Rob Fink is founder and producer of award-winning non-alcoholic craft beer, Big Drop Brewing. Fink is dedicated to making great beers that are no more than 0.5% ABV (0.4% in Ontario).
Fink is no stranger to challenging well-established business models. As a lawyer in 2016, aged 38 and having just become a father – he found himself bucking the trend of lunchtime drinking culture by seeking out low alcohol drinks.
The rest is history. By May 2017 Fink was focusing on Big Drop full-time. In 2019, he brought two of his bestselling beers to Canada, currently available at the LCBO: Pale Blanche (known as Pale Ale in the U.K.) and Dark Noir (known as Stout in the U.K.).
We sat down with Fink to discuss Big Drop Brewing, future plans in Canada and his thoughts on the Non-Alcohol trend.
Brewers Journal: Hello Mr. Fink! It’s great to speak with you. Congratulations on your success.
Rob Fink: Thanks!
Brewers Journal: Now I have to ask, did you have any reservations at all going from law and insurance to brewing? Did your family and friends think you were a little crazy for doing this?
Fink: Of course, I did have some reservations – I was starting (so far as I knew) the first company ever to dedicate itself entirely to non-alcoholic beer. Generally, if something’s never been done before, there’s a reason!
However, I knew that there had always been a market for non-alcoholic beer – it just hadn’t been very good beer. So I hoped we could just improve the quality of what was already being consumed. What has surprised me though is the rapid uptake of Big Drop in the beer community and the market generally.
Brewers Journal: What was the straw that broke your back when it comes to low and non alcoholic beer? I know you mentioned the lunchtime drinking culture in the UK but did a specific event open your eyes to this need?
Fink: I quit drinking for six months after I had my first son but at the time I still needed to do business development for my law firm. That usually constituted long boozy lunches but suddenly I was forced into a situation where drinking non-alcoholic beer in pubs and bars was a necessity and I realized the quality wasn’t great. I couldn’t just say that I was not going to the pub to avoid beer because I was working and that was where my work was! I thought “why should people who choose not to drink alcohol, for whatever reason, be forced to drink a sub-standard beer?”
Brewers Journal: How difficult has it been convincing beer lovers that low and non alcoholic beverages can be good? And how would you rate the interest in your product in Canada and around the world so far? Is the concept catching on?
Fink: In all honesty, there are a lot of skeptics when you first mention the concept. But generally speaking, once they try the beer itself, they’re convinced. Nobody ever drinks a Big Drop and thinks they’re drinking an 8% NEIPA. But it is good beer, brewed in the regular way, and people recognize that.
Brewers Journal: What is your biggest demographic? Who is buying your beer?
Fink: We don’t really have a demographic in terms of gender, age or race. Instead, our beer is for people who love beer but don’t always have time for the consequences of beer. You might be training for a race, you might, like me, have young kids that need a lot of attention or you might be more conscious of what you consume. None of those things are exclusive to a particular demographic but they’re all reasons to have a Big Drop.
Brewers Journal: You didn’t just pre-empt the rise in popularity of low and no alcohol drinks, you have been partly responsible for it as the leading champion of the emerging NA craft beer category. How did you manage this?
Fink: Pure luck! I started Big Drop not because I saw an emerging trend but because I wanted to drink great tasting non-alcoholic craft beer. Turns out lots of other people do too, and that’s fantastic!
Brewers Journal: Are you seeing success in restaurants?
Fink: Absolutely. Lunchtime is when we sell most of our beer. Again, it comes back to that point whereby you might want to go out with your friends and have lunch on a Tuesday, but you’ve got to work in the afternoon and turning up after a few (alcoholic) beers is no longer something people are willing to do. But hey, you still want a beer! Have a Big Drop!
Brewers Journal: Hate to put you on the spot, but which is your favourite beer and why?
Fink: My favourite Big Drop beer is the Dark Noir (Stout) because it’s the first we did and we nailed it pretty much first time. It’s the reason Big Drop exists at all because at the time there was no such thing as a non-alcoholic stout and it was the beer I wanted to drink when I had quit. I’m proud of the fact there are a lot of people trying to imitate it now.
Brewers Journal: Do you have any stories of beer lovers who have converted to the Big Drop Brewing low alcohol brand?
Fink: I can think of two stories.
There was a comment in our recent customer survey, left by an optician from Wakefied that said “I just wanted to say that I feel you are onto a good thing. The beers taste great. There must be thousands of people taking medications such as Warfarin who think they cannot have a great beer at a pub, and now they can.”
Another example is a customer of the Onslow Arms in West Clandon near Guildford, Iain Bell, who also converted to Big Drop when he found it on draft. He said “I discovered Big Drop on draft at The Onslow and it basically completely changed my drinking habits at the pub. I’ll now happily sit with friends with a pint of Big Drop and don’t even think about the fact it has low alcohol. It has genuinely changed my view and now we pass other pubs to go to The Onslow more often, just so I can have Big Drop.”
If you mean an alcoholic beer, then Goose Island IPA is my choice. It opened my eyes to what beer could be back in the early 00s and its just consistently great.
Brewers Journal: Can you tell me a bit about your team? What makes your team and your brand special?
Fink: It was one of my proudest moments recently at our Christmas drinks when I looked around the table and realized that we had a brilliant team of people who all buy in to Big Drop and what we’re trying to achieve. Sure, we all like some alcohol every now and again but it was great seeing them drinking Big Drop every now and again out of choice!
The brand is a great one because we believe in what we’re doing: we’re doing for non-alcoholic beer what craft beer did for beer. We’re creating choice and quality in an overlooked sector.
Brewers Journal: You have won awards! Congratulations on winning Silver and Bronze medals at the World Beer Awards and a Gold medal at the International Beer Challenge. What message do these wins send to the beer industry and fans in general?
Fink: For me, it’s the fact that some of our awards have been against full-strength beers. We recently won Best Beer in Show at the Stockholm Beer & Whisky Show. Yep – out of 400 other beers the Dark came out on top. In terms of a message? Quite simply, these beers can be as good as full-strength beers.
Brewers Journal: What’s next for you and Big Drop Brewing? Can you tell us what the future holds and what Canadians can expect going forward?
Fink: We have huge plans for the next couple of years. We’re about to launch our crowdfunding round and expand into Australia and the US. We’re hoping for full national distribution in Canada soon and hopefully it will be even easier to get hold of a Big Drop.
Brewers Journal: Where can we purchase your beer?
Fink: We’re in many LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario) stores in Ontario.
Brewers Journal: Thanks for your time! It was a pleasure to speak with you.
Fink: Thank you!
Mr. Rob Fink was interviewed by Rod Charles on behalf of Brewers Journal Canada and Vacay.ca.