Alcohol-free beer is gaining popularity, even at Oktoberfest

MUNICH – The head brewer for Weihenstephan, the world’s oldest brewery, has a secret: He really likes non-alcoholic beer.

Although he’s quick to say he definitely enjoys real beer more, Tobias Zollo says he enjoys non-alcoholic beer when he’s working or eating lunch. It tastes the same but has fewer calories than a soda, he said, thanks to the brewery’s evaporation process.

“You can’t drink beer every day – unfortunately,” he joked last week at the Bavarian state brewery in the German city of Freising, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) north of Munich.

Zollo is not alone in his appreciation of the sober drink. Alcohol-free beer has gained popularity in recent years as beer consumption declines.

At Weihenstephan, which was founded as a brewery in 1040 by Benedictine monks, non-alcoholic wheat beer and lager now account for 10% of the volume. The growth over the past few years, since they started producing alcohol-free drinks in the 1990s, mirrors the statistics for the rest of Germany’s beer industry.

“People unfortunately — I should say as a brewer — unfortunately drink less beer,” Zollo said Friday, the day before Oktoberfest officially began. “If there is an alternative to have the crisp, fresh taste of a typical Weihenstephan beer, but only as a non-alcoholic version, we want to do it.”

Even at Oktoberfest – perhaps the world’s most famous ode to alcohol – alcohol-free beer is on the menu.

All but two of the 18 big tents at the festival offer drinks during the 16 days of the festival. The soft drink will cost consumers the same as an alcoholic beer — between 13.60 and 15.30 euros ($15.12 and $17.01) for a 1-liter (33 fluid ounce) cup — but saves them from a hangover.

“For people who don’t like drinking alcohol and want to enjoy Oktoberfest as well, I think it’s a good option,” Mikael Caselitz, 24, from Munich said Saturday inside one of the tents. “Sometimes people feel like they have more fun with alcohol, which is not a good thing because you can have fun without alcohol.”

He added: “If you want to come and drink non-alcoholic beer, no one will judge you.”

This year marked the first time that an alcohol-free beer garden opened in Munich. Die Null, which means “zero” in German, served non-alcoholic beer, mocktails and other non-alcoholic drinks near the city’s main train station this summer, but was slated to close days before Oktoberfest opened.

Walter König, managing director of the Hop Research Association north of Munich, said that researchers had to cultivate special hop varieties for alcohol-free beer. If brewers use typical hops for alcohol-free beer, the distinctive aroma is lost when the alcohol is reduced during the brewing process.

But customers don’t care about that, König said Friday as he prepared for Oktoberfest.

“They just want to know that what they’re tasting is as good as traditional alcoholic beers,” he said.