Dry January has become more than just a month of people abstaining from alcohol; non-alcoholic brands have become a part of this complete New Year. By now, we’ve all realized that the non-alcoholic segment isn’t just a phase; drinking non-alcoholic beer, wine, and spirits has become a legitimate part of our beverage industry with the numbers to back it up.
“[Non-alcoholic beer] is blowing up,” The Boston Beer Company Senior Brand Manager, Samuel Adams, Jasen Holley told us. “We think in the next three to five years that non-alc could grow to be 1.5 to 2.5 percent of total beer, which means a tick under sixty million cases up for grabs.”
We’re only a few days in 2024, but already we’ve seen a significantly higher amount of breweries announce new non-alcoholic beers and releases, including Aslin, TALEA, Prison City, Karl Strauss, Night Shift, Brooklyn Brewery. We’ve seen some of our favorite places drop new hop waters such as Great Notion and Humble Sea. And we’re sure there’s plenty more NA drops that we’ve missed. Point being, non-alcoholic beer is more popular than ever, and the stats back that up.
During the Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association (ANBA) December webinar, CEO Marcos Salazar said that non-alcoholic beverages had “the largest year of absolute dollar growth in five years.”
According to Salazar, during the 52 weeks ending July 29, 2023, non-alcoholic offerings accounted for $510 million in sales, according to NielsenIQ-tracked scan data. Additionally, non-alcoholic beverages grew 31% percent year over year, increasing $121.2 million in sales.
Amazingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, non-alcoholic beer drives this growth, amounting to 86.1 percent of the segment, according to NIQ, backed up by non-alcoholic wine (11.2 percent share) and spirits (2.7 percent share).
Although both non-alcoholic wine and non-alcoholic spirits account for a smaller percentage of non-alcoholic beverages sold, both categories grew pretty substantially over 2023, with NA wine gaining 18.5 percent and NA spirits climbing an incredible 94 percent compared to last year.
NIQ data also indicates that off-premise dollar sales of non-alcoholic beer, wine, and spirits grew +35% to $565 million in 2023. Off-premise dollar sales of NA beer grew +35% to $485M with NA beer still accounting for over 85% of total off-premise NA sales.
With all this in mind, while you kick off your Dry January, we wanted to point out some of the best non-alcoholic brands (beer, wine, or spirits) you should look out for in 2024.
Think of this list as similar to our “Best Breweries to Watch in 2024.” We’ve perhaps had a chance to try the NA brands below once or twice, and our interest piqued, so we want to drink more of them this year.
We could have seen a lot of buzz about these non-alcoholic beverages on Instagram or through e-commerce marketplaces like Drizly.
Or perhaps we heard about them through friends in the industry and want to explore more of them this year.
These are the non-alcoholic beverage brands that are doing some inspiring things in the space, and we want to keep our eyes locked on in 2024.
We present the breweries and brands on this list in no particular order. We acknowledge that this list is subjective. Quite simply, the Hop Culture team thinks these are the best non-alcoholic brands to watch in 2024. And we encourage you to do the same.
But do you know of a brewery that should be on this list? We’d love to hear your thoughts. Slide into our DMs at @hopculturemag and let us know!
Hop Culture’s Best Non-Alcoholic Brands to Watch in 2024
RationAle
Non-Alcoholic Beer – One of our “11 Best Breweries to Watch in 2023,” RationAle has made waves in the industry now for a couple of years, but they’re really just hitting their stride. RationAle Founder Jamie Fay got the idea to start an NA beer brand while sitting around a bonfire with his sons, talking about a healthy drinking lifestyle.
One word kept coming up: rational.
Today, RationAle features four styles of non-alcoholic beer including a citrus hazy, Mexican Cerveza, West Coast IPA, and Hazy IPA.
We’ve had the chance to try all three styles, and each brim with flavor, a smooth mouthfeel, and a crisp finish.
