Sober Curious, Mindful & Alcohol-Free Drinkers Podcast: Low No Drinker

#74. 50% of drinkers prefer going for two: How ‘coasting’ is changing the way we moderate

• Denise Hamilton-Mace • Episode 74

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The mid-strength Collective. How these 12 brands are coming together to help spread the word of this exciting new category with great potential but little exposure.


ON THE SHOW
0:00 Intro
2:28 Why is mid-strength important?
3:18 Why we are choosing to moderate
4:55 Across the ages
6:20 How we're moderating
7:09 Coasting
8:06 Going for two is the new going for one
8:53 Why and when we're choosing mid-strength
11:03 Work drinks
12:52 The mid-strength challenge
14:31 Do drinkers actually want mid-strength drinks?
17:07 Mid-strength on pubs & bars
19:25 What drinkers want from mid-strenghth
21:57 Mid-strength ABVs
25:10 The mid-strength collective brands
  

EPISODES MENTIONED
#63 FAQ: What exactly are zebra striping and bookending (& do they work)?
#56 What does ABV mean? (and how does it affect low/no drinks?)
#21 Decem: From MasterChef finalist to 10% Spirit Distiller
#46 Double Dutch mixers: supporting low/no drinkers & women in hospitality
#34 Making a 6% red wine with founder Russell Lamb
#16 Exploring light-spirits with Quarter Proof 12% spirits
#41 Session Gin: A 25% gin for the modern drinker


THE COLLECTIVE
Brisk*
DECEM
Double Dutch*
Hayman’s*
6Percent
Maison Sassy*
Quarter Proof*
Session Spirit
Shandy Shack*
McGuigan Wines*
The Gentle Wine
Small Beer*


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Speaker 1:

Hello, hello and welcome to the Low no Drinker podcast the only twice-weekly podcast, helping you find, understand and enjoy the world of low, no and light drinks. My name is Denise Hamilton-Mace and I am the founder, editor and host of all things Low no Drinker. Last week, I was asked to chair a panel at the Pub show in London's XL, and the panel was all about mid strength drinks. Now, you've probably heard me mention these quite a few times if you've been listening for a while. I am a big fan of mid strength drinks because I truly believe that they provide a solution for people who are looking at ways to reduce their alcohol, but when their end goal isn't necessarily about sobriety or going teetotal or giving up booze forever. For me, this world, this space, these low-no drinks low-no and light drinks are all about choices. They're about options options that I never felt that I had when I was in what I coined my professional drinking days and that I'm really excited are available to people now. So what we're going to do today is have a little bit of a talk about some of the really fascinating insights that came out of that panel talk last week, and the talk was centered around a report that has been created by a company called CAM. Now, if you've been interested in the Lono space for any length of time, you may have heard of CAM. They're the people that come up with all the really interesting reports and numbers and statistics that you hear around Lono and light drinks. So they recently generated a report in partnership with Club Soda, which is London's alcohol-free tasting room bar event space, and together with what is now called the Mid-Strength Collective, which is a selection mid-strength producers who have come together to create a body to help to put this category in front of drinkers like you, so that you can understand that these drinks exist and what they can do for you. So the CAM report, which I will link to in the show notes if you want to go and find it for yourself, is full of some really fascinating numbers and I want to share some of those with you today. I know that statistic shows can be a bit boring if they're not done well, but trust me because I'm going to give you the really interesting, juicy ones.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so, starting at the top, the reason why mid-strength is so important, I think, is because we are a moderation nation, despite all the talk about alcohol-free drinks and non-alcoholic cocktails and all of those things. The main body of people who are consuming these drinks are still consuming full-strength alcohol, and that means that we need to find solutions for those people who are not averse to alcohol for times when they just want to drink a little bit less. That is, 73% of people now are actively moderating their alcohol intake. That is three out of four drinkers. And why are they doing it?

