When it comes to beer (and alcohol consumption overall), there has been a shift in recent years. In the past decade or so, the amount of people opting to abstain from alcohol has grown exponentially. The sheer breadth of "mocktails" on restaurant menus and supermarket shelves — along with a surge of cookbooks — clearly reflects this trend. While there a slew of reasons why someone might opt not to drink, that is not something that ever needs to be divulged. (Julia Bainbridge's 2020 stupendous book "Good Drinks: Alcohol-Free Recipes for When You're Not Drinking For Whatever Reason" sums up this ethos pretty well.) As menus and shelves fill with mocktails and non-alcoholic beverages galore, perhaps the requisite liquor consumption at a party, champagne at a celebration or beer at a casual gathering shouldn't be so readily assumed.
Generally, many people are increasingly interested in being "sober-curious" or "sober-adjacent," often experimenting with low- or non-alcoholic beers in attempts of bettering their overall health, minimizing their alcohol intake, or the like. No matter the impetus, though, the influx is undeniable.
