How Heineken created the world’s top alcohol-free beer brand

In just shy of eight years, Heineken 0.0 has grown to become the world’s #1 non-alcoholic beer brand.

Becoming the world’s top non-alcoholic beer brand started with identifying a consumer need and brewing a beer to meet expectations.

But it’s been about much more than that: it’s been about knowing the modern consumer; addressing the stigma around alcohol-free; and campaigning for change.

Alcohol-free ambitions

Today, every big beer brand has an alcohol-free version.

But that wasn’t the case a decade ago, when Heineken started plotting out the idea for Heineken 0.0.

Heineken 0.0 made its debut in Heineken’s homeland, the Netherlands, in May 2017. At the time, those making alcohol-free brews were mainly small, entrepreneurial brewers with plenty of passion; but no one had yet really asked about global potential (Guinness 0.0, Budweiser Zero and Stella Artois 0.0 all launched three years later in 2020, for example).

Heineken 0.0 was some two years in development, with Global Craft and Brew Master Willem van Waesberghe calling it ‘the most challenging brewing process’ of his career.

But it wasn’t just about brewing a new beer, explains Heineken’s head of R&D, Hubert Te Braake, who highlights it’s the ‘whole proposition that determines whether a product is a success or not’.

One critical decision was made: Heineken’s big push into alcohol-free would come under brand Heineken (already a global heavyweight) signaling the company’s commitment to the alcohol-free launch.

Heineken 0.0 launched in 2017, then quickly expanded to further European markets, and then hit the US at the start of 2019.

Between 2020 and 2024, Heineken 0.0 achieved total sales volume organic growth of +53%.

It’s the top brew in the global 0.0 category, available in 117 markets. And the brand just keeps on growing: up 10% in FY2024.

But perhaps the most important part of its development came while the product was still in the lab: how to make alcohol-free cool?

It’s a mission that Heineken’s taken seriously ever since. Like most alcohol-free brands, it ensures 0.0 is positioned as a positive, aspirational choice: highlighting all the things you can do when you don’t drink alcohol (in stark contrast to the past, when alcohol-free was simply a second-rate alternative for people who can’t drink).

It’s built engagement with consumers through communications, sponsorships and heavyweight media investment.

Heineken’s ‘0.0 Reasons Needed’ campaign is an example of this mission; as is its partnership with F1.

And attitudes are changing. Heineken’s global anthropology study, led by Professor Charles Spence of the University of Oxford and released in January 2025, found that (which there was much more acceptance in alcohol-free products) stigma around not drinking still lingered.

Just a year later and the movement has shifted considerably: now, 81% of respondents to Heineken’s survey believe it’s fine to decline alcohol without explanation (the survey was conducted across the US, UK, Spain, Brazil and Japan).

But, in fact, the script has now been flipped on its head: 67% now say it’s inappropriate to ask why someone isn’t drinking.

“We are the market leader: but the reality is that Heineken 0.0 has changed the whole category,” Te Braake told us. “We now see that the social stigma has changed; it’s cool to drink 0.0, and it’s accepted.”

Growing the alcohol-free category

Having rocketed up 9% in 2024 in volume, alcohol-free beer now makes up around 2% of the global beer market, according to figures from IWSR.

And it’s growing in value too: alcohol-free beer enjoyed a 8% CAGR in 2019-2024, and that’s only set to grow further with 12% CAGR forecast for 2019-2024.

Europe comes with a strong heritage in beer and a track record in alcohol-free: in fact, one in every 15 beers served on the continent today is alcohol-free.

How to keep growing the category? Getting alcohol-free beer on tap has been another key driver for Heineken 0.0.

This has always been a tricky proposition for alcohol-free beers (without the alcohol, the risk of contamination in the system is a challenge) but one that Heineken 0.0 took on: developing its alcohol-free offer for draught.

That’s important for two reasons. Firstly, allows Heineken to be where consumers are: and frequently, that’s in the pub.

And secondly, it’s about having a beer that’s served exactly like an alcoholic brew.

There’s now more than 10,000 outlets in Europe with 0.0 on draught (that’s practically doubled within a year) bringing the alcohol-free brew seamlessly into the on-trade and allowing alcohol-free drinks to have a pint that looks and feels just like any other.