But suppose you’re looking for one to try. In that case, the West Coast IPA is Fay’s favorite, and it just won a silver medal at the Tasting Alliance World Beer Competition (with the Hazy IPA picking up double gold and the Mexican Cerveza bronze). “It has the nose of a West Coast IPA, it has the dankness of a West Coast IPA, and it has the hop structure and finish of a piney…West Coast IPA,” Fay told us. Getting those predominant bright, bold notes characterized by a West Coast style can be complex in a non-alcoholic beer, but RationAle nails it.
“It’s all about balanced notes of dankness, pine, a small amount of Citra, and a really clean hop finish,” says Fay.
Lucky for all you Dry January participants, RationAle just launched its Jan’Archy Party campaign. Following its mission to “crush society’s drinking rules,” RationAle’s celebration of breaking the norms of Dry January invites rebellious drinkers to toast the New Year with some genre-defying non-alcoholic beers.
“For many, January can be a ‘total buzzkill’ burdened with constraints like cutting back on alcohol, spending, and indulgent eating after the festivities of the holiday season,” Fay said in a press release. “We’re here to champion the thrill of nonconformity over the dreariness of adhering to ‘cleaning up your act’ in January. We’re proving that January can be full of everything you love, encouraging craft beer enthusiasts to host their own Jan’Archy party with or without the booze.”
Enter the Jan’Archy giveaway here for your chance to win a grand prize $400 Live Nation gift card, one year of RationAle beer, and RationAle party pack, among other prizes.
If you’re ready to score some of the best NA beer right now, our friends at Untappd are hooking us up with free shipping and twenty percent off orders of two six-packs or more! Just use code UNTAPPD20 at checkout while shopping here.
Samuel Adams
Non-Alcoholic Beer – Boston Beer Co. Founder Jim Koch is no stranger to bucking convection and embracing innovation. He launched his brewery with a recipe for Vienna lager in 1984, for gosh sake. Over almost forty years, he’s built Boston Beer Co. into one of the most iconic breweries in the country. But for a long time, Koch firmly believed that Boston Beer would never make a non-alcoholic beer. Until two years ago, when Samuel Adams released Just the Haze, a non-alcoholic IPA.
See, brewing a non-alcoholic beer that’s full-flavored, well-balanced, and full of body can actually be pretty tricky.
The Boston Beer Company Senior Manager of Brewing R&D Christina Hahn figured if she and the team could “crack the code for hop flavor and aroma in non-alc beer” in a hazy, delivering that authentic New England IPA experience, “we could really do anything,” she says. “From a beer nerd perspective, that was the holy grail!”
So, in a cloudy sea of many NA beers that taste the same, Just the Haze has emerged like a ray of sun, delivering on the promise of a non-alcoholic hazy built by beer lovers, for beer lovers.
At the Great American Beer Festival in 2021, Just the Haze nabbed a gold only six months after launching, and just last year won a silver at the World Beer Cup.
And Sam Adams isn’t stopping with just one SKU. In early 2023, the brand launched Gold Rush, a cool, crisp, clean golden lager, somewhat the opposite of the juicy, fruity, tropical Just the Haze.
We’re adding Sam Adams to this list of the best non-alcoholic brands to watch in 2024 because they told us they’re only getting started innovating in the NA space.
“We know our non-alc drinkers like variety, so we are going to continue to explore that and challenge Christina and her team to come up with new, cool, interesting non-alc beers,” says Holley. “We’ll see what happens in the future!”
Fre Wines
Non-Alcoholic Wine – According to BevAlc Insights by Drizly, Fre Wines holds the spot for the third-highest sold non-alcoholic beer, wine, and spirit brand in both 2022 and 2023. Considered America’s number one alcohol-removed wine, Fre makes its wines following traditional methods before sending them through a state-of-the-art spinning cone technology to preserve flavor and aroma while removing the alcohol.
Featured nationwide by brands such as VinePair, Thrillist, and Delish, Fre Wines certainly has many folks buzzing.
With varieties across the spectrum from Sparkling Brut and Chardonnay to Merlot and Sparkling Rosé, Fre has something for everyone.
Sierra Nevada Trail Pass
Non-Alcoholic Beer – No strangers to non-alcoholic products, Sierra Nevada launched its hop water Hop Splash in early 2022, the equivalent of yelling cannonball and jumping into the NA pool.
