verseas, there are brands like Asahi and Heineken, so we based Another Lager on a classic style so it’s super drinkable – we’ve always approached brewing with the idea of making beers that we enjoy drinking ourselves.” Heaps Normal attracted investment last year from Who Gives A Crap founder and CEO Simon Griffiths, Athletic Ventures managing partner Matt de Boer and Tripple executive director Bec Milgrom, among others.  And, with the country slowly opening up, the next major move for Heaps Normal is the launch of its full production brewery in Sydney, which will be built from the ground up and integrated with an events and bar space.  “One of the things that made us most excited about the way Heaps Normal has been perceived is the support we’ve received from other brewers,” Miller said. “We want to pay respect to that and use [the] hospitality side of the [brewery] to almost kind of flip the normal model on its head. We’ll have a selection of our favourite craft beers available in the space, as well as a whole range of different beers that we brew ourselves.” Sophomore Beer The launch of Another Lager comes as non-alcoholic drinks have surged in popularity in recent years, with younger generations in general consuming far less than their older counterparts. According to researchers from University of New South Wales’ Social Policy Research Centre, Gen Z cut their drinking habits by more than double the rate of other generations during 2020’s lockdowns – a movement Heaps Normal is keen to help drive.  “I think we’re seeing a positive shift in the way non-alcoholic beers are being received, which makes the broad appeal of this style [of beer] the natural next step in our mission to change drinking culture,” said Heaps Normal chief executive Andy Miller.  Success can often breed difficulties, and for Heaps Normal this was a key consideration in the creation of Another Lager.  “We felt like a band that needed its second album to be better than the debut, but people really liked the first album,” said Heap Normal’s head of brand Pete Brennan. “The challenge for me, and the whole brand, was that we wanted to make sure that if someone saw us holding a can of Heaps Normal, they didn’t think for a second that it’s not beer.” To get there, the business took the same approach it took with its first product, the Quiet XPA. Rather than boiling out the alcoholic content, Heaps Normal took six months of research and development to get the recipe to a point where it had less than 0.5 per cent alcoholic content despite fermentation — and tasted good enough to get their stamp of approval. This meant the business had to continue trading throughout the Covid-19 Delta variant, but, thankfully, selling beer has been considered an essential service, enabling the team to keep their heads down and work.  “We were shit-scared about launching a brand new beer brand in the middle of lockdowns that we pre-sold about 80 per cent of our first batch before we even finished brewing it,” Miller told Inside FMCG. “It was that moment that convinced us there were a lot more people like us, looking for a beer like Heaps Normal.” Serving up non-alcoholic Bir, Píjiǔ, and Bīru  With two products launched, over 2000 stockists across the country, and a dedicated brewery incoming, the question inevitably becomes ‘what’s next’? “We launched in Australia because we think it has a lot of catching up to do [in the zero-alochol market] with the rest of the world, and we’re aligned with Australian culture,” said Miller.  “But we’re definitely not content with staying in Australia. Southeast Asia is our next territory, and we’re already distributing through Singapore and Malaysia, soon Hong Kong, and we’re looking at Japan and Indonesia as the next cabs off the rank. “There’s probably going to be more added to that list. One of the common elements we’ve seen in the last 18 months [since launch] is that things are happening a lot faster than we expect them to, so we’re prepared for all of that to change.”