The science of making alcohol-free beer

MAYBE YOU’VE SEEN IT AT THE bottom of a restaurant’s beverage menu or a brewery’s extensive beer list: the ‘NA’ or ‘non-alcoholic’ option. There, it might feel like an afterthought but the non-alcoholic movement, especially when it comes to beer, is gaining traction in the adult-beverage market.

Non-alcoholic beer dates back to Prohibition, but it’s having a resurgence, fuelled by changing consumer habits and brewers’ successful tinkering with the complex processes required to make it. Between July and September 2020, NA beer sales were up approximately 38 per cent in the