Did COVID Jumpstart The N/A Beer Trend?
Over-Indulgence During The Pandemic May Have Helped Inspire The Sober-Curious Movement.
No one needs a reminder. Spring of 2020, when January rumors of a virus quickly transitioned into a global pandemic that would introduce phrases like 'social distancing' and 'quarantine period' into our daily vocabulary, while simultaneously imprisoning most of us within the four walls of our homes. Not surprisingly, many American adults turned to a coping mechanism that was both familiar and readily available - alcohol. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, sales across beer, wine and spirits collectively grew by 2.9% in 2020, the largest annual increase in over 50 years. Research suggested the stress and anxiety induced by the effects of the pandemic were directly related to the increase, rather than a shift in consumer spending.
Fast forward a couple of years. Nielsen estimates the 2022 N/A beer market came in at $328.6M, a nearly 20% increase over 2021. Dollar sales of N/A beer have more than doubled since 2019, the year before the pandemic started, marking a clear inflection point for the category. It's a far cry from where the N/A beer category came from, in the days when O'Doul's dominated the category from a market share perspective, and perhaps even more damagingly from a mindshare one as well. To order a non-alcoholic beer in a bar or restaurant felt about as comfortable as a root canal. But times have changed. Today, the N/A beer category looks unrecognizable from its earliest days, fueled by a combination of millennials and Generation Xers who are drinking less than their parents, along with a sober and recovery community that largely views N/A as a mantra for a safe and healthy lifestyle, not just to avoid weekday hangovers, or increase the number of socially-acceptable occasions to sip a beer. Like many successful movements, there are multiple walks of life joining the cause.
While less quantifiable than looking at sales figures, it’s not hard to imagine the effects of COVID causing the pendulum to swing in the other direction. With happy hour moving into our collective living rooms, having a couple of drinks before or after dinner became way too easy, and eventually, habit-forming. As we put those lonely days behind us and began crowding restaurants, sporting events, airports, hotels and the like again, many took the opportunity for a fresh start, both those that quit drinking alcohol altogether, and those who simply decided to change their relationship with it. Combine that with generational trends suggesting younger Americans are already less interested in drinking than their parents or grandparents, and the sober curious movement has taken off like a rocket. New N/A beers are being born at a rate reminiscent of, well, when the craft beer revolution really took hold nearly twenty years ago. Except this time, the revolution doesn’t require waking up with a headache the next morning.