Beverage company Carlsberg Sweden says Swedes drank more alcohol-free beer this summer than ever before, with sales up more than 750% over the past decade.
Although July brought rain and bad weather to many places in the country, the appetite for beer – especially alcohol-free beer – was strong. Between June and August, Carlsberg sold around four million liters of its alcohol-free beers – more than ever before.
– Non-alcoholic beer is the fastest growing segment of the beer market and the trend is getting stronger, said CEO Peter Hammarstedt in a press release, emphasizing that their passion is “in the beer, not the alcohol”.
Carlsberg launched its first alcohol-free beer in Sweden in 2006 and today dominates the Swedish market with 16 alcohol-free beers and a 54% share of the market segment.
How alcohol-free beer is made
For a beer to be classified as alcohol-free in Sweden, it must contain a maximum of 0.5% alcohol. One of two methods is used to produce alcohol-free beer.
The first and most common method is to brew the beer as normal – but remove the alcohol by vacuum distillation – and this is how the vast majority of breweries in Sweden work today.
The second method is called “stop-fermentation” and involves cooling the wort once it has fermented to 0.5% and removing the yeast from the beer – this also stops the process and prevents the alcohol content from rising.
Today, non-alcoholic beer accounts for about 5% of total brewery sales – but it continues to grow. In 2023, a total of 471 million liters of beer will be sold in Sweden, 70% of which will be strong beer.
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