With beer, bigger isn’t always better.
That may sound blasphemous to beer nerds chasing the hop dragon to craft breweries throughout the region. But while the big, honkin’ IPA has carried the growth of the industry over the last two decades, savvy brewers — including many in North Jersey — are balancing their triple IPAs, imperial stouts and other big beers, with nuanced lower-alcohol grisettes, wheat ales and lagers that appeal to beer skeptics and snobs both.
“I think the consumer of craft beer is aging with us a little bit,” says Ronnie Scouten, co-owner and brewer of Autodidact Beer in Morris Plains. “We all wanted the big hazies for a long time, now it’s starting to be the smaller, more sessionable beer. We do a table beer called Dawn Chorus that’s 3.4% [ABV]. The idea is being able to share and enjoy a lengthy experience, and I think the consumer is starting to trend toward that.”
And why not? People are drinking less, if at all: alcohol-free mocktails are almost expected on restaurant and bar menus nowadays, and sales of non-alcoholic beer have more than doubled since 2020, according to the Brewers Association.
“People are more health conscious these days, and the industry is kind of changing where folks are veering off to more non-alcoholic things, which is a whole different box,” says Colin McDonough, the brewer and co-owner, with his wife, Leann, of Oakflower Brewing in Millington.
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Low-octane beers help bridge the gap between the health-minded, sober-curious sort and the big beers typically associated with craft brewing. Plus, lower ABV beers let brewers show off their creativity (they have to work harder to make flavors shine in a lower alcohol drink), and the beers last longer on the shelf.
Your run-of-the-mill IPA tends to clock in between 5.5% and 8% alcohol by volume (ABV), though there are many that are bigger. And, of course, it’s not only IPAs that can have high ABV, it just seems to be a hallmark of the style.
A low-ABV beer, meanwhile, is somewhat arbitrarily considered lower than 5% ABV, and almost any beer style can fit into this category, from lagers to wheat ales, sours, stouts and even IPAs.
Autodidact currently has four low-ABV beers on its tap list, including a grisette conditioned on green strawberries brewed in collaboration with Carton Brewing in the Atlantic Highlands, and the delicious 5:15 American light lager. Offering multiple low-ABV options widens the craft brewing tent to let in more people that aren’t looking for big beers.
“There are older people like our fathers that drank Bud Light their whole lives; they’re used to 4.5% beer, and they might like a double IPA, but they’ll have one and be done for the day,” says Ron Cassel, Autodidact co-owner and brewer. “There’s a large contingent of people that drink beer that want to be able to drink a couple beers and not instantly regret it.”
McDonough opened Oakflower in 2022 with a focus on providing a majority of lower-ABV beers — only one beer on the initial tap list was higher than 5.5%. The decision wasn’t only based on consumer trends, McDonough says, but also with an eye toward cultivating a good vibe in the taproom.
“With us being so community- and taproom-focused, we didn’t want to have a bunch of big, giant beers where people are having a bunch of them and changing the atmosphere in here,” he says.
As a result, McDonough says he’s inclined to keep the lower-ABV beers on tap, while offering bigger beers — like their much-ballyhooed 12% Quadrupel IPA Leap Beer released earlier this year — in to-go cans.
Autodidact and Oakflower aren’t the only North Jersey breweries offering lower-ABV beer. Ghost Hawk Brewing in Clifton currently has three sub-4.4% beers on their taplist, including a session IPA, pilsner and the Blackberry Daedalion, a crispy, fruity and crushable wheat ale.
"The bulk of our menu is 4-6% ABV; beers you can drink a handful of and not get whacked out. That's our unofficial mission statement." says Ghost Hawk Owner Steve Bauer.
Diamond Spring Brewing in Denville has a 4% light lager and a wildly good 4.7% summer stout made with blackberries and cacao nibs. Everything currently on tap at Varitage Beer Works in Bloomfield is between 4.8% and 6.5%, and Double Tap in Whippany has a light lager and a 4.5% blood orange witbier packed with orange peel and coriander. Statewide, you’ll find stunning low-ABV beers at Wild Air Beerworks in Asbury Park, Chimney Rustic Ales in Hammonton and Odd Bird Brewing in Stockton.
There are challenges to producing some of the lower-ABV styles. Lagers, for instance, take at least twice as long to produce because most are fermented at cooler temperatures, which is a long time for a brewer to sit on any of their products.
“That’s typically why you haven’t seen a lot of lagers in craft beer,” Cassel says. “Breweries need to churn out beer to keep the lights on.”
"Everyone thinks they're easy to brew but they're the hardest," says Bauer of lagers. "That's why you're seeing IPAs left and right; they require much less time. They require skill as well, but you can crank out IPAs all day. The lagering process is a different animal."
It also takes some creativity to ensure flavor carries in lower-ABV beers, brewers say.
“Anything low-ABV is just more subtle by its nature and therefore they’re more nuanced beers, whereas a big, heavy IPA is beating you over the head with hops. Something smaller, there’s a lot of intricacy to it, and small tweaks and changes will produce something in the end that I think is more interesting,” Cassel says.
McDonough at Oakflower sees opportunity in that, though. He’s currently aging their Dew Drop grisette — a super light, crisp 3.9% beer made with lemon-limey Motueka hops — in a 600-liter wine barrel.
“Aging it in barrels with a little bit of a different yeast and bacteria blend adds a little bit of tartness and more complexity,” he says. “It does become a little difficult to pack as much complexity into those low-alcohol beers, so this kind of mixed-culture barrel-aging aspect gives it a bunch of fun little wrinkles.”
Scouten says lower-ABV styles also have the benefit of lasting longer on the shelf — almost twice as long, if not longer than IPAs, which start to degrade within as little as three months.
“Lagers are shelf-stable for a lot longer,” he says. “They taste better over time. We’re chasing the same thing with grisettes and saisons. You see it on the shelf, it’s warm, it’s cold, whatever, it’ll be fine when you cool it down and drink it. IPAs are not that case. It’s nice now that we’re distributing more to have these beers that are gonna last a little bit longer.”
One would assume there’d be more light beers on tap in the warm months, with heavier brews coming in the winter; but neither McDonough nor the folks at Autodidact seem to think the trend is going away anytime soon.
“To be honest, I think it’s a year-round thing these days,” Scouten says.
McDonough suggests there is a difference between warm and cool weather drinking habits but that it’s more a preference for dark beer in the dark months, and vis versa.
“Sometimes they go hand in hand, where people want a stout and then a stout tends be higher ABV, but one of our best selling dark beers is a 4.5% dark lager and that carries through the winter,” says McDonough.
In short, there’s no rush to try these lower-ABV beers. If you happen upon one, or many, give them a shot. Even, or maybe especially if, craft beer just hasn’t been your bag. Leann McDonough at Oakflower says they’ve made converts out of beer skeptics with their low-ABV offerings, like their 3.9% grisette.
“For somebody who’s with a group and is like, ‘Man, I don’t really like beer,’” she says, “[the grisette] is an easy entry point, like, ‘Oh maybe I do like beer.’”
