PBS News Hour

GEOFF BENNETT: U.S. beer sales traditionally peak in the summer months between Memorial Day and Labor Day, but what's in those beers is changing.

While nonalcoholic beer, wine and cocktails make up a small fraction of the overall alcohol market, sales are rapidly rising.

We sent Paul Solman out for a taste test.

PAUL SOLMAN: In New Haven, Connecticut, paying homage to the Hemingway daiquiri.

KHALID WILLIAMS, Founder and President, The Barrel Age: With grapefruit and maraschino liqueur.

PAUL SOLMAN: A Caribbean style gin buck.

KHALID WILLIAMS: Usually gin, lime juice and ginger beer.

PAUL SOLMAN: A tiki punch.

KHALID WILLIAMS: I base it off of this honeybush and banana tea.

PAUL SOLMAN: Oh, that's delicious.

These are all concoctions of award winning bartender, restaurant consultant and writer Khalid Williams, cocktails with barely a trace of alcohol.

KHALID WILLIAMS: My goal is to give you a drink that has, like a wine, a beginning, a kind of mid-palate and a finish.

PAUL SOLMAN: Any drink like these spirits Williams uses can be labeled nonalcoholic if they have no more than half-a-percent of alcohol.

And these so-called sober cocktails, he says, are all the rage.

KHALID WILLIAMS: Any bar now worth their salt is giving attention, menu real estate, and I'd say honor to cocktails that do not have alcoholic content.

PAUL SOLMAN: Of course, old-timers, like Kevin Nesbitt, who asked if the bar in which he drank martinis 30-some years ago was open at 10:00 a.m. KEVIN NESBITT, New Haven Resident: Never thought about ordering a non nonalcoholic martini, to be honest.

PAUL SOLMAN: But more and more of us and particularly younger people are opting to cut back on booze.

Sales of so-called nonalcoholic spirits, beer and wine at grocery, convenience, liquor stores and the like are up more than 40 percent in just the last two years.

There are even bars like Hekate in Manhattan's East Village which displays, says "New Yorker" writer John Seabrook: JOHN SEABROOK, "The New Yorker": All these bottles of liquor that look like rum and whiskey and tequila, and they're all nonalcoholic.

PAUL SOLMAN: Indeed, it's not just the one in four Americans who don't drink at all, says analyst Kaleigh Theriault.

KALEIGH THERIAULT, NIQ: What we see in our data is that four and five consumers of nonalcohol beer, wine and spirits are also purchasing alcohol-containing beer, wine and spirits.

PAUL SOLMAN: No surprise that the main adult nonalcoholic beverage again, 0.5 percent of alcohol or less, is beer.

One brewer of it, Athletic in Milford, Connecticut, growing like crazy.

JOHN WALKER, Co-Founder, Athletic Brewing Company: In 2018, we had brewed 800 barrels of beer, and last year we produced over 170,000 barrels of beer.

The nonalcoholic beer category itself is growing 30 percent year over year.

We're growing at about 90 percent year over year to date.

PAUL SOLMAN: In fact, last year, Athletic had to move to this 150,000-square-foot facility after reinforcing part of the floor to support new tanks that hold up to 25,000 gallons for brewing and the boilers, pasteurizing to counter microbes that alcohol would otherwise slay, and packaging at a breakneck pace.

JOHN WALKER: This new canning line right here can do 450 cans a minute.

PAUL SOLMAN: Brewer John Walker migrated from the alcohol-dependent craft beer industry because of a void.

JOHN WALKER: Nobody had really innovated in nonalcoholic beer for decades.

PAUL SOLMAN: The innovation, killing the alcohol without killing the taste, found a fast-growing and loyal fan base.

JOHN SEABROOK: Well, here's a nonalcoholic IPA.

PAUL SOLMAN: John Seabrook wrote about his discovery after swearing off alcohol seven years ago.

Were you a problem drinker?

Is that it?

JOHN SEABROOK: Yes.

