In the heart of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, La Taberna Lúpulo has long been celebrated for its extensive selection of local and international beers. This beautiful little beer bar, located on historic Calle San Sebastian street in an open air colonial setting, boasts the finest local, Belgian, English, German and American craft beers. There’s also great pub grub ranging from tacos to wings to sliders.
La Taberna Lúpulo is a hotspot for brew enthusiasts, which also makes it a great venue to observe some interesting consumer trends. For Zalika Guillory, owner of La Taberna Lúpulo and a certified Cicerone, one trend she has been noticing is the rise of non-alcoholic craft beer, which has been making a big impact of late. As consumer preferences evolve, the bar is increasingly serving up multiple NA alternatives that promise the rich flavors of traditional craft beers without the alcohol content. Just check out the video above.
“My bar has 30 to 40 draft lines at any one time and over a 100 different bottles and cans, including products from Collective Arts [a craft brewery in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, that has a nice selection of NA products],” says Guillory in the video above. “[We have other] non-alcoholic beer [options] … six or seven right now.”
This video was shot at the recent Craft Brewers Conference in Las Vegas with David Spector, North American account manager at Novonesis. Novonesis is a leading global biosolutions company formed through a combination of Chr. Hansen and Novozymes. It creates biosolutions for all types of industries. from nutrition and biofuel to chemicals, energy and water. Novonesis’ SmartBev range offers yeast solutions for low/no-alcohol and regular beer. The range includes both unique yeast solutions, like its NEER products, as well as lactic acid bacteria solutions, such as those used in its Harvest range. The company was pushing these products at CBC 2024 — especially its NA alternatives — which Guillory sees as a rapidly growing segment in the last 12 months.
“[Customers are] asking about it directly. They’re asking for some of the non-alcoholic beers by name,” Guillory says in the video above. “They’re asking what varieties we have. You know sometimes that’s all they’re drinking for the night. Sometimes it’s what they’re drinking in between their beers that have alcohol in them … Specifically in the last year. I’ve seen huge growth as it has become more widely known, more widely accepted and as breweries are coming out with better and better product lines of non-alcoholic beer that taste just like the versions that have alcohol in them.”
The shift towards NA beers isn’t just a nod to health-conscious drinkers; it’s also becoming a savvy business move. For local craft brewers, the rising demand for NA brews presents an opportunity to diversify product lines and tap into new market segments. Companies like Novonesis can help craft brewers find the right products to make NA beer. In America, Novonesis yeast and bacteria products are distributed by Gusmer Enterprises, which provides brewing expertise focused on fermentation, filtration, processing aids and beyond, selling everything from lab equipment to entire brewhouses, often as a distributor. Contact Gusmer for more info.
Since we’re already talking about non-alcoholic beer, feel free to watch this other video, produced by Gusmer and Novonesis, about the non-alcoholic beer production at Uiltje Brewing Co. in Holland. Enjoy!
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