NOSTRAD🔮UGLAS' 2025 Preview & Predictions Part 2: How Low Can You Go?

In a game of Limbo, the stick starts high, with most entrants able to get off to a successful start, with plenty of room to work and easy wins to get started. After each round however, the stick lowers and the degree of difficulty is raised. Those with flexibility are long for the game, whereas those unable to adapt end up on their backs.

Nostradouglas, Doug’s soothsaying alter ego, is back to share four fascinating trends in the beverage alcohol space that each uniquely fit today’s theme, “How Low Can You Go?”. While some of today’s topics may come and go, others signal a more fundamental change in consumer behavior, each hinting at a recalibration of what we value in our drinks.

1. Low Alcohol 🔎

A couple new beer brands have recently launched that aim to create a middle ground between non-alcoholic and traditional beer, both targeting the hangover, alongside other occasions and selling points.

Small Beer is a 2.5% ABV, 80 calorie Lager “for people with sh*t to do tomorrow”. “Small lets you halve your beer and drink it too. So you can enjoy today, and tomorrow.” Their marketing leans fun, with intentionally outrageous lifestyle shots, mixing in some 90’s nostalgia surrounding their front man who resembles a more stylin’ Erlich Bachman from the HBO show Silicon Valley.

Their Instagram page utilizes memes and billboard mock-ups that cover a variety of different messages, including attacks on the days of blacking out, and the feeling the next day. If you’re still not sold on 2.5% beer, they offer 15 reasons on their website, further blending serious takes with comic relief:

1. Because the last time you drank big beers you had to leave the family minivan at Top Golf.

2. Because everything in moderation.

3. Because yard-work, fishing, family reunions, day-drinking, festivals, and the ability to maintain your buzz without going over the edge.

4. Because you can drink a 6-pack of these and still carry on a conversation.

5. Because your toddler is getting up at 5:35am on the dot whether you're hungover or not.

6. Because you're going to have to see your co-workers again.

7. Because you actually have a pretty nice little Saturday planned.

   

8. Because now “streaking through the quad” will get you in very, very serious trouble.

9. Because your in-laws are going to bring up politics and this time you need to be cordial.

10. Because just the thought of drinking 9% beer gives you a hangover.

11. Because you know damn well you have no business getting “wrecked” or going to a “rager”.

12. Because golfing, skiing, and watching your kids is more fun with a reasonable amount of beer.

13. Because you're the reason they stopped selling booze at the Waste Management.

14. Because you care about your health and the amount of carbs and calories in your beer.

15. And lastly, because proving to everyone how much alcohol you can drink is still super cool, right?

The brand is just getting started with limited distribution, mostly around Denver, Colorado Springs, and more recently Austin, TX.

---

Dad Strength Brewing is going after the same occasions, but with notable differences including a little less vibe, and lot more behind-the-scenes. They started with an IPA and an Apricot IPA, at 2.9% and 2.8% ABV respectively, each claiming 94 calories on the can. “Brewed for a better tomorrow” at “half the alcohol of a regular IPA and fewer calories than a light beer” because “6, 7, 8% is too high and 0% is too low.”

Dad Strength’s messaging and social media has a little more serious tone, with occasional stories like their co-founder lying to his doctor about how much he was drinking, but remains casual and dad-like in many ways. The founders are the stars of their own social media and take you to samplings with examples of successful interactions with newly acquired customers. Their distribution includes Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, and 200+ locations in Washington, DC + Montgomery County area according to their website.

Nostradouglas has been a noted skeptic of the mid-strength beer concept dating back a few years:

This was not intended to dismiss the category, but more so a jab at the amount of work and focus this segment would take to build in the US. There’s no doubt interested customers and potential for well-funded brands to figure it out. If I were a potential investor, the concerns that I would want to hear addressed would include:

• Consumer Education Gap: The category doesn’t really exist, so there’s a ton of groundwork that needs to be done to introduce consumers, distributors, and retailers to the concept, not just the brand. A brand can certainly be built with viral content on social media, but the longest lasting victories will need to be won in the trenches, sampling customers face-to-face, one-by-one, with boots on the ground wherever the product can be purchased.

• Budget Hurdles: Heineken and Athletic Brewing have been successfully building the Non-Alcoholic segment in the US this way, just swap viral with paid (and earned) media. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been deployed in the last five years to promote the category and lifestyle from these two brands alone, just to get it pushing toward 2% of total beer sales. Big checks are being written, because that’s what it taken for NA to break through.

• Value Proposition: Unfortunately a 2.5% beer does not cost half as much as a 5.0% beer to make, all-in. Due to the costs of packaging, production, and the distributor & retailer margins, any difference in recipe cost will not lead to material room to differentiate the price to the consumer. You are solely relying on consumers who will pay essentially the same price, for less alcohol. Similar to 8oz Coke cans which often cost no less than 12oz, there IS a customer. The question is, how many are there and what’s the cost to acquire each?

As a busy father of two busy kids, these days I like the taste and ritual of beers with friends a lot more than I care about the alcohol side of it. I am the target audience for Small Beer and Dad Strength if the taste and flavor are there, so I am rooting for both, and others, to make mid-strength beer happen. The degree of difficulty and investment is sky high because they aren’t just building brands, they’re building an entire category that needs a lot of education and inherently asks the consumer to pay more or the same, for less (alcohol).

2. Low Volume 🔎

Speaking of small can sizes, this niche has been probed at for decades by the beer industry. Rolling Rock, Modelitos, and the classic Miller High Life pony bottles have served as great final-final, side car, and cocktail-adjacent tools in the on-premise especially. On the craft beer side, Chicago’s Hopewell has championed their own equivalent with Lil’ Buddy, a cute German-style Helles Lager in stubby 8oz cans, which just raised their game in early 2025 by launching 8-pack cartons compared to their original paktech 4-packs.