The pool of craft brewers launching non-alcoholic beers continues to grow. Joining the fray is Hops & Grain founder Josh Hare, who launched Rick’s Near Beer in late 2022.
Rick’s, a non-alcoholic lifestyle beer brand, is a standalone offering and legal entity from Hare’s previous Texas-based craft brewing ventures – Hops & Grain and Pint & Plow Brewing Co.
“The company is just me,” Hare told Brewbound. “I have a team of folks that are working with me from every aspect of marketing, media relations, branding, all that stuff. But in terms of getting the actual beer to customers, I’m doing all that stuff.”
Available through e-commerce sales, Rick’s two non-alcoholic offerings – a pilsner and a hazy IPA – are slated to begin statewide distribution in Texas with the spring resets, led by grocery chain H-E-B.
Over the last couple of years, Hare found himself doing “some spiritual spelunking.” He had wound down operations at Hops & Grains production facility in San Marcos, and a lease on the brewery’s Austin space expired at the end 2020. Although Hops & Grain lives on as a contract-brewed brand, and Pint & Plow has operated business as usual, Hare found himself wondering what was next.
The deep dive led Hare to determine his “real fire comes with building brands,” he told Brewbound.
As his own consumption patterns shifted to non-alcoholic offerings during the COVID-19 pandemic, Hare found his interest piqued by non-alcoholic beer. Playing in a space “quasi adjacent” to the beer category was appealing, as it was a business he was familiar with but could also “dance outside of the regulatory constraints that, especially in Texas, we’ve been quite frustrated by, and I’ve spent a lot of tie with the craft brewers guild trying to change,” he said.
Hare began researching the top-selling modern non-alcoholic beers and their production. He’d previously experimented with non-alcoholic beer production at Hops & Grain, but the results were admittedly “mediocre, at best.”
His research led him to two pathways of production: dealcoholizing an alcoholic beer or reconstructing various flavor components of a beer without the alcohol.Hare’s research led him to Sustainable Beverage Technologies, a Golden, Colorado-based company with a proprietary brewing process called BrewVo “nested fermentation process” that allows suppliers to create “best in class, great tasting NA beer.”
Hare began working with Sustainable Beverage Technologies to take his recipes for various beers and produce non-alcoholic versions by fully fermenting the beer and then removing the alcohol. Within the process, the beer is pasteurized.
“It was a requirement when I was looking for what to do,” he said. “I have a biology degree. It’s pretty basic that if there’s no alcohol in it, and you’re not pasteurizing it, and it’s not cold-chain required every step of the way, then you’re just asking for disaster.”
The first shipments of Rick’s Original Pils were produced at Sustainable Beverage Technologies’ Golden facility and arrived in Texas in November 2022. Sales began in December. Rick’s Hazy IPA released a month later.
With statewide distribution in Texas just months away, Hare is signing distributors to fill out the state. Much of the southern half of Texas is covered, and he expects the rest of the state to be completed by the end of January.
California and Florida are on Hare’s radar as potential expansion markets, since most online orders outside of Texas come from those two states.
To keep up with orders, Hare has leased an East Austin warehouse and retail space slated to open in February. He’ll fulfill orders locally and across the U.S.
Even as Hare has moderated his own consumption over the last couple of years, he isn’t positioning Rick’s as a health-and-wellness brand. In fact, he sees more of an opportunity to create a lifestyle brand that evokes classic brands such as Rainier and Hamm’s but with a modern flare. It’s all part of breaking non-alcoholic beer’s stigmas and forging a different path than many of the brands on the market.
“I really saw an opportunity to not need to lead with that,” he said. “I recognize that there are also a lot of people that want to cut back on their alcohol, but they’re not trying to act like they’re on a health kick.”
Rick’s is more about a “vibe.” The Rick’s name alone is the manifestation of a spirit of a local legend, not a real person. With taglines such as “low strength, high times,” “grab a round of Rick’s,” “morning, noon and night,” the brand is “just there for living,” Hare said.
For Hare, it’s about normalizing non-alcoholic beer, especially for bars and restaurants. Rick’s is intended to be in the mix with alcoholic beverages..
“I’m not trying to pitch Rick’s as your option if you’re trying to be super healthy and you’re cutting back,” Hare said. “I mean, you can also do that also. But I think it’s a hip brand.
“It’s meant to complement just living.”
What’s Next for Hops & Grain and Pint & Plow Brewing?
Hops & Grain, which launched in 2010, is now completely contract produced at Austin Beerworks. The brand’s four offerings – Lupulin Rodeo IPA, Haze County double IPA, A Pale Mosaic IPA and Zoe pale lager – are sold through distribution with Capital Reyes across a 14-county footprint.
“The fact that we’re still you know, alive and breathing. I’m super excited about it,” Hare said.
Pint & Plow Brewing Co., the Kerrville, Texas-based restaurant with on-site brewing that Hare opened with a partner, “never really skipped a beat,” Hare said.
“The city there really rallied behind us during the pandemic,” he said, as the outdoor beer garden continued doing business, with people stopping by for beer and getting takeout pizza.