When Graham Sherman is the co-founder of Tool Shed Brewing and to compliment his flagship beer, he now makes “Zero People Skills (Tool Shed’s non-alcoholic version of their flagship beer) which is his fastest growing product, according to the article in YYSCENE.

Co-owners and Co-founders, Graham Sherman (left ) and Jeff Orr, Tool Shed Brewing. Photo courtesy of Jared Sych

As the industry has seen, beer products have moved to bigger, bolder flavours, the ingredients used to make craft beers making it possible for non-alcoholic beer to have similar flavours. Specialized yeast strains allow the production of non-alcoholic beer using a fairly normal brewing process and newly invented equipment allows the removal of alcohol from beer without excessive heat (which is what used to give non-alcoholic beer that strange, stewed flavour).

For Tool Shed’s Zero People Skills, a normal batch of beer is brewed, 100 percent true to the alcoholic People Skills the brewery makes all the time. That finished beer is run through a first-of-its-kind-in-the-world machine that removes the alcohol.

“This fits our DNA,” explains Sherman. “We brew beer and we celebrate Alberta agriculture. Our non-alcoholic beer uses the same amounts of Alberta barley as our regular beer and is fully-brewed.”

“Consumers today are more deliberate about what they choose to consume,” says Sherman. “And people are proud to drink more responsibly. So, people will come to our taproom and have a regular beer or two, then switch to having our non-alcoholic beers. They can love good beer and still take their kids to hockey practice later that evening, work out the next morning or do whatever it is they balance their passion for beer against.”