Joining a growing number of beer makers that are brewing beverages with everything but the booze, Guinness announced it will be making a non-alcoholic version of its famed Irish stout.
To create Guinness 0.0, the brewers at St. James’s Gate — the home of Guinness in Dublin, Ireland — begin by brewing the beer as they always have, using the traditional ingredients: water, barley, hops and yeast. They then strip the beer of its alcoholic content via a cold filtration method, which allows the alcohol to be filtered out without creating thermal stress. The process ultimately protects the beer’s taste and character so that its flavor profile mimics that of a traditional Guinness.
The non-alcoholic version of Guinness still features the iconic dark, ruby red liquid (yes, it’s ruby; not black!) with a creamy head. It also retains the hints of chocolate and coffee with bitter, sweet and roasted notes you’d expect from a sip of Guinness.
It took the brewmasters at Guinness four years to perfect the non-alcoholic version of its beer.
“We know people want to be able to enjoy a Guinness when they choose not to drink alcohol without compromising on taste, and with Guinness 0.0 we believe they will be able to do exactly that,” Gráinne Wafer, global brand director with Guinness, said in a press statement.
Guinness 0.0 is being brewed at St. James’s Gate and will be rolled out in Great Britain and Ireland on Oct. 26. The 70-calorie, 440-milliliter cans will become available in more markets throughout the world in spring 2021.
If an O’Doul’s was the last non-alcoholic beer you tried, you may want to give zero-proof drinking another chance. Several craft breweries are making non-alcoholic (NA) beers that don’t skimp on flavor. In fact, some companies like Athletic Brewing Co. and Wellbeing Brewing have carved out a niche, brewing non-alcoholic beers only. Big-name beer brands including Heineken and Budweiser have also created their own versions of non-alcoholic beers and there’s even an NA beer for dogs.
Between 2018 and 2019, non-alcoholic beer grew 23 percent in dollar sales and 13 percent in volume sales, according to the Brewers Association and the IRI Group, a market research firm. With NA beer gaining popularity, the Great American Beer Festival recently brought back a non-alcoholic beer category.
Would you give the new Guinness 0.0 a taste test?
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