Speaker 1:

Like I said, it's not all about sobriety. The top reason 38% of people are saying that they're doing it because they want a healthier liver, which I think is fantastic, because it's one of those things. We don't really know how healthy our liver is until you know. We were forced to find out, do we? But it's this awareness piece that people are so aware that they need a healthy, functioning liver to have a healthy, functioning lifestyle. So 38% of people are wanting to make sure that their liver is able to do what it's supposed to do and not just spending its time dealing with alcohol.

Speaker 1:

The next most popular reason people are choosing to moderate is improved weight management. 25% of people are drinking less because they want to lose some weight, and that follows on that. Then 20% of people are doing this for improved fitness, and I can attest that if you are trying to either lose weight or work out more or improve your cardiovascular health, or whatever it is that you're trying to do, or improve your cardiovascular health or whatever it is that you're trying to do Drinking loads just doesn't help, does it? Because you're hardly going to be motivated to get up and go for a 5K run if you're hanging out your ass from the night before. So there are tons of reasons that people are choosing to do this. It's about saving money, getting better sleep, having better relationships. It's really wonderful to see that the reasons that people are choosing to look at their relationship with drinking are many and varied, showing that the type of people that we need to serve with these drinks are many and varied too. So people are still wanting to enjoy their social drinking, but just not wanting to overdo it.

Speaker 1:

And we've all heard that it's Gen Z or Gen Z depending on where you are and how you say it. So that's sort of like your 25 to 30 year olds in particular that are leading this charge, but I can attest that this is across all ages. It's a shift in how we're thinking about drinking and moving from an all or nothing approach. That was perhaps my generation's. You know, if you were out partying in the 90s and the noughties, it was. It was just all or nothing. Let's go hell for leather or we're staying home.

Speaker 1:

And now people are of all ages, are moving to a more mindful approach. I know everyone talks about Gen Z, but I can't tell you how many people of my age and I'm 45, and how many friends of mine tell me on a regular basis that they just don't want to drink the way they used to before. They want to be able to enjoy their lives more. They want to enjoy their time with their friends and their families and not have to pay the price for three days because they had a few too many shandies. So I'm coming to the mid-strength stuff. But this is all really important for you to bear in mind when we go on to talking about it.

Speaker 1:

The reasons why people are choosing to moderate and then also how people are choosing to moderate is a really important part of this process, because not everybody approaches moderation in the same way. So, also from the report, it showed that 21% of people are moderating by drinking less on an occasion, which I think is commendable. You know if you can go out and decide that you're going to just stop at a certain point, if you know when to cut yourself off, that's a great achievement. I wasn't always very good at that, you know, nowadays I could quite happily go out and if I wanted to have one, I'd be able to have one and not anymore. But back in the day there was no way I could quite happily go and if I wanted to have one I'd be able to have one and not anymore. But back in the day there was no way I could do that. So it's really impressive to see that 21% of people are choosing to just drink less on an occasion.

Speaker 1:

19% of people are alternating between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. So that's the zebra striping trend that you've heard about. I've done an episode on that, so I will link to it in the show notes for you below if you want to go and find out a little bit more about zebra striping. 13% of people and this is where we're coming into the mid-strength area so 13% of people are choosing on an occasion so whether a night out or maybe a night in to drink exclusively mid-strength drinks out, or maybe a night in to drink exclusively mid-strength drinks, and from the report, we know that this way of drinking has now been given the name coasting. So coasting is choosing to drink mid-strength for your entire night out, and then about 5% of people are blending in all three of those techniques together, and 6% of people are mixing full strength and mid strength in their zebra striping attempts. Instead of going from full to none. They might go from full to mid or mid to none.

