Whether your January is feeling dry, damp, or soaking wet, there’s a relatively new entrant in the craft beer landscape that is almost certainly making its way into your consciousness this first month of 2026.

When I first joined the craft beer industry in 2010, “non-alc” was a miniscule and oft forgotten corner of the beer industry. Most of my exposure to the category had been in my dad begrudgingly buying a case to abstain from alcohol during Lent. Back then, it was real self-sacrifice (bordering on self-loathing) to trade “real beer” for the non-alcoholic (NA) alternative.

What a difference 15 years makes. Whether or not you’ve dipped a toe into NA production yourself, it’s almost certainly on your radar. The Adult Non-Alcoholic Beverage Association (ANBA) estimates that more than 90% of consumers who purchase NA products are also buying alcoholic beverages. In other words, many of your customers are already drinking NA.

And while this piece could be published at any point in the year, I’ve chosen to explore the topic in January. The concept of Dry January has continued its stubborn hold on the minds of consumers, with some polls finding that more Americans than ever were considering participation this year. Whether intent is realized come mid- to late-January is another story.

Even outside of January, the majority of American adults in 2025 reported intent to cut back on alcohol consumption in the coming year (see chart below). Additionally, the 2025 BA Consumer Survey (conducted by Harris Poll) found that 14% of regular craft beer drinkers are consuming less craft because they’re drinking more NA. Within the industry, there’s also expectation that NA will be around for the long haul as 40% of BA newsletter survey respondents felt craft NA has staying power (compared to 31% who says it doesn’t).

All this to say, consumers are looking to non-alcoholic options, whether full-time, for parts of the year, or for certain occasions and it would be short-sighted for craft producers to ignore that demand. And while not every small brewery will be able to produce their own, every brewer can decide whether to accommodate new customers and new occasions by serving NA products out of their taprooms or brewpubs.

Let’s spend a few minutes acquainting ourselves with where NA stands as we kick off 2026

Non-Alcohol Overall

Over the past few years, sales of NA products haven’t felt the drag of beer overall. While beer has been down low single digits, NA has experienced double-digit growth in both sales ($) and volume each year for at least the past four. In fact, from 2021 through 2025, volume sales of NA lifted 111% while dollar sales exploded +159% over that period. Although NA accounted for just 2.5% of beer sales by volume in 2025, this share has more than doubled in half a decade (1.1% in 2021).

And while much of this growth is attributed to existing NA producers (92% of volume in 2024-2025 came from NA brands launched prior to 2024), there’s no shortage of newcomers entering the space. (Author’s note: when drafting this post in Word, it suggested I change the preceding sentence to “…there’s no shortage of newcomers entering space.” While accurate, let’s stick to the topic at hand.)

NIQ tracked 213 companies producing NA brands in 2025, up 134% from 2021 when there were just 91. It’s important to note that NIQ’s definition of Non-Alcoholic includes NA beer, hop water, NA cider, and NA cocktails produced by beer companies. It also does not include any NA brands produced and sold onsite at brewery taprooms (i.e. not at typical off-premise retailers). And while the number of companies has climbed over the past four years, the rate of brand growth has accelerated even faster.

In 2021, NIQ tracked 173 NA brands being sold around the country. By 2025, that number had shot up 180% (to 484 brands). You’ll notice that the brand growth rate has outpaced sales growth for NA, indicating that just because there have been a lot of attempts to enter the market, it does not mean they’ve all found success. While the median was one NA brand per producer, the average was two, lifted by some companies that leaned hard into NA. In fact, the largest portfolio of NA products by one company was 13 distinct brands across NA beer and canned cocktails.

Non-Alcohol Craft

If NA is cool, you can consider craft NA to be Miles Davis. As shown in the chart above, craft NA is over-indexing in terms of sales and volume growth. It also represents the vast majority of growth in new NA producers and brands. All of this combined makes craft a share-taker of the NA category. In 2025, craft made up 31% of NA sales volume and 36% of NA dollar sales. The studied among you will be able to compare that to craft’s roughly 13% share of beer overall.

While craft NA’s growth has been steady, it has not been uniform across the country. In 2025, the fastest growth in craft NA dollar sales was in the Mountain Census Division (AZ, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, UT, and WY) at +27% year over year (YOY), compared against +20% nationally. Volume growth of craft NA was +21% across the country with the Mountain Division tied with the East South Central Division (AL, KY, MS, and TN) with the highest YOY growth rate of 28%. Slowest growth areas (though still growing) were the +15% volume sales in the West North Central Division (IA, KS, MN, MO, ND, NE, and SD) and +19% in the Pacific Division (AK, CA, HI, OR, and WA). The markets with the highest share of craft NA volume in 2025 were the Pacific Division at 24%, the South Atlantic Division (DC, DE, MD, FL, GA, NC, SC, VA, and WV) at 19%, and the East North Central Division (IL, IN, MI, OH, and WI) at 13%.

What To Expect for NA in 2026

With so much momentum, it’s easy to see a path toward continued growth in the year ahead. Especially with more effort (read: marketing dollars) being injected into the category by large multinational brewers, expect overall sales to continue growing even if it means a slight drop in craft’s share of the pie.

In closing, I feel compelled to reiterate that most NA beer drinkers are also alcoholic beer drinkers. The messaging around these products can be directed towards the sober crowd, but it’d be leaving plenty of consumers behind to ignore the group that seeks out sober occasions (rather than full-time sobriety). Finding the balance of quality product with effective branding will be key to continue craft’s strong performance in the NA category.