Bubbling Up: Hop Water Is on the Rise

Jon Eager is his own hop-water customer. He and the other brewers on his team at Indeed in Minneapolis had long lobbied to create a nonalcoholic… something.

“A number of us had been at Indeed for years, and you can’t keep drinking beer like it’s the first year you opened,” says Eager, the company’s R&D brewer.

He also saw white space in the brewery’s taproom: Most of Indeed’s beers came in about 5.5 percent ABV, with hoppier styles in the 6 to 8 percent range. A typical tab for a customer is only a couple of beers—unless Eager could create what he calls a nonalcoholic “session extender.”