If you’re like most drinkers, you’re likely starting to see a lot more non-alcoholic beer around. Last fall, The Wall Street Journal reported a jump of 32 percent in sales of non-alcoholic beer from a year earlier and an average of 31 percent growth over the previous four years, citing data from NielsenIQ.
Although booze-free beer is most often found in cans, draft versions are starting to spread. Leading producer Athletic Brewing began selling its kegs to bars and restaurants in 2023, while also offering fresh-pulled pints at “pop-up taproom experiences” at its brewery in Milford, Conn. Small producers are following suit, serving their own NA beer in craft taprooms.
That’s a bit of good news for an industry that has gone through a tough couple of years, with overall beer sales dropping 5.1 percent last year, according to the Brewers Association (BA), an industry group for craft producers. But as non-alcoholic beer becomes more common, questions are surfacing about its safety on draft (or “draught,” as the BA and many in the industry prefer to spell it). In January, the BA tried to answer its own question with a report titled “Non-Alcohol Beer on Draught – Is It Safe?”
The TL;DR: a solid maybe.
An Unclear Picture
In its statement, the BA said there simply wasn’t enough evidence to understand the risks involved. Nor was there enough available “knowledge or experience” for it to be able to recommend best practices that could guarantee the safety of non-alcoholic beer served
