The independent Canberra-based brewery launches its first non-alcoholic beer, Australia’s only carbon-neutral non-alc beer.
Canberra-based independent craft brewery Capital Brewing Co adds its first non-alcoholic beer ‑ Alc-Less, Australia’s first carbon-neutral non-alc beer, to its line-up of award-winning brews.
The launch of Alc-Less follows Capital Brewing Co. becoming the first brewery in Australia to be certified carbon neutral under the Federal Government Climate Active accreditation for both its entire organisation and all its products, including Alc-Less.
In line with the brewery’s aim of creating ‘good-natured brews’, Capital Brewing Co. founders Tom Hertel and Laurence Kain said expanding into the non-alcoholic category was a natural step for the brewery given the demand from consumers and the growth opportunity.
“As more and more of our customers’ lifestyles are changing to become more focused on health and wellbeing, they can’t afford to be hungover but still want to kick back at the end of the day with a good tasting brew. We’re excited to be adding an alcohol-free option to our range at a time when we, as founders, are also becoming more health aware and find ourselves leaning ever more to the low/non-alcoholic options,” says Hertel.
Commenting on the uniqueness of Alc-Less and its development journey, Kain says the brewery has been working on creating a non-alcoholic beer for over two years.
“Developing a recipe that holds up against the perfectly balanced, delicious taste that Capital drinkers have come to expect while removing all the alcohol took a lot of research and development.
“Beyond perfecting the flavour, we encountered many challenges including the product freezing in the tank because there was no alcohol present so, although it tastes like one, Alc-Less behaves very differently to a normal beer in so many ways,” Kain said.
The product’s flavour, quality and consistency were essential to the team at Capital, so the brewery invested in a miniature brewhouse with 350L tanks, replicating a scaled-down version of its main 3000L brewhouse specifically designed for research and development.
“Having the R&D brewhouse means we use the same steam heating and brewing process as all of our other beers but allowed us to test and perfect our non-alcoholic recipe efficiently whilst being considerate of potential wastage,” said Kain.
The launch of Alc-Less marks Capital Brewing Co.’s largest pre-sell uptake in history, with solid pre-sell demand from independent retail and on-premise before its official launch on July 1. Capital Brewing Co. Alc-Less is available in select independent retail in ACT and NSW for $44.99 and at Capital Brewing Co.’s online store at www.capitalbrewing.co