Speaker 1:

So coasting is the new, is it the new norm? I don't know, but it's definitely. It's definitely taking hold and there are more people interested in doing it and more people giving it a try. 50% of people are now choosing instead of going for one drink, they're wanting to go for two, and they want those two drinks to be mid-strength. In the words of the report, going for two is the new, going for one, and I like that. I like that because, let's be honest, how many times have you said, oh, let's just go for one and actually only had one? It just, it doesn't happen, it never happened. So, knowing that you can actually go for two drinks, which means that you can spend more time with your friends, you can spend more time with the people that you miss and that you'd want to socialize with and have deeper conversations with, still have the same amount of alcohol as you would have had if you were only going for one, but you get to have two drinks instead. So one of the biggest reasons that people are choosing mid-strength, they say, is that it improves their social interactions, and this is fantastic to hear. 36% of drinkers are saying that they feel more present in social situations when they're drinking mid-strength drinks, and that speaks to the fact that alcohol does have a role to play.

Speaker 1:

It's no secret that alcohol is a big part of the way that we socialise. It has been for centuries, centuries, and people are often citing the fact that the agricultural industry as we know it as a result of people brewing beer centuries and centuries ago, and whilst that may be true, the way that we consume it now is very different to the way that we did before, but its role hasn't changed that much. It's still a social lubricant, it still brings people together. It still helps to bond cultures and societies. The issue is now that we've gone beyond the point of just using it to relax or to say hello or to start that initial social interaction, and we've started to rely on it for the entire evening, for the entire event, for big chunks of our lives.

Speaker 1:

So it's great to hear that people are choosing to go for a mid-strength drink because they still want to use the power of alcohol the way that they have before, but they know that they don't want to give it any more power than it needs, and I absolutely love that say that these drinks enhance their overall social experience. So I think it's obvious that the mid strength section is offering a tool for people who are choosing to drink less but still want whether it's the taste of alcohol, whether it's the familiarity of alcohol, but just without so much intensity of alcohol. There were some more really interesting numbers about when people are choosing to opt for mid-strength. So 36% of people are drinking these drinks on the weekends, which is, I guess, not really that surprising. That's where most people do a lot of their drinking. 26% of people are using mid-strength drinks for celebratory events, which I think is absolutely lovely. 24% of people are using them for after work drinks.

Speaker 1:

Now, I love this one because, having worked in hospitality for 24 years, drinking was obviously a huge part of the way that we socialize. We worked in bars, we went to bars. So booze was always a big part of how we socialize, how we built relationships, how we connected. But, as you can imagine, with a group of 20, 30 something year old, when alcohol is involved, perhaps when we had a staff party and the bosses were paying and the booze was flowing, we would go from having a nice time and making connections to having a really wild time, really quite quickly. I'll let your imagination run wild with that as far as you'd like to. Perhaps that's for another episode.

Speaker 1:

But to know that you can have work drink occasions where the alcohol consumption is cut in half, I think is really, really important, because, whilst in hospitality it might be a given that people are going to get quite drunk, I often think about the events that I used to manage and that host for corporate clients who would come in and they would be knocking back these free drinks at a rate of knots and you would see, you'd be able to see from behind the bar or from serving on the floor, the interpersonal work relationships that were going to places that they really shouldn't have been going to. Whether that is about hooking up with people you shouldn't be, whether it's about giving your boss a piece of your mind in the middle of this event. So I think it's really important to be able to offer these drinks to work events, to corporate clients, so that you can still have this social interaction, but without so many of the consequences of allowing a free-for-all and full-out booze behind the bar. So what are the challenges then? So what is it that has led the Mid-Strength Collective to feel that they needed to come together and create this body so that they could help communicate to you? Well, the biggest challenge that they have at the moment is that awareness is still really low. I can imagine that there aren't many podcast episodes that you've listened to lately that have been talking about mid-strength alcohol, and that's because, whilst there are tons of people out there who are singing from the rafters about low and no drinks, mid-strength drinks are still a bit of a mystery to a lot of people. Perhaps people don't know quite how to use them, don't know quite where to find them, don't know quite what ABVs they should be looking at. So there's a lot of education that needs to happen and it needs to come from these groups, these bodies, these collectives, these producers, so that you can begin to understand what's in these drinks and what they can do for you and how you can get the most out of them.

