07 Dec 2023 --- Belgium-based beer company Thrive launches a healthy beer, Thrive Play, that contains ten vitamins, including 50% of the recommended daily intake of vitamin D3 and all B vitamins per can. With the new beer, the company aims to expand its target audience beyond people doing sports, for which it previously developed an alcohol-free sports beer with 10 g of protein per serving.  

The vitamins in the new non-alcoholic beer contribute to normal muscle function, energy metabolism, and immune system and reduce tiredness and fatigue. The beer also contains less than half the calories of a regular beer. 

Nutrition Insight sits down with Thrive’s founder, Laurens D’Hoore, who explains that the company aims to evolve from a sports beer brand to a brand of health beers — functional alcohol-free beers. 

“Our current product, Thrive Peak, is an alcohol-free beer enriched with protein. Consumers can have a nice refreshing beer after exercise instead of drinking a recovery shake. We launched this beer in 2021. It is now widely distributed across Belgium and we’re starting to expand internationally.” 

“Thrive Peak is for people doing sports, and Thrive Play is for all the other moments you’re not doing intense exercise. They are both alcohol-free — as a brand, we will never make beers with alcohol because that doesn’t make sense for us.”

The new beer is available for existing customers, and Thrive will conduct a more extensive marketing campaign during Dry January 2024.

Thrive Play 
D’Hoore explains that the company developed the new beer so that people could enjoy a good quality, low-calorie beer. Moreover, existing customers were looking for an alcohol-free beer to enjoy when they did not need the additional protein in Thrive Peak. 

Thrive wanted to include vitamins at a “meaningful amount” for the new beer. 

D’Hoore continues: “We wanted vitamins that would also be useful for people that are doing sports. Vitamin D is one that athletes often lack and is a popular supplement among athletes. When looking to a larger health-focused audience, vitamin D is a useful addition as well, since many consumers don’t consume enough of it.” 

He adds that B vitamins are connected to different health benefits valuable in a sports and health-focused beer, such as energy metabolism. 

Functional beers 
D’Hoore highlights that making beer functional makes a lot of sense because if beer is non-alcoholic, it is already a very healthy drink. “We’re supplementing that with additional ingredients.” 

“We’re building a new category between alcohol-free beer and functional drinks. Besides Thrive, there aren’t many other options, which means there is no real competition. But we must also educate the consumer and build awareness for this category.” 

“We see that functionality creates loyal customers because people are not just drinking for its taste.” 

Regarding flavor, D’Hoore explains that both beers are IPAs, but Thrive Peak has a more citrus flavor with a slight acidity, making it extra refreshing for an after-sports drink. 

“Thrive Play is very fruity and floral, with hints of citrus. We worked with some exotic hops to give it a nice hoppy character. We wanted to make a balanced, great-tasting, alcohol-free beer.” 

Patent for protein beer   
Thrive obtained a patent for its first alcohol-free beer enriched with proteins and its manufacturing method. To develop this product, the company worked with the Leuven Institute for Beer Research, part of the University of Leuven, Belgium. The whole process took about 18 months. 

“I wanted to make a good alcohol-free beer that was functional for after sports and contained 10 g of protein per serving. We faced two main challenges — making a good alcohol-free beer and adding the protein.” 

“We use whey protein, because this is still the gold standard in functionality and its complete amino acid profile. We needed to add protein to a beer without impacting the taste too much and still create a proper beer, not a ‘beer milkshake.’ Because this was a novel problem that no one had solved, we were able to patent it.” 

Thrive benefited from the know-how it developed with Thrive Peak for the new beer, even though adding vitamins posed some unique challenges. For example, vitamin D is fat-soluble, making it difficult to add to a beer. 

Brewing process 
D’Hoore highlights that both beers are brewed naturally. 

“We are lucky to partner with a good brewery,” he reveals. “We don’t make alcoholic beer from which we extract the alcohol, a common process for mainstream breweries.” 

“By removing the alcohol, these beers lose flavor and body, meaning that producers need to add sugars, corn, preservatives or flavoring, meaning the beer would not be considered healthy. Instead, we work with a special yeast during the normal fermentation. This fermentation process doesn’t produce alcohol, so we don’t need to take it out later.” 

Expanding target audience and markets 
D’Hoore explains that with Thrive Play the company aims to target a broader health-focused audience and focus more on women. 

“There’s a growing group of people who are not completely sober but ‘sober curious,’ who are more conscious about when they drink out or how much alcohol they drink. This beer will tap into that development and our existing customer base.”  

He highlights the company’s ambition to expand internationally as well. Thrive is selling to some European countries online, such as the Netherlands, France, Spain and Austria, but is also looking for distributors to sell offline in some of these markets, focusing on the Netherlands, Switzerland and France. 

“Since we started two years ago, we have focused on Belgium to improve our first product, Thrive Recovery IPA. We improved the recipe for this beer in June of this year and launched it as Thrive Peak. It has the same functionality but a better taste and branding.” 

“In the beginning, some of the retailers in Belgium were interested in the product but doubted whether it would work,” shares D’Hoore. “We’re now outselling some non-alcoholic beer brands that have been around for a long time.”