Dry January: an Exploration of Non-Alcoholic Beer
What is Dry January? If you haven’t heard of it, Dry January is a public health campaign encouraging people not to drink alcohol for the first month of the year. Dry January formally began in the United Kingdom when the British charity Alcohol Concern initiated it in 2014, but the idea of abstaining from alcohol for all of January has been around for a while and has since become a movement in the United States as well. A recent poll showed that 13% of adults in America avoided alcohol this January and that 11% have participated in the past.
The rationale behind partaking in Dry January is different for everyone and personal to each individual. 79% of US adults participate to be healthier in general, while 72% do it to drink less overall. This year in particular, 49% of those polled said they decided to partake in Dry January because they think they have been drinking too much during the COVID-19 pandemic. This year I participated in Dry January for the first time as a way for me to cut back on calories after overindulging during the holidays. It turned out to also be an opportunity for me to reflect on my relationship with alcohol, something I think is healthy for any person to do. On top of that, I got to explore and learn about a wide range of non-alcoholic beers and breweries. Now that my Dry January adventure is over for the year, I’d like to share some of what I learned along the way.
I prepared for Dry January by purchasing a Dry January Survival Pack from non-alcoholic beer maker Athletic Brewing Company. I had tasted Athletic’s beers before at festivals and once met co-founder Bill Shufelt at a tasting event he had hosted at Fenway Beer Shop. It was the only non-alcoholic craft beer brand I was aware of at the time and I remembered being impressed when Shufelt did a side-by-side tasting of Athletic’s non-alcoholic beer alongside a beer with alcohol and I couldn’t tell the difference between them. The Dry January Survival Pack provided me with multiple styles of their beers and enough cans to have one of them each day in January. However, once I started Dry January I quickly discovered that this would not be enough for me.
There are many occasions in which one might choose to drink non-alcoholic beer. Early in the day, with dinner, as a substitute for another non-alcoholic beverage, in between or after drinking alcoholic beverages, and more. As I found out just how versatile non-alcoholic beer could be, it soon became my go-to beverage throughout the day. I wanted more, so I started researching and learning about non-alcoholic craft beer, who was making it, and how they did it.
There are a variety of methods used to brew non-alcoholic beer, many of them which are proprietary and kept as a sort of trade secret by individual breweries. The two basic ways of making them are either fully fermenting a beer and removing the alcohol afterwards (which can be done in various ways, some gentler than others) or halting fermentation in some way so that the alcohol is never created. Outside of these methods, you have breweries like Athletic that brew fully fermented beer that falls below 0.5% ABV by making tiny tweaks at each and every stage of the brewing process. No one outside of the owners and brewers know what these tweaks are, including several sales reps that I spoke to. Brooklyn Brewery uses a specially developed brewing method as well for their Special Effects beers, which are also dry-hopped. I came to prefer Athletic’s method overall, as their beers were the closest to craft beers with alcohol in them that I had been used to drinking before I started Dry January.
Other than Athletic and Brooklyn, I also tried a range of beers from WellBeing Brewing Company. WellBeing uses some high-tech equipment from Munich to eliminate alcohol after their beer is fully fermented. This is very similar to the method used by Weihenstephaner to make their non-alcoholic wheat beer using a falling film evaporator to gently remove the alcohol at room temperature to retain as many flavors and aromas as possible. Having tried both, I can say that this method (though expensive) is impressive in that the smell and taste of these beers was very close if not the same as those with alcohol. I was particularly fond of WellBeing’s Intentional IPA and Victory Wheat, which they call the “World’s Healthiest Beer” due to the added electrolytes. Both of these beers came in 16 ounce cans with great label art, something you don’t see a lot in non-alcoholic beers, which often come in 12 ounce bottles or cans. It certainly set them apart and made them memorable for me.
BrewDog’s line of “near beers” or alcohol-free beers such as “Hazy AF” are brewed using a technique they call “microfermentation” that allows a beer to ferment fully by utilizing unfermentable malts and sugars. BrewDog opened the world’s first alcohol-free bar last year in London to help remove the stigma around alcohol-free beer as being tasteless and normalize drinking it as it becomes more mainstream around the world.
