2021年经济学人 无酒精啤酒成为酒业新希望(1)（在线收听）

Business

商业

Alcohol-free Beer

无酒精啤酒

For the 10,000 years or so it has been around, beer has been relied upon both to refresh and intoxicate.

在大约1万年的历史中，人们一直依赖啤酒来提神和沉醉。

Today's brewers think it could thrive by focusing exclusively on the refreshing.

如今的酿酒商认为，只要专注于提神这一部分，它就能蓬勃发展。

Alcohol-free beer is the booze industry's latest great hope as sales of the full-strength stuff have stagnated.

无酒精啤酒是酒业最新的巨大希望，因为烈性酒的销售已经处于停滞状态。

If Heineken and other brewing giants have their way, tipplers will be knocking back pints from breakfast on.

如果喜力和其他酿酒巨头能够如愿以偿，那么酒鬼们将从早餐就开始畅饮啤酒。

Beers with no (or little) alcohol have been sold for decades.

不含(或几乎不含)酒精的啤酒已经卖了几十年了。

But even their pedlars admitted they tasted flat.

但就连小贩也承认那些酒味道平平。

They were aimed at those who craved a proper beer but couldn't indulge: the pregnant, religious or designated drivers.

他们的目标人群是那些非常想喝上一杯但又没办法在酒精中放纵的人：孕妇、宗教人士或排了班的司机。

Multinational brewers saw them as "distressed purchases" and sold them under separate brands far removed from flagship marques.

跨国啤酒商将其视为“廉价货”，并将其与旗舰产品区分开来，以独立的品牌销售。

No longer. Even before the pandemic shut the world's bars, beer-drinking was on the slide, in part owing to health-conscious millennials bingeing less often.

时过境迁。甚至在疫情让世界各地的酒吧关门之前，喝啤酒的人数就在下滑，部分原因是有健康意识的千禧一代不再那么频繁地饮酒狂欢。

Booze barons concerned about losing sales to soft drinks invested in ways of making alcohol-free beer taste better.

酒业大公司们担心被软饮料抢走销售额，于是投资研发味道更好的无酒精啤酒。

This has started to pay off.

这一举措已经开始有了回报。

Though nobody sober would confuse an alcohol-free brew with the real thing, it is now a credible draught.

虽然没人哪个清醒的人会将无酒精啤酒与真正的啤酒混淆，但它现在也能解一时之渴了。

The product is good enough for mega-brands, from Japan's Asahi to America's Budweiser (part of AB InBev, the world's biggest brewer), to offer a "0.0" variant.

从日本的朝日啤酒到美国的百威啤酒(世界上最大的啤酒酿造商百威英博的一部分)，这种产品足以为无酒精啤酒提供多样性。

Part of the brewers' interest stems from boozeless beer's frothy margins.

酿酒商的兴趣部分源于无酒精啤酒的泡沫利润。

Making the stuff is actually more expensive than making a straight-up Stella.

生产这种酒实际上比生产纯丝戴拉酒更贵。

The process usually involves taking a finished alcoholic beer and stripping away the booze (brands guard their methods closely).

这个过程通常是把已经制作好的含酒精啤酒里的酒精脱去(各啤酒品牌严格保密自己的生产方法)。

The expense is, however, more than compensated for by the savings on alcohol excise duties that are no longer owed.

然而，省下来的酒类产品消费税足以弥补这一部分支出，并且还有盈余。

It helps that consumers appear to be willing to pay roughly the same price whether a beer contains alcohol or not.

无论啤酒是否含酒精，消费者似乎都愿意支付大致相同的价格，这一点很有帮助。