US beer sales traditionally peak in the summer months between Memorial
Day and Labor Day. But what's in those beers is changing, while non
alcoholic beer, wine and cocktails make up a small fraction of the
overall alcohol market sales are rapidly rising. We sent Paul Salman
out for a taste test. In New Haven, Connecticut, paying homage to
the Hemingway Daiquiri with grapefruit and Mary Skinner liqueur,
Caribbean style gin, Buck, usually gin, lime juice and ginger beer
punch. I base it off of this honey, Bush and banana tea. That's delicious
Concoctions of award winning bartender, restaurant consultant and
writer colleague Williams cocktails with barely a trace of alcohol.
My goal is to give you a drink that has like a wine beginning. Kind
of mid palate and a finish any drink Like these spirits, Williams
users can be labeled non alcoholic if they have no more than half
a percent of alcohol. And these so called sober cocktails, he says,
are all the rage. Any bar now worth their salt is giving attention
menu real estate. And I would say honor to cocktails that do not
have alcoholic content. Of course old timers like Kevin Nesbitt,
who asked if the bar at which he drank martinis. 30 something years
ago was open at 10 A.m. never thought about ordering a Non alcohol
martini, to be honest, but more and more of us in particularly younger
people are opting to cut back on booze. Sales of so called non alcoholic
spirits, beer and wine at grocery convenience, liquor stores, the
like are up more than 40% in just the last two years. They're even
bars like Hecate in Manhattan's East Village, which displays says
New Yorker writer John Seabrook bottles of liquor that look like
rum and whiskey and tequila and they're all non alcoholic. Indeed,
it's not just the one in four Americans who don't drink at all, says
analyst Caylee Ferriol. What we see in our data is that foreign five
consumers of non alcohol, beer, wine and spirits are also purchasing
alcohol containing beer, wine and spirits. Surprised that the main
Adult non alcoholic beverage again. 0.5% of alcohol or less is beer.
One brewer of it Athletic in Milford, Connecticut.
A beer, and last year we produced over 170,000 barrels of beer. The
non alcoholic beer category itself is growing 30% year over year
were growing at about 90% year over year to date. In fact, last year
athletic had to move to this 150,000 square foot facility after reinforcing
part of the floor. To support new tanks that hold up to 25,000 gallons
for brewing and the boiler's out. Pasteurizing to counter microbes
that alcohol would otherwise sleigh. And packaging at a breakneck
pace
line right here in the 450 cans a minute brewer John Walker migrated
from the alcohol dependent craft beer industry because of avoid nobody
had really innovated in non alcoholic beer for decades. The innovation
killing the alcohol without killing the taste, found a fast growing
and loyal fan base. Well, here's a non alcoholic I P a John Seabrook
wrote about his discovery after swearing off alcohol seven years
ago. Were you a problem? Drinker? Is that it? Yeah. Yeah, I was.
Let's say I got incredible ultimatum from my wife. And when you stop
drinking alcohol, you really do need to find something to hold in
your hand, which led him to super low alcohol beers. But they were
like made in America versions of European beers like claws tower
until he tried athletic, which I figured I should try as well.
Okay, Well, that's the yellow one. That's okay too. When you get
there tomorrow, definitely get the blue one, which in the interests
of investigative journalism, I did the next day at athletic. So we've
got some tropical notes. Citrus notes. Nuances mostly lost on my
peasant palette. Well, it's nice and cool, refreshing,
but the key to athletic and sober beer's success in general. It was
hard to miss. They're better for you. Beautiful day, huh?
So healthy that the German Olympic ski team trains are non alcoholic
beer. Maybe because it's also locale,
25 calories, 5 g of carbs and zero sugar light beer. Because there's
next to no alcohol. That's why it's athletic. A lot of what we did
early on was break nonalcoholic beer out of the penalty box. Bartender
Khalid Williams says he, too, is trying to remove the sometimes negative
aura around the sober drink. It just was not respected, whether it
was somebody with child or somebody on a diet.
The table would laugh. Really? I mean, you saw there many times,
so he's reframing booze free kind of a one man movement to stop using
the word virgin to describe beverages. So how about mock tail been
kind of thinking past mock tail? How do we get to the point where
we're not? Deleting something where we're not taking something away.
We're making something complete right? So that has its own standing.
And no stigma goes no stigma. No stigma for the one third of Americans
aiming to drink less alcohol, either to cut calories and or intoxication
And for John Seabrook athletic with so little alcohol helped him
off anything stronger. I needed a sort of substitute beverage that
wasn't alcohol, but tasted enough. Like alcohol that I felt at part
of the ritual. But for some drinking anything like or even just a
little alcohol can be a problem, says Yale psychologist and neuroscientist
Regina Sina. Recovery is Is different for different people. Drinking
drinks that look like an alcoholic drink can be a trigger.
It can be what we call Q. Inducing And notes, the World Health Organization
quote. There is no safe amount that does not affect health. The short
term effects are sleep. Attention and focus, um, emotional reactivity,
But I'm not alone and drinking alcohol to chill out, right? Yes,
it does seem to decrease anxiety in the moment as you're drinking
for some people makes them more social. But very quickly you get
tolerant to the anxiety effects and the more you drink, the more
anxiety provoking alcohol can be So the more distressing it can be,
so I'm 78. Should I not be drinking any alcohol at all that your
age? Not a good idea to continue. You drink at all I do anywhere
between Mhm. Two or three drinks a week. But I have been actually
thinking. Maybe I need to even cut that back. And after hearing all
that, plus a day of cocktails and beer with no after effects at all,
I'm on the wagon for now, and for the PBS news hour in Milford, Connecticut,
Paul Salman