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Lagunitas Brew Master Jeremy Marshall toasts Hop Water
You know that the drinks biz landscape is changing when a ‘buzz-friendly’ brewery like Lagunitas introduces a non-alcoholic sparkling water inspired by its flagship IPA beer.
Here’s the deal…
Heineken-owned Lagunitas is cashing in on the growing ‘less and no alcohol’ beverage trend in a big way but that doesn’t mean they’re abandoning hops.
Described as a “fresh take on an old tradition,” the brewery’s new offering, something they call Hop Water, contains no alcohol, no calories, and zero carbohydrates, but is “made using everything we know about hops,” according to the Lagunitas website.
In fact Hop Water is pumped to the max with Citra, Equinox, and Centennial hops, as well as some natural flavors and a pinch brewer’s yeast to bio-transform the hops to just the right flavor.
What’s biotransformation you might ask? We did and luckily Lagunitas Brew Master Jeremy Marshall had a reasonably authoritative answer…
“Yeast biotransforms the existing hop terpenes into more desirable terpenes. You need yeast to liberate the hop flavors, and that’s the most important thing that we know from making IPAs, and we leveraged it in making Hop Water.”
We think we got that…but whatever.
According to Marshall Lagunitas Hop Water was designed to be “refreshing on its own+ and to fill that “Oh, I want to have an IPA, but it’s 9:30 in the morning and I’m out of IPAs’ kind of thing.”
And we have friends who crave IPAs at 9:30 in the morning…right? Not that we’d call the ‘friends’ in public or add their names to our resumes.
This isn’t the first “IPA inspired” non-alcoholic beverage Heineken produces under the Lagunitas brand.
In July Lagunitas launched an IPA-inspired, THC-infused sparkling water, called Hi-Fi Hops, making Heineken the first Big Beer company to enter the US’ psychoactive cannabis drinks market.
Hi-Fi Hops comes in two different THC level (5.omg and 10.omg) and on July 30th the cannabis infused sparkling water will available at select dispensaries throughout California.
Lagunitas’ news of Hop Water comes as an increasing number of drinks firms step into into the sparkling water category, a response to global trends showing alcohol consumption slowing over the past five years.