Yes, I was -- let's say I got a credible ultimatum from my wife.

And when you stop drinking alcohol, you really do need to find something to hold in your hand.

PAUL SOLMAN: Which led him to super-low-alcohol beers, but: JOHN SEABROOK: They were like made-in-America versions of European peers like Clausthaler.

PAUL SOLMAN: Until he tried Athletic, which I figured I should try as well.

JOHN SEABROOK: OK, well, that's the yellow one.

That's OK, too.

Well, but, when you get there tomorrow, definitely get the blue one.

PAUL SOLMAN: Which, in the interests of investigative journalism, I did the next day at Athletic.

JOHN WALKER: So we have got some tropical notes, citrus notes.

PAUL SOLMAN: Nuances mostly lost on my peasant palate.

Well, it's nice and cool.

It's refreshing.

But the key to Athletic and sober beer's success in general was hard to miss.

They're better for you.

MAN: Beautiful day, huh?

PAUL SOLMAN: So healthy that the German Olympic ski team trains on nonalcoholic beer, maybe because it's also low cal.

JOHN WALKER: This is our 25 calorie, five grams of carbs and zero sugar lite beer.

PAUL SOLMAN: Because there's next to no alcohol.

That's why it's Athletic.

JOHN WALKER: A lot of what we did early on was break nonalcoholic beer out of the penalty box.

PAUL SOLMAN: Bartender Khalid Williams says he too is trying to remove the sometimes negative aura around the sober drink.

KHALID WILLIAMS: It just was not respected, whether it was somebody with child or somebody on a diet.

The table would laugh.

PAUL SOLMAN: Really?

I mean, you saw that?

KHALID WILLIAMS: For sure.

Many times.

PAUL SOLMAN: So he's reframing booze-free.

KHALID WILLIAMS: I'm kind of a one-man movement to stop using the word virgin to describe beverages.

PAUL SOLMAN: So how about mocktail?

KHALID WILLIAMS: I have been kind of thinking past mocktail.

How do we get to the point where we're not deleting something, where we're not taking something away.

We're making something complete.

PAUL SOLMAN: Right, so that has its own standing and no stigma.

KHALID WILLIAMS: Bingo, no stigma.

PAUL SOLMAN: No stigma for the one-third of Americans aiming to drink less alcohol, either to cut calories and/or intoxication.

And for John Seabrook, Athletic, with so little alcohol, helped him off anything stronger.

JOHN SEABROOK: I needed a sort of substitute beverage that wasn't alcohol, but tasted enough like alcohol that I felt part of the ritual.

PAUL SOLMAN: But, for some, drinking anything like or even just a little alcohol can be a problem, says Yale psychologist and neuroscientist Rajita Sinha.

RAJITA SINHA, Yale School of Medicine: Recovery is different for different people.

Drinking drinks that look like an alcoholic drink can be a trigger.

It can be what we call cue-inducing.

PAUL SOLMAN: And, notes the World Health Organization -- quote -- "There is no safe amount that does not affect health."

RAJITA SINHA: The short-term effects are sleep, attention and focus, emotional reactivity.

PAUL SOLMAN: But I'm not alone in drinking alcohol to chill out, right?

RAJITA SINHA: Yes, it does seem to decrease anxiety in the moment as you're drinking.

For some people, it makes them more social.

But very quickly, you get tolerant to the anxiety effects.

And the more you drink, the more anxiety-provoking alcohol can be, so the more distressing it can be.

PAUL SOLMAN: So I'm 78.

Should I not be drinking any alcohol at all?

RAJITA SINHA: At your age, not a good idea to continue?

PAUL SOLMAN: Do you drink at all?

RAJITA SINHA: I do, anywhere between two or three drinks a week.

But I have been actually thinking maybe I need to even cut that back.

PAUL SOLMAN: And after hearing all that, plus a day of cocktails and beer with no after-effects at all, I'm on the wagon, for now.

And for the "PBS NewsHour" in Milford, Connecticut, Paul Solman.