Low-alcohol beer doesn’t have to remove all the joy as well

Beer is Ireland’s favourite drink, screamed the headline on the press release. In other shock news, the sky is blue and the grass is green and, no matter how sunny it gets in Ireland, the rain is always on its way.

There is now a thing called International Beer Day, as though the world needs to set aside a special day to drink pints; it’s probably just as well that it doesn’t get a lot of attention here because God knows we don’t need a whole lot of encouragement.

But for International Beer Day, the Irish Brewers Association confirmed that Irish people love their beer – or lager to be more precise which enjoys almost two-thirds of the market.

It grew in popularity by three per cent to 63.8 per in 2018, ahead of stout with a 29.3 per cent share, followed by ale at 6.3 per cent.

But delve down through the table and you’ll find the grassroots of hope in the development of the non-alcoholic beer market.

It’s still well below one per cent (0.6 per cent, to be exact) but that was up from 0.4 per cent market share in 2017.

But it’s growing, and the last twelve months have seen the opening of at least two pubs – one in Limerick and one in Dublin – that sell nothing but alcohol-free beer.

It’s a toehold in the overall market – but one that the brewers are finally starting to take note of. Because up to now, the alcohol-free beer was basically the same thing with all of the joy gone out of it.

Read Dave’s full column in this week’s Connacht Tribune.