16 | FEBRUARY 11 - 17, 2022 | WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM
THE NEXT DRAFT
Worcester’s Soul Purpose brewery to off er nonalcoholic beer Matthew Tota Special to Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
WORCESTER — A brewery that makes its name putting out deceptively boozy ales and stouts seemed a strange place to sample my fi rst nonalcoholic beer. Greater Good Imperial Brewing Co. isn’t releasing an NA beer, of course; that would be wildly off -brand for America’s fi rst all-imperial brewing company. But Soul Purpose Brewing, its sister brewery, will this week. A New England IPA, “NANA,” or Not all Need Alcohol, debuted Wednesday starting as a draft-only off ering in Greater Good’s 55 Millbrook St. taproom. Later, Soul Purpose will release it in 12-ounce cans. I could not have envisioned a better introduction to the world of alcohol-free beer than by enjoying one created by a brewery in my backyard. One weekday morning last week — 10 a.m. to be exact — I joined Meredith McNamara, co-director of operations at Greater Good and Soul Purpose, and Sean Casey, director of business development, for the tasting in a quiet taproom. McNamara brought out a growler of NANA and poured three glasses. NANA had all the haze I would expect to see from an NE IPA, craft beer’s most popular style. The light citrus fl avor and soft creamy feeling on my palate contributed to the illusion, too. McNamara’s proud of the way NANA drinks. Most NA beers she tries feel thin after each sip. “Even though alcohol doesn’t have a gravity (density) per se, it still has a mouthfeel. You feel and taste the diff erence with beer that has no alcohol,” she said. NANA contains less than 0.5% alcohol, but still leaves you believing you’ve imbibed
Soul Purpose Brewing, sister brewery to Worcester’s Greater Good Imperial Brewing Co., is set to release a nonalcoholic New England IPA this week. “NANA” (Not all Need Alcohol) will be available in the taproom fi rst as a draft-only release. MATTHEW TOTA
something of substance. You don’t feel full, but satisfi ed. After draining two glasses, I felt hydrated. McNamara developed the recipe for NANA in-house. The brewing happened at Brewmasters Brewing Services, the Williamsburg contract brewer that early on made most of Greater Good’s beer, because it has the technology to strip the alcohol from the beer through reverse osmosis. Simply put, the process uses a membrane to fi lter alcohol from the beer without compromising taste, smell or look. “Other breweries have tried boiling off the alcohol post fermentation, but you can taste the diff erence,” McNamara said. “This gives you a true beer fl avor without the alcohol.” After fermentation, it took an additional week for Brewmasters Brewing to remove the alcohol. After that, brewers started dryhopping. NANA called for Citra, El Dorado, Idaho 7 and a little Mosaic for its hop profi le.
Soul Purpose had one test batch that it decided to dump because the beer wasn’t hazy. McNamara said she didn’t even taste it. “The struggle was to keep the beer hazy, because when you’re stripping the alcohol out, a lot of the particles that make it hazy are also being stripped,” McNamara said. “We needed trial and error to determine when exactly we dry-hop and what yeast strain we use to maintain the haze and make it a good quality beer with the correct mouthfeel we’re after.” That a local NA beer even exists for me to taste speaks to how fast the category has grown in recent years. Just two years ago, you could not fi nd one craft brewery in Massachusetts brewing one. Five years ago, there were no independent craft breweries in the country with an NA beer. In 2018, a new brewery emerged in Stratford, Conn., touting full-fl avored NA beers for runners, bikers, hikers and just about anyone with an ac-
tive lifestyle. Athletic Brewing Co. has since shattered all expectations for how well NA beers can sell, helping to fuel the category’s rise. Last year, NA beer sales were up over 24% to around $236 million in stores, market data show. And Athletic has said it holds a 50% share of the entire NA beer segment. Strong as they are, NA beer sales still only represent around 6% of the overall beer market, even as new brands seemingly arrive on the shelves every day, similar to the start of the hard seltzer craze. Old NA beer staples from domestic breweries have more competition from craft beer. It’s a trend that has changed people’s opinions of beer without alcohol, which historically has not been known for its nuanced taste. “Craft players have defi nitely pushed the market in new directions,” said Bart Watson, chief economist for the U.S. Brewers Association. “Whereas
at one point this was a category that was all about what it lacked (alcohol), now fl avor is a driver for many consumers as well.” Soul Purpose’s foray into NA beer was almost destined, given Greater Good created the sister brewery so it could play around with lower alcohol beers. Casey had the idea to brew NANA after seeing demand for NA brews increase from distributors and, surprisingly, within Greater Good’s taproom. “Being out in the trade, you’re seeing a lot of national brands with nonalcoholic beers. From a local side of things, we saw an opportunity, though,” he said. “For us, it was an easy risk, because we have the opportunity to trial it out and see where it goes.” That demand may have even extended to the brewhouse: McNamara has participated in Dry January for the last two years and periodically cuts alcohol out of her diet. “Being in an all-imperial brewery, you drink a lot of alcohol,” she said. “And sometimes it really weighs you down, so you need that reset.” But Soul Purpose isn’t marketing NANA solely to people looking to purge alcohol completely from their lives. Instead, McNamara said, the message is NANA can help craft beer drinkers integrate more alcohol-free options into their routines. I love that philosophy. Maybe it means I always stock a six-pack of NA beer — starting with NANA — in my beer fridge. During football games and pizza nights, perhaps I crack open a couple in between the 8% alcohol IPA and 5% Italian pilsner. “You don’t have to go completely dry. You don’t have to go cold turkey,” McNamara said. “Just tease it in once and a while.”