Hairless Dog Brewing Company makes four non-alcoholic beers in a variety of styles including an IPA, Citra Lager, Black Ale, and Coffee Stout. Their brewing method does not introduce yeast, therefore the typical fermentation that produces alcohol doesn’t happen. While this does in fact make them the first craft beer in the US to be truly alcohol-free with 0.0% ABV, it can lead to some of their beers tasting somewhat like unfermented wort which has become a criticism of many non-alcoholic beers over the years.
Mikkeller launched their alcohol-free beer brand a couple of years ago using their own yeast strain. I tried one from their Limbo Series which was a “Flemish Primitive” style brewed with raspberries. It was the first and only non-alcoholic sour beer I found and tasted. It was light, fruity, and surprisingly tart. I hope that I can find more alcohol-free sour beers in the future.
Partake Brewing in Canada also uses a proprietary method that they say is “vegan and all natural.” I tried their IPA, Pale, Blonde, and Stout and enjoyed all of them. They also had the lowest calories of any the non-alcoholic beers I had throughout Dry January, with their IPA only being 10 calories total. I was amazed at how much aroma and flavor could come in such a light package.
Surreal Brewing Company utilizes a “patent pending innovative brewing process that allows all of the great all-natural, non-GMO beer ingredients to shine.” What intrigued me about Surreal is the trendy beer styles they made, such as their Pastry Porter and Milkshake IPA. True to their trends, these beers were thick and sweet. For those that enjoy these viral styles, there are non-alcoholic options for them as well.
Perhaps the most unexpected part of Dry January for me was drinking a non-alcoholic sparkling cider from All Times Cider, a sister brand of Citizen Cider that is 100% juice and uses local apples from growers in the Northeast. While essentially sparkling apple juice, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the crisp, effervescent apple flavor and how easily I could see myself drinking them regularly.
Many breweries both big and small are entering the non-alcoholic craft beer space and creating new brands or lines to do so. Samuel Adams is entering the market with a new beer called “Just the Haze,” which they say is made using proprietary non-alcoholic brewing methods to create a juicy, hazy IPA. Rescue Club Brewing , a partnership between Zero Gravity Craft Brewery and Citizen Cider, recently launched with its Rescue Club IPA made through “a process that no one else in the whole world knows about, and even if they did they could never reproduce.”
I am excited to see the non-alcoholic space explode and offer people across the globe more options to choose from when it comes to drinking. After trying so many different kinds myself, my favorites were those that were fully fermented under 0.5% ABV as almost all of the traditional aromas and flavors are left intact. Specifically, the best beers I had and will most often come back to were from Athletic, which I will likely continue to drink regularly throughout the year. Non-alcoholic beer is amazingly accessible, as for the most part since they are not regulated like alcoholic beverages, they can be shipped across state or country lines directly to consumers with no problem. I believe as more people have the opportunity to experience non-alcoholic craft beer as I have, it will open up a whole new world for them. Whether anyone chooses to participate in Dry January or any period of abstinence from alcohol is up to them. I believe Bill Shufelt of Athletic Brewing put it best when he said “Words like sober or vegan are kind of outdated these days. People can be sober for a day, a month, an hour. I would say a majority of our customers do drink alcohol from time to time. They just also love having great-tasting beer and relaxing at other times as well.”
There will always be controversy that comes up every year around Dry January. It is a hard month for breweries and could be even harder as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Local breweries do need our support, but Dry January should not be seen as an obstacle to supporting them. I myself ordered merchandise and gift cards from some of my favorite breweries. I even ordered beer with alcohol in it from them to store in the fridge, which I am now drinking in February. Anyone who tells you that you must physically drink a brewery’s beer to support them is misguided at best, as there are many other ways that you can contribute to their success. On top of what I’ve mentioned, keep promoting your local breweries online. Remember to buy from them and highlight them not only in January but throughout the year, and don’t forget that it’s OK to take some time away from alcohol. In an industry that often shies away from discussing the issue of alcohol abuse, it can be helpful to reassess how we drink. I know it was for me. If you ever feel the need to give yourself a rest and reset a bit, just know that there will be plenty of wonderful non-alcoholic options awaiting you.