In December 2023, it backed up the big leap, releasing its own line of non-alcoholic beer, including Trail Pass IPA and Trail Pass Golden.
Similar to Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada’s NA portfolio includes an impactful IPA with Bravo, CTZ, Magnum, and Cascade hops, along with an easy-drinking golden ale (not lager) featuring Centennial, Cascade, and Bravo hops.
“Our [innovative] brewers have been working for years to perfect a flavorful, satisfying, non-alcoholic brew. What they’ve developed is truly best-in-class,” Lesley Albright, VP of marketing at Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., said in a press release. “We know that drinkers appreciate a wide variety of premium craft options to enjoy at different occasions. Trail Pass IPA and Golden are a great fit when the moment calls for a high-quality, non-alcoholic beverage that fully delivers on flavor and refreshment. We’re so pleased to release this new collection of non-alcoholic offerings.”
With these new NA offerings, Sierra Nevada also released a flavored hop water called Hop Splash Citrus, with Mosaic and Simcoe hops and real grapefruit and blood orange juice.
All signs point to Sierra Nevada continuing to innovate with its non-alcoholic beverages in 2024, so keep your eyes peeled for what is next.
Seedlip
Non-Alcoholic Spirit – Sliding into the fourth most-bought non-alcoholic brand on Drizly, Seedlip beats out greats like Budweiser and Guinness. Started by Ben Branson on his family’s 300-year-old farm, Seedlip is “on a mission to change the way the world drinks with the highest-quality non-alcoholic options,” according to the NA brand’s website.
Seedlip uses a bespoke maceration, distillation, filtration, and blending process to create its three products—Seedlip Spice 94, Seedlip Garden 108, and Seedlip Grove 42.
Less than a decade old, Seedlip has already blossomed into the non-alcoholic beverage space, voted the number one best-selling non-alcoholic spirit by Drinks International for three years straight.
This non-alcoholic brand seems just to be getting started, so if you’re looking for a place to begin with NA spirits in 2024, we highly suggest checking out Seedlip.
Athletic Brewing
Non-Alcoholic Beer – When Brewbound names Athletic Brewing the 2023 Large Brewery of the Year, you take note. But honestly, we, and the rest of the industry, made note of Athletic a long time ago. One could argue that Athletic Founders Bill Shufelt and John Walker have dominated the non-alcoholic beer space unlike anyone else.
The beer backs up the hype, with four Athletic SKUs in the top ten highest-selling non-alcoholic beverages on Drizly and Athletic off-premise dollar sales growing over eighty percent in 2023.
With Athletic testing out its first non-alcoholic draft kegs in early March, the brewery appears to stay in the vanguard of the category. We also haven’t seen any brewery make as many NA beer offerings as Athletic, ranging from a Blueberry Mosaic fruited IPA to a Round of Cheers brut IPA to a First Ride extra dark beer with coffee.
Outside of the brewery, Shufelt told us that the non-alcoholic brewery has a community impact fund that donates up to one percent of sales or $1 million every year. In 2023, Athletic helped raise $225k for the Michael James Jackson Foundation, which creates scholarship opportunities for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in the brewing and distilling industry.
Most recently, the non-alcoholic brewery donated $1.6 million to outdoor space preservation programs as a part of its Two for the Trails initiative.
And if all of that didn’t convince you to turn your attention to Athletic in 2024, Shufelt thinks non-alcoholic beer is only on the cusp. “This is a category in the first pitch of the first inning. It’s one percent of beer. It’s likely going to twenty-plus percent of beer,” he said during a BevNET Taste Radio Podcast. “Rather than looking to the side and fighting and thinking small ball, as a company and as Athletic, we’re generally trying to pick people up, build the category the right way, think long-term. We’re kind of like a horse with blinders on. We’re very much focused on our goals, our customers, our road ahead. When you take those blinders off and look at the side too much, the horse falls over.”
Saddle up with Athletic as they giddy up into a burgeoning non-alcoholic beer segment this year.
