Dogfish Head on a health kick
Craft brewery unveils low-calorie IPA.
Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, known for beers made with exotic ingredients that often boast high alcohol levels, is on a health kick.
The Milton, Delaware-based brewer will soon release Slightly Mighty IPA, a low-alcohol ale (4 percent ABV) with only 95 calories and 3.6 grams of carbohydrates, a profile rivaling that of postworkout favorite Michelob Ultra (95 calories, 2.6 grams of carbs).
The new beer, due this spring, joins another recent Dogfish addition that’s chasing after health-conscious beer lovers: Super EIGHT, a gose beer – it’s tart – made with superfoods such as prickly pear, mango, boysenberry, blackberry, raspberry, elderberry, kiwi juices, toasted quinoa and red Hawaiian sea salt.
Dogfish’s new entries join other beers catering to active and healthy lifestyles including Avery Brewing’s Go Play IPA, a lower alcohol (5.5 percent ABV) beer with tropical flavors released in May 2018, and Michelob Ultra Pure Gold, an organic alternative to Anheuser-Busch’s popular Michelob Ultra that came out in February 2018.
“Consumers are treating themselves to better food, more natural ingredients, better coffee,” said Dogfish Head Craft Brewery co-founder Sam Calagione. “Better, more natural, more wellness-oriented beer fits into that lifestyle.”
Even though independent craft breweries continue to capture a larger share of the total $111 billion U.S. beer market, the industry may be bracing for a downtick in consumer spending. Total beer sales are estimated to remain about the same in 2018 as in 2017, but craft brewers are expected to see 2018 sales increase to $28 billion up from $26 billion the year before, estimates Bart Watson, chief economist of the Brewers Association, a trade group that represents independent brewers.
There are some signs that craft beer drinkers may be drinking less. In an annual consumer survey the association conducts with Nielsen, more than onethird (36 percent) of craft beer drinkers said they were drinking less in 2018 as part of a healthier lifestyle, up from 31 percent the previous year. Since the question has only been asked for two years, Watson is unsure if it’s a trend “and not just sampling errors,” he said, but the result “points in that direction.”
Buttressing that potential, a report released last year by the Federal Reserve Board entitled found millennials (those born between 1981 and 1997) spend less money on alcoholic beverages than baby boomers (1946-1964) spent when they were about the same age and surveyed 30 years ago.
Dogfish Head, the 12th largest U.S. craft brewery, according to the Brewers Association, began seeing some sign drinkers were being more purposeful.
Namaste White, a zesty, low-alcohol (4.8 percent ABV) ale released in 2009, started cropping up on Twitter and Instagram in post-yoga photos, Calagione says. Similarly, when the brewery in 2017 released SeaQuench Ale, a slightly sour lime-infused 4.9 percent ABV beer with a dash of sea salt designed to be thirst-quenching, “we saw on social media people having it after a long run or after a bike or pickup basketball game,” he said.
As Dogfish Head continued its research, the brewery realized it may be tapping into some potential generational trends. Millennial and Generation Z drinkers now outnumber Generation X and baby boomer drinkers, Calagione says. “That younger demographic is drinking less alcohol and when they are drinking alcohol they are thinking about it through the lens of health and wellness to a degree my generation never did,” said Calagione, 49.
To create a low-calorie, but flavorful IPA, the brewery concocted a way to break down complex sugars but rebuild the beer’s body with natural monk fruit extract.
“It amplifies the tropical notes of the Azacca hops,” Calagione says. “It’s not a fruity beer but the monk fruit gives the beer enough body that we can build a full sort of hop experience on what would be a very dry and watery beer if it did not have the monk fruit in its backbone.”
USA TODAY got to taste an early batch of the tasty, light, hoppy ale and it should satisfy hopheads thinking about their waistline. “There’s finally a light beer that tastes like something besides light beer,” reported Runner’s World features editor Matt Allyn, who also got an early taste.
The beer will come to market this spring in 12 major markets, mostly on the East Coast before it goes national. Dogfish Head will also begin selling a 12-pack in April with three cans each of its lifestyle beers including the IPA.
Dogfish’s new beers “are on trend” to capture health-centric beer lovers, a move that’s made Michelob Ultra a market leader, says Donna Hood Crecca of Technomic, a Chicago-based food industry consulting firm.
Michelob Ultra saw its dollar sales increase 16 percent over the 52 weeks of 2018, compared to the same period a year ago, according to IRI, a Chicagobased market research firm. The only other major beer to see an increase over 5 percent was Modelo Especial, the firm found.
Two-thirds (64 percent) of consumers are eating more foods with specific nutritional benefits than two years ago “and the appeal of functional attributes in beverages – both alcohol and non-alcohol is on the rise,” Hood Crecca said.
Beers such as Michelob Ultra and the new Dogfish Head beers give consumers “the perception that the beer fits with or supports an active, healthoriented lifestyle,” she said.
Bigger beer brands will likely continue their pursuit of healthy drinkers, too. Earlier this month, AnheuserBusch said it would begin posting serving facts and ingredient labels on Bud Light packaging. (Bud Light has 110 calories, 6.6 grams of carbohydrates and 0.9 grams of protein.)
Could that cut into sales among healthy drinkers who begin to wonder how many calories are in craft brewers’ pale ales, IPAs and stouts? An IPA can have 200 to 300 calories per 12 ounces, depending on how it’s made.
Calagione doesn’t sound worried: “I think it is a smart move for (AnheuserBusch InBev). I am just surprised they didn’t do it with Michelob Ultra first.”
Dogfish won’t be stepping back from making extreme, high-alcohol beers, Calagione says. And that makes sense because, Watson says, “Big generations are diverse.”
“Consumers themselves to are better treating food,
more natural ingredients,
better coffee.” Sam Calagione Dogfish Head Craft Brewery co-founder