Omission, the gluten-reduced craft beer brand Anheuser-Busch InBev acquired in its 2020 merger with Craft Brew Alliance, is wiping the slate clean next year.
The Portland, Oregon-based beer brand will discontinue most of its existing lineup of gluten-reduced beers and hard seltzers — with the exception of Ultimate Light Golden Ale and a reformulated version of its IPA — and introduce four new offerings, two of which fall under the fast-growing, non-alcoholic segment.
“The Omission brand’s DNA has always been about helping consumers look to make really balanced choices in their life,” Omission general manager Andy Thomas told Brewbound. “It started out with the gluten-reduced positioning and the gluten-reduced heritage for the brand. Building on that, we’re basically going to go broader and hopefully solidify our leadership in what people are calling ‘balanced choices’ now in terms of a consumer space.”
Omission’s gluten-reduced, non-alcoholic golden ale and IPA will launch nationwide in early 2022. Both will be “low cal” and gluten-reduced. The golden ale will feature “citrusy hops and a clean finish,” and the IPA will offer “notes of citrus and stone fruit,” according to a spec sheet provided by Omission. Both check in at less than 0.5% ABV, and will be available in can 6- and 12-packs in the first trimester of 2022.
The decision to keep the alcohol content above 0.0% was intentional, Thomas said.
“One of the reasons we’re doing that is we believe that helps us to deliver a little bit more on the promise of Omission and giving somebody a really authentic, great tasting non-alcoholic beer under half a percent in the same way we brought consumers who are looking for the reduction in gluten or really reduced-gluten beer that was still an authentic experience for them,” he said.
In addition to the NA styles, Omission will release two new gluten-reduced offerings, each under 4.5% ABV.
“As we help these consumers to really have a number of choices available to them, there’ll be four alcoholic offerings, all rooted in gluten-free, either lower alcohol or lower calorie or some kind of a choice that helps people say ‘Hey, that’s right for this occasion, that’s right for what I’m looking for on the alcohol side.’”
Those new products, each to be named at a later date, include:
- A light wheat ale — 4% ABV, 3 grams of carbs, 99 calories;
- A nitro stout — final ABV not yet confirmed but expected to be around 4.5%, low carb.
The light wheat ale and nitro stout will replace Omission Lager and Omission Pale Ale. Omission IPA’s recipe will be refreshed to create “a more balanced lower carb, still gluten-reduced liquid,” an Omission spokesperson said.
Omission’s four gluten-free hard seltzers will also be discontinued.
With the new portfolio, Omission’s packaging and branding will also receive a brand refresh.
“It’ll be an evolution, but it’ll be a departure,” Thomas said. “We’re really trying to build on the equity of the brand so that it’s not totally unrecognizable to people, but it’s not so subtle that people won’t notice the evolution.”
Omission’s Ultimate Light Golden Ale (4.2%, 3 grams of carbs, 99 calories) will be the only existing brand offering to live on; Ultimate Light will receive a packaging refresh in January.
Omission was born in 2012 from the insight that drinkers who were sensitive to gluten still wanted to enjoy craft beer, and that craft beer consumers were interested in what they perceived to be healthier choices. Today, Omission rules the gluten-reduced segment, with off-premise retail sales 10 times greater than its next closest competitor for the 52 weeks that ended August 1, according to NielsenIQ data shared by the company. Compared to leading brands in the non-alc space, Omission has twice the distribution than other leading non-alc brands.
Since the merger of A-B and CBA, which Thomas led as CEO, Omission has increased its knowledge of its drinkers — and learned what they were looking for in non-alc options.
“We followed those consumers and updated all of our consumer research — it’s one of the benefits that a lot of the legacy CBA brands have had of being part of the ABI family is having access to a deeper treasure trove of resources and consumer insights,” Thomas said. “As we started to be able to go a little bit deeper with the Omission consumer, we started understanding how their lives had evolved from the beginning and where they felt the brand played in their life. Omission had become a trusted partner for a lot of people in delivering that kind of a choice to them, and when we looked at how a lot of those consumers are living right now, we realized they were looking for even more choices.”
Thomas clarified that Omission’s target consumers are grouped by their mindset rather than their demographics — “happy, healthy people,” he dubbed them. Many are mindful of health and wellness.
“If they’re looking to reach for a lower-alcohol beer or if they’re looking to reach for a gluten-reduced beer or they’re looking to reach for non-alcoholic beer, we want to be part of their consideration set,” he said. “We want them to feel that regardless of what they’re looking for in that occasion, that Omission basically has something that they can rely on and that will be a good experience for them.”
Year-to-date through August 8, dollar sales of non-alcoholic beer have increased 26.8%, to $143.7 million, according to IRI.