Speaker 1:

From that CAM survey, we know that only 43% of people know anything about mid-strength beer, so that's less than half the drinking population who have even heard about mid-strength beer. 38% have heard about mid-strength wine and just 32% know about mid-strength ciders and spirits. So if you think about the amount of people who are looking to cut down on their drinking, that's really a small number in terms of how many people we could be helping if they were more aware that these drinks existed. But on the plus side, 55% of drinkers said that they'd like to explore more mid-strength options. So the demand is there. You know there are people out there like you, like me, who are interested in these drinks and want to know more about them. But one of the issues that they're facing is visibility.

Speaker 1:

Right now, only 40% of consumers find it easy to get mid-strength drinks at their pubs or in their supermarket, but 70% of people said that they'd be influenced to buy more if the options were clearer and they were better promoted. So it's all about letting people know that these drinks A exist and B where to find them. If you walk into your pub and just like with Low no, if it's at the back of the fridge or the bottom shelf and behind the lines and you can't see it, people might not know to even ask for it, let alone know which brands and which names they should be asking for. And speaking of brands, I will, at the end of this episode, let you know the brands that are involved in the Mid-Strength Collective and I'll link to all of them in the show notes for you so you can go and find out more about them if you want to. So, as I said, over 70% of drinkers said that they would buy more if these options were clearer and they were more promoted.

Speaker 1:

When it comes to going out, whether that's to your pub, your bar, your restaurant club, wherever it is that you're going, one in three customers have said that they've left early or felt disappointed due to poor mid-strength choices. 20% say that they would visit more often if venues had better options. 27% said they would spend more money per visit again if they knew that they had the option to do so, and 17% would order more drinks if they had good mid-strength options. All this is to say that our pubs and our bars and our restaurants are just missing out. The same company that produced this report, Cam, also produced the low no report last year and in it they noted that some 800 million pounds is being lost per year by pubs, bars and restaurants because they have poor, low no options. Well, this is the same thing having poor, mid-strength options is costing you custom. When 17% of people are saying that they would order more, 27% are saying they would spend more per visit and 20% are saying they would visit more often, this is money that could be going into the tills of our pubs and bars and restaurants, which are sadly closing at a rate of knots at the moment.

Speaker 1:

Even though I'm a low-no, light drinker myself, I still love a pub. I spent most of my formative years working in pubs and bars and I think it's really sad when they're closing down. There's two pubs in my area that have been boarded up for years and they look like beautiful, beautiful places where you could have wonderful times and great food and great entertainment and great camaraderie and friendship. But they're closed because people aren't spending money and, whether or not our pub landlords or brewing houses or whoever is owning these venues, whether they want to accept it or not, without having decent low, no and light options. They are missing out on money and they are risking closing themselves down by not serving people who are happy to spend money on these drinks if they know that they're there and if they're good quality.

Speaker 1:

Speaking of which, what is it that people are looking for from mid-strength? Well, unsurprisingly, 63% of people say that they want a great tasting drink. That's absolutely understandable, and it should be great tasting whether it is low, no, light or full. Nobody wants to drink rubbish. So come on, guys, let's make these drinks good. 30% of people want it to taste similar to full strength alcohol. Now, this, I suppose, isn't as surprising as when you're asking people about low no drinks, because if you're drinking mid-strength, you're obviously still consuming alcohol, so the fact that you might want something that still tastes quite similar to full strength is completely understandable. What I would say is what I always say is that it is a different drink, it's not the same, so expecting it to taste exactly the same means you're setting yourself up for disappointment, so you have to allow for the fact that it's got less alcohol, so it's going to taste less alcoholic.

Speaker 1:

27% of people want exciting flavors. This is, I think, a bit vague. What are exciting flavors? Are they talking about tropical flavors? Are they talking about bitter flavors? What is it? It's so personal. I think you know there's a lot of drinks out there in this low-noah light space that, for example, are doing amazingly well. They're extremely popular. I personally don't necessarily about complexity and depth and layers of flavor, rather than just saying this is an exciting flavor, because what's exciting for me might not be exciting for you.

