UK – Diageo has announced that is set to launch a new alcohol-free variant of its flagship Guinness beer, the Guinness 0.0, in Great Britain later this month, following a four-year development process.

The brand says Guinness 0.0 “boasts the same beautifully smooth taste, perfectly balanced flavour and unique dark colour of Guinness, without the alcohol”. The new drink is also a low-calorie option with 70 calories per 440ml can.

To create Guinness 0.0, the St James’s Gate brewers use the same natural ingredients (water, barley, hops and yeast) before removing the alcohol through a cold filtration method.

The cold filtration process allows the alcohol to be filtered out without presenting thermal stress to the beer, protecting the integrity of its taste and character. The brewers then carefully blend and balance the flavours to ensure the distinctive flavour profile and taste characteristics of Guinness.

“We know people want to be able to enjoy a Guinness when they choose not to drink alcohol without compromising on taste, and with Guinness 0.0 we believe they will be able to do exactly that.”

Gráinne Wafer – Global brand director, Guinness

Most mainstream beers are either cold filtered to remove the yeast and bacteria, or heat pasteurised to kill all yeast and bacteria. Cold filtration allows the alcohol to be filtered out “without presenting thermal stress to the beer, protecting the integrity of its taste and character”, according to a spokesperson for Diageo, which owns the Guinness brewery.

“The launch of Guinness 0.0 highlights our long-held commitment to innovation, experimentation, and bravery in brewing, harnessing the power of our brewers and our ingredients, to create an alcohol-free beer that is 100% Guinness but 0% alcohol,” Gráinne Wafer, global brand director at Guinness, said.

“We know people want to be able to enjoy a Guinness when they choose not to drink alcohol without compromising on taste, and with Guinness 0.0 we believe they will be able to do exactly that.”

In 2018, Guinness’s Open Gate Brewery in Dublin –– created a ‘full-flavoured’ non-alcoholic lager called Pure Brew.

Guinness 0.0 is brewed at St. James’s Gate in Dublin, the brand’s main innovation hub, and will be rolled out in Great Britain and Ireland. Launching in Great Britain from 26th October, Guinness 0.0 will be available in 440ml can 4-pack format in off-licences and supermarkets.

Non-alcoholic and low ABV beers have become increasingly popular over the past decade, with big brewers like Heineken and Carlsberg launching alcohol-free versions of their own flagship beer labels and seeing sales rise as a result.

Belgian brewer AB InBev launched a low ABV alternative to Stella Artois earlier this year, after pledging that low and no-alcohol products will make up a quarter of the company’s entire drinks portfolio by 2025.

Booze-free drinks have also had huge success during lockdown. In the week to 9 May, sales of non-alcoholic beer in the US were up 44% compared to the same period last year, according to Nielsen.

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