Grüvi
Non-Alcoholic Wine and Beer – As Grüvi states, “We are trailblazing a new way to live and socialize with alcohol-free beverages that make every moment more Grüvi.”
At Grüvi, they want to make sure that you socialize however you wish on every different occasion, whether with a World Beer Cup gold-medal-winning Golden Lager or 2023 World Alcohol-Free Awards silver-medal-winning Sparkling Sangria.
With everything in between, including beers like a Juicy IPA, Mocha Nitro Stout, Pale Ale, and Weekday Wit, and wines such as Dry Secco, Bubbly Rosé, and Dry Red Blend, you can find an NA option that suits you.
Best Day Brewing
Non-Alcoholic Beer – Best Day Brewing came onto our radar this year after becoming the official non-alcoholic beer sponsor of one of the major pickleball leagues. The year’s and country’s most exciting new sport, Pickleball is undoubtedly trending upward.
Meaning if Best Day is along for the ride too, we have to imagine that this non-alcoholic brand has only its best days ahead.
“Our position isn’t about sobriety; it’s about moderation in the right place, at the right time, to have the best day,” Best Day Brewing Chief Marketing Officer Jim Gunning told us.
Currently, you’ll find three beers in Best Day’s selections, including a Hazy IPA (that pairs well with surf, mountains, and barbeques, according to Best Day), a West Coast IPA (that pairs well with road trips, picnics, and beach days), and a Kölsch (that pairs well with sunshine, trailheads, and fish tacos).
We’ve had the Kölsch pretty much locked into our fridge all year. When we want something refreshing and easy to drink that doesn’t pack the ABV, Best Day’s cold Kölsch is what we grab first.
We haven’t quite gotten around to playing pickleball yet, but when we do, we’ll surely bring some Best Day NA beers along with us.
Kit NA Brewing
Non-Alcoholic Beer – The number of delicious non-alcoholic beer options out there today continues to impress us. It seems for every two breweries that hit us up to send beer, one non-alcoholic brewery does the same. So when Kit NA Brewing got in touch, we knew we had to check them out.
Kit sent us all three of their offerings, which include On Your Mark hoppy American blonde ale, Get Set IPA, and Here We Go hazy IPA.
We tried all three, and for us, Here We Go stood out for its intense juiciness and inclusion of hops like Idaho 7, Simcoe, and El Dorado. A great depth of flavor burst onto the scene for us and then stuck around, slowly seeping into our bones. This NA beer stuck with us for a long time.
But you don’t have to trust our word that this is one of the top beers we drank in August. Here We Go nabbed a gold medal from the 2023 Craft Beer Awards in the Best NA Hop-Foward Beer Category. ‘Nuff said.
During Dry January, Kit NA is urging you to ‘Get Your K*t Together,’ a campaign spreading the conversation around the importance of mental health. “This is an uplifting month-long journey of identifying goals and pursuing passions in the new year,” Kit NA shared in an email with us. “We believe in empowering folks to be unapologetically themselves year round!”
According to Kit NA, anyone who donates to non-alcoholic brewery’s mental health partner, Sound Mind Live, will receive a Kit NA’s Tuned In Mental Health Bracelet and checklist with ideas on how to Get your K*t Together—whether that’s making that doctor appointment, mind mapping goals for the year, or catching up with an old friend.
From initiatives in their community to the NA beers themselves, keep an eye on Kit NA Brewing this year, especially since their NA beers are available to ship nationwide along with at accounts from Portland, ME, all the way down to Georgia (we even saw our one of our favorite breweries, Vitamin Sea, carrying Kit NA beers in its taprooms, so that should say a lot!).
Crux Fermentation Project
Non-Alcoholic Beer – Much like Boston Beer Co. Founder Jim Koch never thought it possible to brew a flavorful non-alcoholic beer, Crux Fermentation Co-Founder Larry Sidor stayed dubious about whether one could brew a great craft non-alcoholic beer (having made a few horrible versions over forty years ago).
But in 2021, Sidor sought redemption, according to the brewery, releasing the first beer in the Oregon-based brewery’s NØ MØ NA lineup.
