#WBD Blog
Nov 24, 2025
Guinness 0.0
Guinness 0.0 was launched in 2020 to much excitement from fans of the beer, who had been eagerly awaiting a non-alcoholic version of the distinctive stout, as other big brands launched no and low alternatives. Guinness 0.0 is a non-alcoholic beer from the brewers at St James’s Gate that boasts the same smooth taste, balanced flavour and unique dark colour of Guinness, without the alcohol. It is also a low-calorie option for those choosing to moderate, with just 16 calories per 100ml.
It has become the fastest-growing non-alcoholic beer globally, and, in the UK, is the best-selling non-alcoholic beer in the four-can pack format. The alcohol-free variant, now makes up around 20% of Guinness’ total off-trade sales. While sales have declined in 2025, this has been attributed to a “temporary [pause” in promotions in response to “unprecedented demand” in December 2024 and was “necessary to ensure maximum availability for customers and consumers.”
To create a variant of an iconic, distinctive brand is hard. You are playing with the core, the DNA, of what made the brand great in the first place and whilst a brand is more than the sum of its parts, the product – taste et al – is a core component of that total experience. So, to produce a variant that is intended to directly replicate the product experience of the core, but with a key ingredient or production process removed, is both a technical innovation challenge and a risk.
Necessity is one of the mothers of brand innovation. As behaviour and cultural norms have changed the need to create a low, no alcohol, Guinness was probably becoming a strategic imperative. The challenge is magnified because few brands are as distinctive and iconic as Guinness. It has a hyper–loyal user-base for whom the textural, taste and visual elements of the brand are unique and potentially seen as impossible to replicate. Don’t mess with my pint! How long did it take, and how many variations did the team at the iconic St James’s Gate try before they arrived at the final Guinness 0.0 product. No doubt it was a quest of Homeric proportions!
The results speak for themselves. 20% of off-trade sales, with impressive, and growing, on-trade sales. The added low-calorie benefit and advertising that fits the Guinness mould all add to the narrative. But the heart of the #whatbrandsdo kudos is in the technical prowess required to deliver a product that delivered against the mountain-moving scale of the challenge. Only a brand would and could invest in meeting a consumer need with this level of chutzpah! This is a new product that will take its place alongside some of the all-time greats of brand extension – a Diet Coke for the brewing industry.
