The near beer is here: Beer Guy

When life gave Ted Fleming lemons, he didn’t make lemonade, he made beer.

by Peter Bailey

And not just any beer, Fleming created one of the world’s best non-alcoholic IPAs. To do this, Fleming founded Calgary-based Partake Brewing, Canada’s only brewer dedicated to non-alcoholic beer. In the past year Partake has sold over three million cans of their IPA and other styles. At Ontario’s 684 LCBO stores, Partake is outselling non-alcoholic Heineken and Budweiser combined. Fleming isn’t stopping there, telling me his aspiration is to be able to “go to any bar or restaurant in North America and feel like there’s a good chance I can order a great-tasting non-alcoholic beer.”

Wait, back up, I hear you say. Great-tasting non-alcoholic beer? Isn’t that an oxymoron? For the most part, yes, I agree, non-alcoholic beer is terrible. To borrow a line from the ‘90s band, the Odds, it’s ‘close but kind of meatless, like actors who play Jesus in movies of the week’. Ted Fleming agrees; in fact, that’s why he started Partake. In 2005, he was living in Toronto, enjoying the growth of the local craft beer scene, when he was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. For a time Fleming tried to continue with beer, but after a few years the correlation between alcohol and symptoms worsening was undeniable. Fleming told me, “It was very difficult to give beer up. I searched for a good substitute and there really wasn’t one at the time. This spurred me on to solve my own issue, and in doing that, I solved a problem for a lot of other people it turned out.” They say, ‘write the book you want to read.’ For Fleming, it was ‘brew the beer you want to drink.’

An engineer by training, Fleming approached creating good non-alcoholic beer as a problem to be solved. Without much money or an existing brewery, Partake started from scratch; “It freed us up creatively to think of different ways of how to create a non-alcoholic product.” He worked with Ontario’s Durham College to develop a proprietary hybrid process of making non-alcoholic beer.

Partake IPA launched in 2017 and has not looked back, distributed around the world, including into the U.S. with Whole Foods and liquor giant Total Wine & More. The timing was fortuitous, for non-alcoholic beer is having a moment. Or more than a moment. Food & Wine called 2019 the Year of Non-Alcoholic Beer. While non-alcoholic beer sales in 2018 were only around one per cent of total Canadian beer sales, the sector’s sales have grown by 50 per cent since 2013 and predictions are for growth to accelerate. Wellness is a growing trend, particularly with younger people, who are drinking less alcohol than their parents, and non-alcoholic beer is considered a healthier product. The popularity of the Keto diet and other low-carb diets sends people to non-alc beer. Dry January is ever more popular, as is the idea of being sober curious. (Sobriety is sexy, apparently.) Beer giants, including Coors, Heineken and Budweiser, are betting big on non-alcoholic beer, investing millions in new products such as Heineken’s 0.0. Fleming feels this is a good thing, for the millions spent on marketing by the big guys helps the whole sector rise. While Fleming feels Partake is headed for big success, what continues to drive him is changing the game, “so that for people like me, people who decide not to drink or can’t drink. a bar or restaurant can be a safe place, an accessible place, a welcoming community space, where we feel we can partake on our terms.”

Moderation six pack
Ready to crush Dry January? Good for you. Here’s some no- and low-alcohol beers to help you on your way.

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Partake IPA (.3 per cent ABV) Toronto A ground-breaking non-alcoholic beer designed from the ground up to be a great-tasting craft beer. Made with bold Cascade, Amarillo and Citra hops, checking in at a modestly bitter 26 IBUs, this is a punchy, hoppy northwest-style IPA. With only 10 calories a can, go ahead and have another!

Village Local Pale Ale (.3 per cent ABV), Calgary A very light and quaffable non-alcoholic pale ale, with a touch of hop bitterness from Citra and Ella hops and sweetness from Alberta caramel malt. At only 35 calories for a tall-boy can, this refreshing ale could work as a post-workout recovery drink or as a shower beer in a beer league hockey dressing room.

Red Racer Street Legal IPA (.5 per cent ABV) Surrey Simply put, this is an outstanding non-alcoholic beer, coming the closest I found to matching the full flavour and mouthfeel of an alcoholic beer, such as Red Racer’s iconic IPA. Street Legal is brewed traditionally before the alcohol is removed through a reverse osmosis process. At 40 IBUs, it’s nicely bitter but well-balanced.

Dandy Ultra Pils (3.0 per cent ABV) Calgary For years craft brewing raced towards bigger hops, bigger malt and bigger alcohol. A welcome change has been brewers taking a different tack, brewing sessionable beers with less alcohol. Dandy’s Ultra series uses non-enzymatic or cold mashing to brew full-flavour/low alcohol beer. A delicious Czech-style Pilsner is out now!

Blindman Super Mild (3.4 per cent ABV) Lacombe The English Mild style is the original session ale, low in alcohol but full in flavour. Blindman’s take is a chestnut brown ale with notes of hazelnut, caramel, oats and chocolate. Great unique packaging in a tall stovepipe can, with labels publishing 28 different very short stories from Alberta authors.

Ribstone Abbey Lane English Mild (3.6 per cent ABV) Edgerton Ribstone’s English Mild reveals the beauty of Canadian Prairie malts, predominately tasting of roasted, toasted, malty nuttiness with notes of chocolate and dried fruits. A Gold Medal Winner in Session Ales at the Canadian Brewing Awards and a Silver Medal in Brown Ales at the Alberta Beer Awards.