aren’t you drinking?”

Day 1 included four beers: Big Drop Pine Trail Pale, Big Shed Desi Driver, Capital Alc-Less, Little Bang Spacer. Just to be clear, these were not sent to us for any promotional purposes, we have simply made room for them in our fridge.

Topping the list was Big Drop Pine Trail Pale Ale, with a light mouthfeel but decent body to it. It smelled like a beer and was a good substitute for the real thing. Looking forward to sampling the rest of their range. Edit: Sampled the red ale also; it was…ok. Definitely hit the colour specs but the body was lacklustre and it had an undertone of a false sweetness, likely to enhance flavour without adding alcohol.

Tying for second were Big Shed Brewing Desi Driver and Capital Brewing Alc-Less. Both of these were much paler in colour than the Big Drop, had a much less distinct aroma and, overall, a much softer mouthfeel. It was still “beery” and had a strong hop character, but I felt myself getting disenfranchised about 2/3 of the way through the glass. Still, a good, light, summery option to replace an actual beer.

Coming in fourth of four was the Little Bang Brewing Spacer. There wasn’t anything appealing other than the colour, which was very similar to the Big Drop (by that I mean it was slightly darker than the other two; more dark golden than pale straw). The aroma was off-putting and I drank about half of it before I felt like I was getting a headache.

Please note that these reviews are ours and ours alone and are in no way indicitave of… anything. We’re just giving our opinions.

The hardest thing to come to terms with when sampling these beers isn’t the lack of alcohol – we are part of the contingent that drinks beer because we enjoy the flavours, not just as a tool to get drunk. Isn’t that what tequila is for? – it’s that we’re still in early stages of the development cycle within this entire category. Over the past ten years we’ve seen the quality, flavour and availability of mid-strength beers go – pardon the pun – from strength to strength. Examples like Newstead Brewing’s ¾ Time, Burleigh Brewing’s Mid Tide*, Lost Palms’ 300 Days of Sunshine, Moffat Beach’s Social Jam Pale Mid (which, incidentally, took out Champion NoLo Beer at the 2022 Independent Beer Awards), and Brouhaha’s Coastal Mid*^ all sit below 4% and offer drinkers something more – ugh, this word – sessionable. Not only that, but the range of sour beers that sit well below the 4% mark seems to grow week to week. The guests that attend our brewery tours often mention that craft beer wasn’t under 5% a few years back, and now the selection is as wide-ranging as their full-strength counterparts.

I’m willing to state that this is what we will see in the ever-expanding NoLo category; as soon as prices come down and the tech becomes more widely available for smaller breweries to afford, the quality and balance of the beers will continue to develop. It’s about trial and error and watching the market, but this current fad is a bigger lifestyle trend that won’t be slowing down anytime soon, so the best thing for small brewers to do is embrace it, grow with it, and start using the current technology to develop recipes while ingredients, processes, and science all come together. Not too far in the future we’ll start to see NoLos that sit alongside mid- and full-strength beers with nary a difference in flavour.

Keep an eye out for Part 2 of our NoLo reviews, and in the meantime, let us know what we should try.

Cheers and beers,
Jos & Matt

*Gold-medal-winning beer at the 2022 Indies

^Coincidence that these beers are all Queensland made? Not really – it’s what we drink the most of. And the sunshine and humidity plays a part in people wanting to drink good beers that won’t do too much damage in the heat of the day when they’re watching cricket. If you’re keen to sample other gold medal-winning NoLo beers, here’s the list from the 2022 Indies:

Beaten Track Brewery – Astro Pup
Bodriggy Brewing Company – Speccy Juice Hazy Session IPA
CBCo Brewing – Small Ale
Hawkes Brewing Co – Hawke’s Brewing Co. Underdog
Kick Back Brewing – Mid Coast
Loophole Brewing – Slippery Fish Mid
Mismatch Brewing Co – Session Ale
UpFlow Brewing Stout – Non-Alcoholic Malt Beverage
Valley Hops Brewing – Diehards Lager

The full list of 2022 Indies Results can be found here.