With sleek gold cans, a name that combines “beer” and “zero,” and a co-founder whose day job involves swinging between skyscrapers, BERO—the non-alcoholic beer brand launched by Spider-Man actor Tom Holland—is celebrating its first anniversary this month.
The company offers four core styles, all brewed under the direction of veteran brewer Grant Wood, and a growing retail presence that includes Target stores in Memphis.
At the 2025 Great American Beer Festival in Denver earlier this month, Wood told Memphis Beer Blog that BERO was created “from the ground up” as a non-alcoholic beer company, built on the same brewing rigor he brought to previous stops at Samuel Adams and Revolver Brewing.
At BERO, each beer is brewed like a traditional ale or lager but begins with a lower-gravity wort and a maltose-negative yeast that produces fermentation character without significant alcohol.
“We don’t separate the alcohol after brewing,” Wood explained. “Separation takes the heart out of the beer.”
BERO’s lineup includes Edge Hill Hazy IPA, Kingston Golden Pils, Noon Wheat, and Double Tasty West Coast IPA—the last named for a phrase Holland and his friends use to describe something exceptional (“Oh dude, that’s double tasty!”)
As non-alcoholic beer moves further into the mainstream, BERO is positioning itself as a “super-premium” option, blending craft-beer technique with modern design and celebrity appeal.
“Tom brings that younger, affluent, better-things-in-life, luxury piece to it,” Wood said. “We try to embody that in the packaging—the gold, the bold colors, clean design. … And Tom’s not just signing off on this consumer product thing. I’ve had meetings with him, tastings with him. He’s very, very involved in the process of creating the beers and the branding.”
Changing tastes and new opportunities
Wood credits the rise of NA beer to overlapping trends: a crowded craft market, pandemic-era lifestyle changes, an influx in cannabis options, and growing interest in moderation and wellness.
“All those things came together to give non-alcs an opportunity,” he said. “And hats off to Athletic who forged ahead in the category and helped ice-break that space.”
Athletic Brewing Co., founded in Connecticut in 2017, has since become one of the country’s top 10 craft breweries by volume, helping make non-alcoholic beer a mainstream success. Worldwide, the non-alcoholic beer market grew by 9% in 2024, while the overall beer market shrank by 1%.
One of the biggest misconceptions of 0.5% “non-alcoholic” beers, Wood said, is that people are giving something up by drinking them.
“You’re not giving something up — you’re gaining something. It’s beer, it just happens to have less alcohol. You can have three, four or five while you’re sitting there watching a football game … and not feel like you’re going to be punished for it the next day,” he said.
Expanding the web
BERO launched through direct-to-consumer sales, Amazon, and a national partnership with Target. It now reaches about 46 states and is expanding into grocery and independent retailers.
In its first year, BERO has produced between 10,000 and 15,000 barrels—a strong start for a new brand in an emerging category.
The company plans to roughly quadruple production in year two, buoyed by broader distribution, the introduction of on-premise sales, and new releases such as Coffee Draught, a nitrogenated coffee stout collaboration with Robert Downey Jr.’s Happy Coffee brand.
For Wood, BERO marks the fifth chapter in a career that began at Pearl Brewing Co. in San Antonio and wound through Lone Star Brewing Co., Samuel Adams, and Revolver Brewing.
After decades in traditional beer — and a brief retirement — mastering NA brewing has rekindled his curiosity.
“It’s a great challenge to make these beers,” Wood said. “People are enjoying them, and I’m just excited to be part of it.”
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