The cost of Non-Alcoholic Beer
A conversation I’ve had many times over the years is “Why does non-alc beer cost so much? You don’t pay excise tax!” or, "I can buy alcoholic beer for that price”. Whilst this is true, it’s not a case of comparing products from the same market.
In many cases, people are comparing beers from large production breweries to small batch, non-alcoholic brands. Where instead, they should be comparing small craft non-alcoholic beer brands, to small craft alcoholic beer brands to gain an accurate measure of cost comparisons.
The reason many non-alcoholic brands seem expensive is due to the fact they are brewed to a small volume, and the costs involved to brew “under-contract” from another brewery can be quite expensive, leading to higher costs once final costings have been calculated. Other brands use expensive equipment to remove to alcohol from the beer, in which costs are then passed on in the final product.
Non-alcoholic beer requires the same amount of labour to brew, use the same ingredients, same packaging, and the same logistical requirements, making these cost quite similar to those of regular beer. The excise tax added to the final product is the only major difference.
Excise tax, at the current rate accounts for approximately 25% of the cost of a carton of beer.
To put this into perspective;
- A well-known, leading craft brewery who produce both, alcoholic and non-alcoholic options have a price difference of approximately 25% between their alcoholic beer and their non-alcoholic option. Making their non-alcoholic beer in fact cheaper to purchase.
- Another case is from the leading major commercial brewery in Australia, who also produce a non-alcoholic version of their most popular beer. Their non-alcoholic beer is also approximately 25% cheaper to purchase than the alcoholic version.
Craig Dillon
Non-Alcoholic Beer Brewer & Advocate
Leave a comment