Low ABV in U.S. beer to be popularized in the future?

Lower alcohol might. No alcohol? Not a chance in the world. Alcohol always has been and always will be the most popular part of beer. There's really not even a close second. There's a place for non alcoholic beer for many reasons and people who drink it may want higher quality options. That will always make up a negligible percentage of what's produced though.

 

Alcohol is the main reason anyone drinks. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. No alcohol "beer" is never catching on.

That said, I personally prefer low alcohol options. Actual session strength craft beers will never catch on in America, mainstream.

 

Meh... 'small beers' have been around for centuries. I do prefer lower ABV styless as a rule, but some are not meant to be lower ABV. I have tried a bunch of session IPAs and almost universally dislike them. I guess I'm past the point of worrying about ABV for the sole purpose of wanting to drink one beer after another. I just drink fewer beers now. Will AB-Inbev succeed? Probably, but with the same crowd that already adores Bud Light.

 

On a day to day basis in the store I work for, I encounter a large number of people looking for low to mid-range alcohol percentages (3-7% ABV). At least in the demographic of my area, there are many people hesitant to buy beer over 8-9%, many times because it may come in 4packs or exclusively bombers (still both VERY difficult formats for people to adjust to).

It may not gain a foothold, since higher ABV essentially equals fuller and more complex flavor, but the odds are stacked pretty evenly. Some people love those "one-and-done" kind of brews, others want a few to pound. I think that ratio will stand evenly as long as they keep making flavorful brews on both sides of the spectrum.

 

Gose has helped show craft drinkers lower ABV can be good. And every time I look up, somebody else is making a new Berliner weisse. And the ones I've tried have been good.

Will lower ABV beers be popularized here? Probably not depending on what we mean by "lower" and "popularized". It'll never match the IPA craze or the big stout craze, but the 5% and lower end of the spectrum seems to get more and more play all the time.

 

I love beer regardless of alcohol but if alcohoo wasnt in it, id be a bourbon drinker. Such a statement can come across as "alcoholism"but whatever. Part of the fun in beer is " oh man i drank 5 Curmudgeons last night" and which correct knowledge thats hilarious because you could imagine that.

Im all for low alcohol beers because i can drink more in a sitting

English Mild
Saison
"Session" IPA

Lets do this.

 

Being able to make a flavorful beer at low abv takes skill and knowledge. Im sorry but blasting a beer with hops or boosting abv can potentially hide flaws. All for low abv. You can drink more. And we all want that. Cheers

 

I very much appreciate low ABV beers, I never forget that beer is in general for drinking rather than for sipping.
They enable longer sessions and give nothing away in the flavour department.
As the law of diminishing returns dictates,there is more flavour sensation in a pint of 4% ABV than in a half of 8%.
Many of our rural pubs stock nothing much over 4.5% ABV because who would drive out and only be able to drink one pint?
Session beer thrives here. It's available on cask which gives much more taste for the ABV and also as beer is taxed on alcoholic content weaker beers are cheaper.

 

Schofferhoffer Grapefruit Weizen is popular around here at 2.5% I'd like to think its abv but honestly i think its that its grapefruit and i live on the shore. With the existence of Barrel aging and thats popularity idk if high abv will ever not be popular i think itll be a little sub group of individuals that keep it (low abv) going like how we have stout drinkers, hop heads and belgian drinkers, there will be low abv drinkers with all the variety, a majority reason for liking craft, i doubt it will domibate, it would just be a nice sub addition to the craft.

 

Well, yeah, if you ignore the 9.2 - 2.7* million barrels of "under 0.5% abv" legal cereal beverage/near beer a couple of hundred US breweries brewed in the Prohibition Era. How did they taste? Well, there's this 1920 Taste Test from The New York Tribune.

* For some reason, sales went down between 1920 -1932 ​

 

<-- this guy is all for non-alcoholic beer. Count me in the minority, that buys NA beer on a regular basis. IF AB-InBev, or anyone else for that matter, could produce a NA-beer that tastes like a decent pilsner/lager, I'd be in the front-line grabbing a few cases.

 

After a decade of bIgger and bigger we have all seen some s l o w movement toward more lower abv QUALITY "craft" options. The "session" IPA was the first stab so we could have 4% ish beer at the beach or game followed by Gose and now some lower ABV saison type beers.

Would really love more things true session strength in the low
to mid 3s. I don't see "craft" versions of Sharps or O'douls <0.5%) ever gaining traction.

 

2%?

I'd say no, but my experience is relatively limited. Others on here might have a more educated answer.

From my own research, lambics and one farmhouse ale come to mind.

Lambics can be under 3%. I haven't seen one that's 2%

Jester King's table beer, Le Petit Prince, is 2.9% (or around there -- I think it fluctuates a bit with each batch). It's a fantastic saison, very stripped down and simple, but I doubt any of their batches ever get much less than 2.7 or 2.8%.

Just for the debate's sake, Michelob Ultra is 4.2% and it sucks. Clean water is much better. Miller Lite is 4.17% and it's at least better than Ultra, but it sucks. Sam Adams Light is 4.0, and Yuengling Light gets down to 3.2, though I've never tasted either. My point: If these light lagers aren't that good at 3% or more, how good are they going to be at 2% or less?

For non-sour beers, something like Yards Brawler seems about as good as we can hope to get. 4.2% ABV and as packed with flavor as any 5+% English pale I've tried. It's so good. It's also more than double 2%.