For two years, the most common request we got was a non-alcoholic beer. For two years, we said the same thing: not until it is good. We had all tried the bad ones. We were not going to put our name on wet bread water and call it a vibe.
It is genuinely hard
Making beer taste like beer without the alcohol is much harder than it sounds. The alcohol does a lot of quiet work in there, carrying flavor and giving the body some weight. Take it out and you are left with something that needs real attention to feel right.
So we fussed over it. A lot. We brewed batch after batch, made the whole team blind-taste them next to the regular Pils, and only stopped when people started picking the 0.0 by accident.
Now it lives in our fridge
The honest measure of the 0.0 is that we drink it ourselves on weeknights now, and not out of obligation. All of the vibe, none of the regret. The morning after really is the best part.