“A craft beer that just happens to be low alcohol”
Two local entrepreneurial beverage companies, “Pivo Nova Brewing LLC” and “Sly Fox Brewing Co.”, have come together to create and share a wholly new beer style – branded as “Soul Tone”, and it wasa long interesting journey to get there. Pivo Nova Brewing (recently rebranded from “Recreation Point Brewing”) is the brain child of Tom Kester of Bethlehem PA, who has invented a proprietary brewing process using typical beer ingredients to create a full-flavored craft beer with just 2.5% alcohol by volume – about half the alcohol of a typical craft beer.
An avid home brewer and former Brewing Chemist, Tom has worked for over 10 years to perfect his process. “Our initial approach was to pursue use of low-alcohol producing yeasts. We acquired several of them from Europe and made some very low alcohol beers, (some under 1.5% ABV), but they tasted terrible. At that point we ditched the yeast approach and focused on each step in the brewing process, looking very carefully at process control. We did this work with both commercial and academic institutions to form the basis for our process and then made over 60 pilot-scale development batches, making appropriate changes along the way.”
Tom then realized he had found something special. “Once development was complete we then went into scale-up at an eastern PA brewery and made 10 batches in the 8 BBL range. At that point we felt ready to go larger. It was a long development process, maybe too long” Tom observed, “but we finally got there”.Tom started shopping his idea around to breweries nationwide, but it was Sly Fox of Pottstown PA that showed real interest. The way Peter Giannopoulos – the President of Brewery Operations at Sly Fox recalls it, “Tom sent an email to our website email box, and I missed it initially, but one day about 2 years ago I was clearing it out and found it, and I emailed Tom back that we were interested”.
Created the Proprietary Process
This was not a new idea to Pete, he said he had been toying with the idea for a few years. He explained “I thought about it a lot. People started asking us about a non-alcoholic (N/A) beer, but we didn’t have the equipment for that. We had previously made some nice lower-alcohol styles – a great Pils – “Bohemian Gold” at 3.9% and a Stout at about the same ABV. But I wondered, can we make a really good beer that’s even lower in alcohol, much less than 4%?”
I asked Pete why Soul Tone isn’t a “Sly Fox” branded beer. Pete explained his vision: “I always thought it should be its own brand, it needed to be totally new, like how Athletic approached the N/A beer market. It’s kind of like selling craft beer in 2002, it’s introducing a product to a market that really doesn’t exist. At first people assume it’s watered-down, but when they taste it, they are blown away. We also realize that this beer won’t sell on its own, we will have to do a lot of legwork and education. People literally have to try it to understand what we have made. Some get it right away, and some people need to think about it. But we have confidence, as after all Athletic – who broke open the craft N/A market, is now the 6th largest craft brewer in the country.”
There are stats that support the market, Pete added: “An interesting point about N/A beer is that more than 90% of those that buy craft N/A products also buy other alcohol, so we know there is a substantial market for those who don’t want to fully eliminate alcohol while still looking for a ‘regular beer’ flavor profile”. From a marketing standpoint, Tom commented that there is psychology at work in this mid-range alcohol category. “People have preconceived notions about it…but once they taste it, it’s a whole new ball game. We look at our reviews on ‘Untappd’ and we are getting ratings in the 3.6 – 3.7 range, which is in line with session beers and even full-alcohol products.”
Tom also made it clear that Soul Tone is not a conventional light beer. “Light beers are typically made with less ingredients using enzymes to reduce residual carbohydrates, leaving an overall weak body. Bud Light is 4.2% with about 110 calories, but Soul Tone comes in at 2.5% ABV and 125 calories. It has a real malt backbone that light beers simply cannot attain. We have created a craft beer that happens to be only 2.5% ABV”.
How the lower alcohol is achieved is key to the flavor of Soul Tone. At the extreme low-ABV end, N/A beers use a variety of techniques to nearly eliminate alcohol which can introduce an “over-processed” flavor into the product while simultaneously removing the majority of the critical taste component (ethanol) that makes beer tase like beer. “Soul Tone is all about alcohol reduction” Tom explained, “but we also feel that a moderate amount of alcohol is both a necessary flavor component in beer and also something that is critical to the social aspect of bringing people together to enjoy good times, good food and community”. He added “this is something that non-alcoholic products can never do”. 
I asked Pete if people think Soul Tone should be cheaper than “regular beers”. “Some people do think that” he said. Tom added “actually it’s pretty much the opposite, it is more difficult and therefore more expensive to manufacture beer this way, and it also takes more time”. Pete further explained: “Soul Tone IPA contains about the same ingredients as in a dry-hopped pale ale that is 5% ABV, but with far less alcohol, and it’s fully-fermented using traditional ingredients”.
Pete talked about his expectations for this new category and his Soul Tone brand. “In this industry, it’s hard to have expectations. Things can change, like external factors. If large national brands enter the segment I think that will help – it can aid the education of the consumer. Sierra Nevada has just announced a 2.8% IPA (“Go Two IPA”), and Allagash has a 2.9% wheat beer, that should also help us.”
Production and promotion of the Soul Tone brand is shared by both Pivo Nova and Sly Fox. “We co-market the products, sharing expenses, technology support and planning…We are looking at adding other styles… like a ‘Fest’ beer or a Stout. Commented Tom. “We haven’t yet seen a style that doesn’t work with our process”.
I asked Pete if Soul Tone was on tap in the Sly Fox taprooms. “It is on tap now, but we also sell it at the Sly Fox pubs in cans. We like the marketing aspect of having it in cans, it makes it more special, creates awareness and gets people talking. Interestingly, 40% of the Soul Tone canned beer we sell at the tap rooms are consumed on premise. That level of adoption now is a surprise.” In general N/A beer on tap has not gotten great acceptance, and whether low-alcohol beers will face similar headwinds in unknown right now. “In the long run, off-premise may ultimately be a bigger segment” Pete added.
Tom talked about the Pivo Nova business model, licensing the process of making full flavored low-alcohol beer, offering white labeling of contract brews, even helping a brewery do R & D on their own recipes. “No one appears to be operating under this same particular business model … we have been shopping it all over the country, we even approached Pilsner Urquell about brewing it in their experimental brewery in Pilzen (Czech Republic), however a lot of brewers have a significant amount of pride, and most say that they can do it themselves. We just tell them that we can save them a lot of time (and money) to get there.”
Pete and Tom have taste-tested Soul Tone against beers like the 4.7% “All Day IPA” from Founders and gotten great results. Peter added “We aren’t trying to be a low calorie beer, we are flavor first. We thought about putting the calories on the can, but then realized that most craft beer drinkers aren’t really aware of the calories in their beer, so we decided it could just be confusing.”
There is no question that now more than ever drinkers of alcohol in any number of forms are looking for more “functional” beverages. The mid-range alcohol beer market segment is in its early stages, and it will take some patience and consumer education to allow it to take hold. But Pete and Tom are believers and say they have patience.“We are in this for the long haul” they say. Soul Tone is now distributed in Bucks, Chester, Montgomery, Delaware, Philadelphia, and four other counties in PA, and they have a distributor in Maryland as well. Go find a Soul Tone and check out a wholly new craft beer that is truly “brewed to a different frequency”.