The NØ MØ IPA brewed with Citra and Mosaic was a big hit, followed by NØ MØ Hazy IPA in 2022, and, most recently, the seasonal NØ MØ Strata Gold, NØ MØ Fresh HOP IPA in September, and NØ MØ Hoppy Red, brewed with Pacific Northwest Crystal and Centennial hops for Sober October.
We absolutely love Crux Fermentation for its spontaneously fermented and barrel-aged beers. So when a brewery of this caliber turns its attention to non-alcoholic beers, we turn ours, too.
We’re not sure exactly what’s on the horizon for Crux Fermentation’s NØ MØ line in 2024, but if they have more seasonals lined up, we’re definitely getting in line to nab some.
Lautus
Non-Alcoholic Wine – Launched in South Africa in 2017, Lautus non-alcoholic wines broke into the top ten most-sold non-alcoholic beverages on Drizly for the first time in 2023.
Featuring grapes from hand-selected vineyards around the region, Lautus non-alcoholic wines preserve the integrity of its varietals through a very careful, high-tech process.
You’ll find a lineup including a few different varieties—Lautus Sparkling, Lautus Sauvignon Blanc, Lautus Savvy Red, Lautus Rosé, Lautus Sparkling Rosé, and Lautus Chardonnay.
If you’re looking for a quick NA wine option on the go, Lautus also packages many of its SKUs in convenient 250mL cans, so we’re definitely adding it to our list of the best non-alcoholic brands to watch in 2024.
Eighteen Twenty Brewing Co.
Non-Alcoholic Beer – We’re highlighting Eighteen Twenty Brewing Co. here for a couple of reasons.
First, the brewery’s Peek Interest made it onto our list of the “37 Best Beers to Drink in Spring 2023,” proving that you can drink NA in the winter, spring, and any time of the year.
The NA brewery’s version of an American pale ale has everything you want in a classic pale ale—an underlying yet subtle bitterness and pronounced pops of pine, tangerine, and grapefruit with just a little pith.
Second, Eighteen Twenty makes one of the only sour American NA beers we’ve seen on the market with All That Razz.
But third, this non-alcoholic brewery has some of the best-designed non-alcoholic can labels in the country. Simple yet colorful shapes belie a tasty liquid inside.
In the past, non-alcoholic beer has been much maligned for its low quality and even lower artistic standards. Eighteen Twenty is raising the bar for non-alcoholic beer inside and outside the can.
We’re all aboard for what Eighteen Twenty has in store in 2024.
Ritual Zero Proof
Non-Alcoholic Spirits – Started by three friends, who also proclaim themselves foodies, cooks, parents, and people who like to drink, Ritual Zero Proof doesn’t replace liquor but rather “adds a new tool to our cocktail kit. Another way to mark a moment,” according to the NA brand.
Over a year of development and hundreds of iterations that included taste-testing vanilla from Madagascar versus vanilla from China and hosting sample sessions with Chicago’s best bartenders, Ritual Zero Proof slid its way into Drizly’s best-selling non-alcoholic beverage brands for two years running.
America’s number one non-alcoholic spirits include alternatives for spirits such as tequila, rum, gin, whiskey, and aperitif.
If you want to add a non-alcoholic option to your beverage cart, the highly proven Ritual Zero Proof is definitely the place to start.
Karbach
Non-Alcoholic Beer – “Non-alcoholic Belgian witbier” are words we had never heard uttered prior to late last year. Guess what? This non-alcoholic beer exists thanks to Karbach Brewing.
Free & Easy Belgian-Style White grabbed a gold medal at the 2023 Great American Beer Festival. We tried it ourselves, enjoying the light notes of spiced citrus zest, lightly toasted coriander, and a subtle sweetness courtesy of the two-row pale and medium crystal malt and flaked wheat.
One of two beers in Karbach’s Free & Easy lineup (including an IPA), this NA witbier encapsulates the brand’s motto: “With Free & Easy, there’s no invitation required, and everyone’s invited,” writes Karbach.
That’s what we want when we’re drinking an NA beer, so we’ll be sure to see if anything new comes down the line from Karbach this year.
