Catering for the moderators
Luke Boase, founder of Lucky Saint says there is so much potential for growth in alcohol free beer in Ireland over the next five years
Tell us about your business in less than 100 words?
Lucky Saint is a dedicated alcohol-free beer brand. We make our Unfiltered Lager and Hazy IPA with only natural ingredients and leave our beers unfiltered for maximum flavour, without the alcohol. Our mission is to inspire the world to drink better, finally rewarding those not drinking with the beer they deserve.
What was the motivation to start your own business?
It all started with an idea. What if all the occasions on which I drink beer, could come with or without alcohol. I set off on a quest, a long quest which began by speaking to all the most knowledgeable people I could find on the subject of beer, and specifically non-alcoholic beer. The most knowledgeable person of them all, the CEO of a top craft brewery, said it couldn’t be done, and I’d be “better off making fizzy drinks”.
What followed was two years, working with six breweries in three countries. Working with a sixth brewer, in Germany, progress was made but the eureka moment came when we trialed unfiltered vs filtered. Leaving the beer unfiltered created an alcohol-free beer with flavour and body. Lucky Saint was born in 2018. Over the past (almost) six years, we have gone from one person with a vision for the future of drinking, to launching the brand, growing distribution across three channels, launched in Ireland last year (our first market outside of the UK) and becoming a leader in this emerging category.
Where are you based?
Our team of 70 are based in our pub and brand home, The Lucky Saint in Marylebone in London, which we opened in 2023. Lots of people ask if it’s a dry pub, only serving alcohol-free but the answer is no – we have a world-beating selection of alcohol- free drinks, as well as alcoholic drinks. We don’t think those not drinking should have to go somewhere else to meet their friends, plus many of our customers are moderators rather than teetotallers. We’re seeing a trend of ‘zebra striping’ where people switch between alcohol-free and alcoholic drinks throughout the evening, and our pub allows them to do that whilst drinking quality drinks all evening. Our team work from the three floors above the pub and finally having a space where we can all be together has been game changing, after so many years working at home through Covid.
Who is your target market?
Our audience are beer lovers who have decided to make a lifestyle change and add a bit more balance to their lives by moderating their alcohol intake.
How do you market your product?
Lucky Saint is now the UK’s number one dedicated alcohol-free beer brand
For years, alcohol-free beer brands have been a ‘less than’ version of an alcoholic product. At Lucky Saint, we’re proud to be the UK’s number one dedicated alcohol-free beer brand. We aspire to make our marketing and brand iconic – to make people feel good about choosing alcohol-free. We’ve all had that experience – feeling like you need to order an alcohol-free beer under your breath at the bar. Not with Lucky Saint.
Tell us why your product is unique?
Our vision was always in pursuit of creating the defining alcohol-free lager. At Lucky Saint, our solution is to focus on quality, and produce the best tasting beer, that appeals to the broadest audience. As a brand we want to be ubiquitous and widely available and make drinking alcohol free aspirational, and empower consumers to drink better. At Lucky Saint we share the same passion about being uncompromising on quality. We break the rules, and honour the traditions, by brewing our beer with as much care and attention as the very best full strength pilsner, but we do so at 0.5% ABV.
What is a typical day in your life like?
No day is the same, and I feel incredibly lucky to work with an amazing team who make Lucky Saint the brand and business it is. My day could start catching up with our MD Emma, before having a creative session with our brand team, then meeting with our brewery to plan production for the years to come. When I can, I love to get out in trade with our sales team and speak to our customers – it’s hugely valuable to get that face-to-face time with people who are selling our beer day in, day out.
Lucky Saint was born in 2018 when they discovered that leaving beer unfiltered created an alcohol-free beer with flavour and body
What is the most stressful thing about starting a new business?
Having launched at the end of 2018 and building the Lucky Saint brand in the on-trade, 2020 lockdown hit hard, as we lost 70% of our volume overnight. As a result, we had to adapt and through growth in our DTC business initially, and then through grocery, we grew 300% in 2020.
Lockdown was incredibly challenging for the food and drink industry but we also experienced huge highs. We went from being stocked in 100 grocery stores to 1,500 and became the best-selling alcohol free lager on Amazon.
What has been the best moment since starting the business?
Launching our lager on draught. It was the first independent non-alcoholic lager to be served on draught in the UK. So many people told us how hard it would be to achieve the magic ‘one 30ltr keg a week’ rate of sale required. However, we smashed that in every outlet we were stocked in.
What is the five year plan for the business?
The recent Drinks Ireland report put the non-alcohol market share of total beer at over 2%, with almost 100% growth over the last four years. The Irish beer market is estimated to be valued at €1.8bn and therefore non-alcoholic beer worth around €36m (Statista). A 10% share of the beer category in Ireland would be worth over €180m, so there is so much potential for growth over the next five years! Not unrealistic when you look at the EU average of 7% of total drinks sold are non-acoholic alternatives and Spain with a 14% non- acoholic share of total beer market (Drinks Ireland).
