Want more alcohol-free bars in your city?

I have no association with any brands mentioned in this blog and the hand models were free.

Wait, do you even have bars like this in your city? In London there are four of them. Three from the Redemption Bar chain, joined by Jan 2020 arrival Brewdog AF in Shoreditch. There is one in Dublin (TVM) and one in New York (Getaway). You can’t get drunk in these places, no matter how hard you try.

One week ago, I knew very little about the ‘low-to-no’ alcohol scene, ‘mindful drinking’ or that there even was such a thing as being ‘sober curious’. I just knew I was growing tired of the majority of my socialising revolving around alcohol. It’s something that most of us say on autopilot; “let’s meet for a drink soon”. And we do meet. And we do drink.

I did some casual research by asking friends and colleagues about this weariness I felt, and from the twenty or so people that I engaged with, was surprised that five or six had a similar perspective. And like me, they were not sure what they to do about it. So I decided to look into alcohol-free (AF) bars as a possible escape from alcohol.

Off the lash in Shoreditch

But I’d never been to one and I didn’t know anyone who had either. The offer to visit two on a Monday night was rejected by more than a dozen people, before a few kind souls agreed to join me in Shoreditch. We planned to attend Redemption followed by Brewdog AF — undertaking what we endearingly called the ‘fake pub’ crawl. Some precursory research promised we would not be subjected to the AF adult drinks of yesteryear, due to the quality of low-to-no adult drinks now available. Still a tad sceptical, we arrived at Redemption and sampled a range of beers and prosecco. And, um, stayed for another round.

Exactly. What do they serve? Actually they serve quite a lot. And actually it’s very good.

Then on to Brewdog AF, ‘the world’s first alcohol-free beer bar’. It’s like any other Brewdog bar, which is obviously the point. And like with Redemption, none of us had tasted alcohol-free drinks like this before. (Lucky Saint lager on tap. Seriously, try it). Brewdog AF had a nice and chilled atmosphere akin to any bar on a low-key evening. To us alcohol-free bar virgins, it felt eerily familiar.

OK, it was less busy downstairs but we wanted to sit next to the hammocks.

We need more fake pubs!

I now had a plan. All that was left to do was canvass a couple of experts before I opened the first of many alcohol-free bars. Giving ‘the people’ a place to escape alcohol and allowing me to retire and drink alcohol (occasionally) on my huge yacht.

From further research, it turned out drinking mindfully and being sober and sociable is already a pretty big thing. If it’s not become mainstream yet, the increasing number of media articles and number of ‘influencers’ within it, suggest it’s about to.

Then I was schooled by the experts

I spoke with Laura Willoughby MBE, co-founder of Club Soda and viewed by many as a trailblazer within the mindful drinking movement. Club Soda’s key objective is to ‘create a world where no one feels out of place when not drinking’. Laura wants people to have the choice of whether they drink alcohol or not. And by ‘choice’ she means free from the societal pressures to drink that many of us have felt from (and if we’re being honest here) have applied to, our friends. That doesn’t necessarily mean just having more alcohol-free bars though.

She said Club Soda primarily want all bars to offer a choice “where people can choose whether to drink alcohol or not by providing a range of adult AF drinks that are more inclusive than just a soft drink or a juice”. And that’s when the penny dropped. It would be much easier to convince friends to join me in bars that include a diverse range of adult AF drinks. At least in the short-term.

Mandy Manners from Love Sober, and co-presenter of the Love Sober podcast, also explained how she hopes the trend in acceptance of a diverse range of reasons for not drinking alcohol will continue. Telling me that she has witnessed “a huge shift towards inclusivity of sober and mindful drinkers in existing pub spaces within the last two years”. Mandy advised how Love Sober focuses on “coaching and helping women with early and positive intervention when they start to question their relationship with alcohol”. I think she succinctly summarises the questioning of the relationship with alcohol that more of us are having, regardless of our gender, and regardless of how much alcohol we consume.

“AF beer next sir? Certainly sir.” (Photo by Taylor Davidson)

Will we all be mindful drinkers soon?

So…I won’t be opening a chain of alcohol-free bars anytime soon. As Brewdog and Redemption in particular have proven, they can work and I hope there will be more of them. But AF bars are clearly not the only answer when you can’t convince all your friends to visit. And as more people impacted by the mindful drinking movement will discover, the next step is to have more bars and pubs where you can choose to drink or not drink alcohol on any given day, yet still feel included.

(Photo by Jason Leung)

And consider this one final piece of insight from Laura, who told me about one of the many areas where we can all make a difference. The next time you are organising or attending a hospitality event with the standard three-course meal and half a bottle of wine included in the price. See if they charge extra if you want a non-alcoholic alternative. And if they do, request they change their policy.

We all have the power to make drinking or not drinking alcohol more inclusive. And, despite all the progress over the past few years, we are still a long way from achieving that goal.