Stevens Point Brewing Company taproom. MWC photo by Mike Leischner
STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) — The Stevens Point Brewing Company is joining the N/A beer movement.
The company has invested in new equipment that will allow it to take its current favorites and dehydrate them, removing nearly all of the alcohol. Brewmaster Mike Schraufnagel says the process is relatively new. They’ll start by making their normal beer, then running the product through some additional steps.
“This equipment will allow us to filter out most of the water and alcohol. [What’s left] is a syrup, then we rehydrate it. We basically have all of the parts there that a regular beer has, minus the alcohol,” said Schraufnagel.
He says there are only a handful of these systems operating in North America. “I would say this process is further advanced than [others] used to make NA beer,” he added.
The investment comes as consumer habits are changing. Schraufnagel says N/A beer is one of the only growing segments of the adult beverage industry. “Beer is down, wine is down, spirits are down. But the N/A market is expanding and continues to expand. We don’t know where the bubble will be, but we don’t think it is going anywhere.”
The brews will still have a small amount of alcohol, about 0.5%, or about 1 proof. Schraufnagel says that still qualifies as N/A.
Non-alcoholic Stevens Point Brewing beers could hit store shelves in the next month.
The Stevens Point Brewing Company will have exclusive rights to this equipment in a 300-mile radius, meaning they expect to contract work with the machines for other companies.
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