One of the nation’s largest craft breweries is dipping its toe into the non-alcoholic beverage space. Sierra Nevada Brewing Company has launched its first non-alcoholic product, Hop Splash, a sparkling water infused with Citra and Amarillo hops.
Sierra Nevada began pre-selling Hop Splash (zero calories, carbs and sugars) via its website on Monday, January 3. Shipments will go to the lower 48 states with orders limited to no more than four 6-packs at $10 apiece, plus shipping costs ($5 for up to two 6-packs).
Robin Gregory, Sierra Nevada’s director of communications, told Brewbound that the craft brewery is testing the product first with direct-to-consumer sales to gauge interest and gather feedback before exploring taking it to retail.
“We felt pretty confident that we could launch this online and get feedback and just see how it does for now,” she said. “And then see where it goes in the future.”
Should Hop Splash graduate to retail, the brand would face competition from several existing hop waters, including Athletic Brewing’s Daypack, Lagunitas’ Hoppy Refresher, Hop WTR (with a minority investment from Constellation Brand), Hop Lark, H2OPS, HopTea, Aurora Superior Sparkling Beverages and Oregon Hop Springs, among several others.
Until then, Hop Splash will be sold directly to consumers through e-commerce. Sierra Nevada ramped up its DTC sales capabilities over the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, shipping beer directly to consumers in eight states. The infrastructure built during the pandemic and the lack of constraints on sales of non-alcoholic beverages has allowed the company to offer Hop Splash to consumers in the lower 48 states.
A day into the pre-sale, Gregory said there has been a lot of interest from consumers and engagement via the company’s Instagram profile.
Asked why Sierra Nevada chose to release a sparkling water infused with hops rather than a traditional non-alcoholic beer, Gregory explained that Hop Splash is part of a larger strategy to “ramp up” the company’s innovation efforts across the board.
“We’ve been trying a lot of different things, and I think over the next year or two, you’ll probably see a lot more innovative, non-beer products coming out,” she said. “But this is one that we just felt like we really had the recipe dialed.
“We were able to hit all those macros that we were really trying to get with no sugar, no carbs, no calories, and the flavor is just delicious,” she continued.
Gregory said Sierra Nevada’s brewing team used the same base water it uses for its beers. The team scaled back the bitterness and astringency of the beverage to bring out “really fruity and bright flavors” of peach, mango and grapefruit.
“You certainly get some big hop-forward fruit flavors, but it’s still extremely refreshing and crisp and easy to drink,” she said.
Unlike Sierra Nevada’s other forays outside of the traditional beer space — Tea West hard tea and Strainge Beast Hard Kombucha — Hop Splash does boast the Sierra Nevada brand name. Gregory explained that the “big takeaway” from Hop Splash is “really big hop flavor.” As such, the target consumer for the product is a traditional Sierra Nevada drinker who is looking for a beverage for non-beer occasions.
“If you love hop-forward IPAs, you’re probably going to like Hop Splash,” Gregory said.
As for traditional non-alcoholic beer, Sierra Nevada would consider releasing one in the future and the company’s innovation team has been exploring different product types and recipes, Gregory said.
That space continues to get crowded. Athletic Brewing topped the 100,000-barrel mark in 2021 and was among the fastest growing breweries of the last year. Large craft breweries such as Lagunitas with its IPNA, Deschutes Brewery with an NA version of its Black Butte Porter, and Brooklyn Brewery, which released a variety pack of Special Effects branded NA beers, including an IPA, Hazy IPA, Hoppy Amber and Pils. Smaller craft brewers are also launching their own NA beers, including Salem, Massachusetts-based Notch Brewing.
Global brewers continue to march into the space as well, following Heineken’s lead with its 0.0 brand. Those include Diageo, which plans to bring Guinness 0.0 stateside this year, and Anheuser-Busch, which is launching Corona Sunbrew 0.0, which claims to offer 30% of a consumer’s daily Vitamin D per 330 mL serving, in Canada and the United Kingdom this year, according to Beverage Daily. Phillips Brewing & Malting Co. has also released its own line of non-alc beers in Canada called iOTA.
Non-alcoholic beer sales in off-premise retailers in 2021 (through November 28) were up 24.4%, to $219.6 million, according to market research firm IRI.