Speaker 1:

25% of people are looking for mid-strength drinks that have refreshing qualities. I guess we're coming into spring, summertime, so it's understandable that you want a nice refreshing gin and tonic, if you like that kind of thing, or a nice refreshing spritz, so that's understandable. And 23% say that they care about a low sugar content in these drinks. So, again, we're all looking at taking better care of ourselves. If we look back at the numbers from earlier on, in terms of people wanting to look after their liver, wanting to lose weight, it makes sense that they'll be looking for drinks that are lower alcohol content, lower calorie content, lower sugar content. So that makes sense. So what are mid-strength drinks in terms of the numbers, then? And I know that not everybody is as well versed in ABV I have also done an episode on ABV and I'll link to that in the show notes too. So if you want to go and have a listen to that so that you feel a bit more confident about understanding these numbers, then that will be in the show notes for you.

Speaker 1:

For you, at the moment there is no legal legislative definition of what mid-strength drinks are, just like a lot of the low-no space. This is about producers and voices in the space and people like myself and the team at Club Soda and other places coming together to say you know, what do we think that this should be? Does this make sense for the consumer? So Laura Willoughby and her team at Club Soda have come up with their own definitions for what they consider to be mid-strength drinks. So I thought I'd share those as a great starting point for you to understand what ABVs mid-strength drinks are coming in at. Now. As I said, these aren't setting stone, but they are a good jumping off point and I agree with most of it. Not all of it and perhaps not as specifically as they're going to be listed out here, but in general it's a really good starting point.

Speaker 1:

So the Club Soda team consider mid-strength beers and ciders to be anything that is, at 3% ABV and under. For reference sake for you, a full strength beer or cider is usually starting around four and a half percent and up to sort of five and a half percent is the average, but obviously, particularly with ciders, they can go all the way up to sort of 8%. There's even some double digit ones, but they don't taste very nice. So mid-strength beers are around your 3% ABV. So to list mid-strength wines to be at 6% ABV and under, I think that, to be fair, as most wines are actually coming in around the 12 to 13, even up to 14%, then 6% is a really good marker for being thereabouts for mid-strength wine. I know of some 5% rosés and some 7% wines. So 6% is a really good average, I think.

Speaker 1:

Then for ready mixed drinks, they've said that the ABV would be around about 3% and under. So you know, that's your RTDs, that's your cocktails in the can. And then for spirits, they've said that the ABV would be 20% or under, or drinks such that once they're mixed, the final serve is around 3% ABV or less. Now that's a bit. That gets a little bit complicated, because I'm pretty sure that most of the time when you go to a bar, you don't really know what the final ABV of your drink is, so you have to rely, obviously, on either the bar staff which actually they probably couldn't tell you either, but you know the bottle and the information that you get on there to to know what the ABV is going to be. But in the spirit space there are quite a few mid-strength spirits and they range generally from about 10% right up to 25%. So who are the Mid-Strength Collective then?

Speaker 1:

They describe themselves as a powerhouse of leading mid-strength alcohol brands here in the UK and they are united by a shared mission and I'm quoting here to empower consumers with more choice in how they drink, and I love that. You know me, I'm all about choice and options for you to live a life less intoxicated on your own terms. So I'll run through the brands who are in the collective briefly for you. Like I said, I'll link them in the show notes if you want to know more about any of them. Some of them I've interviewed on the podcast, so if you want to go and listen to them, I'll let you know which episodes they were as well. So the first one on the list and this is in no particular order other than the list that's on the report is Brisk Lager. Brisk describe themselves as the perfect midweek beer that doesn't slow you down and helps you to keep your pace through a busy week. Next is Decem. Decem is a 10% gin. I interviewed their founder, billy Wright, on the podcast a few episodes ago. Billy Wright also writes for Lono Drinker magazine. As a MasterChef finalist, he does our food and drink pairings and his suggestions are just absolutely fantastic.

