With the consumption of NoLo drinks projected to increase 31 per cent by 2024, Canberra-based independent craft brewery, Capital Brewing Co, is introducing its first full flavoured, non-alcoholic beer, Alc-Less.
In line with Capital Brewing's philosophy to create “good natured brews”, founders and managing directors Tom Hertel and Laurence Kain said expanding into the non-alcoholic category was a natural next step, given the demand from consumers and huge growth within the category.
Hertel explained that more and more customer lifestyles were changing to become more focused on health and wellbeing.
“We’re excited to be adding an alcohol-free option to our range at a time when we, as founders are also becoming more health aware and find ourselves leaning ever more to the low/non alcoholic options,” said Hertel.
Kain said Capital Brewing has been working on creating a non-alcoholic beer for over two years.
“Developing a recipe that holds up against the perfectly balanced, delicious taste that Capital drinkers have come to expect while removing all the alcohol, took a lot of research and development.
"Beyond perfecting the flavour, we encountered many challenges including the product freezing in the tank because there was no alcohol present so, although it tastes like one, Alc-Less behaves very differently to a normal beer in so many ways,” said Kain.
“The flavour, quality and consistency of the product was incredibly important to us. With that in mind, we invested in a miniature brewhouse with 350 litre tanks, replicating a scaled down version of our main 3000 litre brewhouse specifically designed for research and development.”
“Having the R&D brewhouse means we use the same steam heating and brewing process as all of our other beers, but allowed us to test and perfect our non-alcoholic recipe efficiently, whilst being considerate of potential wastage,” said Kain.
Alc-Less is already proving popular with strong pre-sell demand from both independent, major retail and on premises venues.
The launch of alc-less marks Capital Brewing Co’s largest pre-sell uptake in history, and follows the company becoming the first brewery in Australia to be certified carbon neutral under the Federal Government Climate Active accreditation for both its entire organisation and all its products, including Alc-Less.
“As a team, we’ve spent a lot of time refining Alc-Less and, as one of our first products to come out of our R&D brewhouse, we’re are pretty proud of the end result. We’re hoping this new system will also help keep the creativity alive within the brewing team, and ensure that we’re continuing to innovate with new recipes too.”
Capital Brewing Co Alc-Less is available in select independent retails in ACT and NSW for $49.99 and via Capital Brewing Co’s online store from 1st July.
To listen to Laurence Kain’s interview with editor Kim Berry on the Food & Drink Business Podcast, click here, or listen on you preferred podcast platform.
