Un-drunk Yard, De-extinction & 2-min Realism 🦖

Some Stats:

• North America and Europe dominate the non-alcoholic beer market.
• In Iran, which has the most non-alcoholic beer drinkers of any country, some 33 domestic companies produce non-alcoholic beer. 
• A brand called Fayrouz created the world’s first Halal beer (to sell in the Middle East), using a brewing technique that ensures the malt never fermenting and therefore, alcohol never being produced. 

Why the craze for non-alcoholic? 

Healthy Body: 40% of global customers and over half of Americans say they want to decrease their alcohol consumption for health reasons, according to a recent Vox report. The Dry January and Sober October campaigns stand as proof.

Lower Calories: These beverages are offering a lighter alternative to the calorie dense beer. For example, Heineken 0.0 clocks in at 69 calories, as opposed to the original Heineken beer at 150. 

Byproducts: The grain that is created every time beer is produced is pretty useful. Companies like Regrained are taking this highly nutritious grain (aka the byproduct) and up-cycling it into edible energy bars. 

Startups and Social Fun

Startups are crafting new experiences and community building around the idea of “interaction without a hangover”.

Seedlip, a company that utilizes plants to create non-alcoholic adult drinks, is building an experimental garden at their farm letting drinkers have fun and socialise.

JoyBrau created a vegan, non-alcoholic protein beer targeted specifically at fitness folk. 

Other companies have focused on gluten-free beer, cannabis beer, and a whole host of niche non-alcoholic spirits like Kin Euphorics and Three Spirit.

The new social media app trending among GenZ and Millennials - BeReal - is being heralded as the anti-instagram. 

It’s basically a more authentic social platform. You can see what your friends are up to in real-time without any editing or filters.  

How it Works: 

You have 2 minutes to post a picture - one from the front camera and one from the back camera simultaneously.  So you have no time to add edits or filters. 

If you miss the 2-min video, your posts will be marked as tardy and you won’t be able to see your friends’ pictures until you upload your own.

Stats: 

To date, BeReal has been downloaded 27 million time globally. This is ofcourse no big feat when compared to Facebook’s 2 billion active users per day. But it still regularly tops the app stores and the most popular free app. 

• The US is BeReal’s biggest market accounting for nearly 40% of its total downloads. 
• UK is in second with 15% and France ranks third with 8%. 

What makes it different from Instagram is that it has levelled the playing field for those who don’t have the time, technology or skills to put up staged and edited photographs and reels. Plus it doesn’t pull the user into the apps with a barrage of information and features. It’s simple and just lets people see what their friends are doing.  

But that also poses a big question for BeReal about how it intends to make money. Less user attention means less potential for ads. And it’s unclear whether users will be open to paying a subscription free. For now, it’s being funded by venture capitalists who’ve put a combined $30 million into the company.