Speaker 1:

Next is Double Dutch. Double Dutch are actually a mixer brand rather than a spirit or a beer or wine brand, but it's important that we've got great mixes right. I remember the campaign a while ago. I think it was Fevertree. Was it Fevertree? I'm not entirely sure, but they were saying if three quarters of your drink is the mixer, make sure that it's a good one. So Double Dutch do fantastic mixes that work really, really well with low note and light drinks, because while they're beautiful flavors flavors they're not overpowering. I also interviewed the founders there, who are two lovely twins, uh, racer and joyce, so I'll link to that episode for you as well.

Speaker 1:

Next is haymans. So haymans um, you may have heard of they are the full strength gin producers. I think it's something like five generations of gin producers. I think it's something like five generations of gin producers and they have a 12.5% ABV gin. So you know, right down at the lower end. Then we've got 6% wine. 6% make a red wine which, I've got, to be honest, tastes absolutely amazing. They are in the process of releasing, I believe, a, a white and a rosé, although the rosé might be a little bit longer in the making. I interviewed their co-founder, russ, on the podcast as well, so you can go and check out more about them if you want to know more about 6% Wine.

Speaker 1:

Then we have Maison Sassy, which is a cider brand and they're great, is a cider brand and they're great. They have full strength, mid-strength and alcohol-free ciders and they say that they are redefining Normandy cider with a modern touch whilst honoring tradition, and I recommend those as well. They taste absolutely amazing. Then we've got Quarterproof. Quarterproof are a spirit brand. They have got a gin, a tequila and a vodka. I've also interviewed them. I'm doing quite well. I've got a lot of people on the show for you to go and check out, because that is my aim with this podcast is to, as I say, bring you closer to the people, places and brands leading the low no and light alcohol revolution. And I've done the same with the next one on the list, which is Session Spirit. So Session make a 25% ABV London dry gin, and they're the only mid-strength spirit brand to be winning awards in the full strength category. So if you're a gin lover, definitely one worth you going and checking out.

Speaker 1:

We've got Shandy Shack, who are the original craft shandy and one of the first products that I tasted in the low-no space many years ago, and they're doing amazingly well. I think they've got about four or five shandies and for those of you who live in the States, I found out recently that you guys don't have shandy or you don't know shandy the way that we do. So it's quite a common thing for us in the UK to go into a pub and order a pint of Shandy and it's simply half lager, half lemonade, but made really well. Then it's McGuigan Wines. Mcguigan are a very large wine brand here in the UK, so they've got a mid-range selection as well.

Speaker 1:

And then there's Gentle Wine. Gentle Wine, I believe, have got about six different wines and they're all around the 6% ABV mark and they describe themselves as traditional wine meeting de-alcoholized wine. And then the last one on the list is Small Beer. Small Beer have been around for a really long time in this space and they describe themselves as small beer for big thinkers, reinvigorating a lost tradition for people who do it all, and their beers come in around about 2.2 to 2.8%. So there you have it. I know that's a lot of numbers to take in and a lot of brands to get to know. Like I said, there are some really, really interesting and exciting producers in this space who are working really hard to give drinkers like you and me options for those times when we're choosing to drink less but, on this occasion, might still want something that has that more familiar alcohol flavor.

Speaker 1:

So if you've checked out any of these, I would love to know your comments, your thoughts, your feedback on the mid-strength category. Are you a fan? I know that it works really well for some people and for others it's too much of a trigger, and that's absolutely fine. As I always always say, it's about drinking your way. Let me know your thoughts, though. You can reach out to me. Uh, just tag me on social medias is probably a really easy way. I'm on. Instagram is my main one, and that's at low. No drinker magazine, or you can find me on LinkedIn, where I personally spend quite a bit of time, or just reply to one of my emails if you're on my newsletter, which you can join at the website. Whilst you're there, don't forget to subscribe to Lono Drinker Magazine, the leading UK magazine for low, no and light sober, curious and mindful drinkers. That's all at lonodrinkermagazinecom. Forward slash subscribe Until next time. Cheers to a life less intoxicated.

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Denise Hamilton-Mace

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