I was the head of Molson Coors’ Canadian flavour portfolio—what we call our non-beer products like spirit-based drinks and hard seltzers—when the company realized it wanted to make a change.  

It was 2020 and for some time, the Canadian market share for ciders, coolers, and other drinks had been on the rise. We were noticing in particular a huge spike in popularity for our seltzers and ready-to-drink cocktails. Deciding to lean into the change, we decided to turn Molson Coors into a total beverage business—bolstering our range of non-beer beverages to cater to more consumer tastes and preferences. 

We didn’t take this shift lightly. I’ve been with Molson for 11 years, all in brand marketing, working my way up the ladder to my current position as VP of Marketing in Canada, and I can say it was one of the most significant shifts our organization had ever undergone. We even changed our company name to Molson Coors Beverage Company as a signal to our employees and customers that we were evolving our business.

The change was necessary. Canadians have historically identified themselves strictly as beer, wine, or spirits drinkers, but we were hearing from our customers that there was a greater appetite to try new things and different flavours. Today’s consumer is looking for the right beverage for the right occasion at the right time, whether it’s a beer, an alcoholic lemonade or a drink without alcohol. 

For example, sometimes the modern-day drinker enjoys mixing in non-alcoholic beverages, but that does not mean they consider themselves sober or a non-drinker. This trend even has a name—”zebra striping”—where consumers alternate alcoholic and alcohol-free drinks throughout the night. Conscious of how they may feel the next day and wanting to make responsible choices like driving safely, consumers are spacing out their alcoholic drinks to moderate their consumption to make the most of an occasion. 

Understanding nuanced trends like this was a big change. It used to be that you were either drinking or not drinking—or maybe you were just taking a short break for Dry January—but what we’re seeing today is our consumers are reaching for both alc and non-alc at the grocery store, sometimes during the same grocery run. 

We’ve had a robust non-alcoholic portfolio for quite a long time before—from Heineken 0.0, to Coors Edge, to Molson Excel—but we’re working to build an even stronger portfolio of non-alcoholic beers, just as we did with our traditional beers. For a long time, if a customer wanted an alcohol-free beer, the only options were lagers or some pilsners. We’ve responded by experimenting with more varieties of non-alcoholic beer, like IPAs. 

We’re also aggressively expanding our portfolio to focus on high-quality offerings beyond beer like ready-to-drink beverages such as ZOA Energy drink, which we have a majority stake in and is already available to consumers in Canada. Recently, Molson Coors in the U.S. assumed the rights to Fever-Tree’s cocktail mixers, as a way to build out our non-alcohol portfolio.

Our decision to evolve was validated by the success we’ve seen outside of beer. According to Beer Canada, we’re the only major brewer in Canada that’s growing its share in both beer and ready-to-drink beverages. As of early 2025, sales of our non-alcoholic beer brands were up 89 percent over the previous quarter.

For many years, you’d find the non-alcoholic beer on the bottom shelf, hidden in the back row of the store.  We’re bringing our non-alcoholic portfolio forward, flanking it alongside the rest of our Molson brands. It’s about bringing that new energy to the forefront, with new flavours, new promotions, and with a real focused energy behind how we position it in store and in media. 

Moving strongly into non-alcoholic beverages was a transformative moment for our company globally. We have been in the beer business for over 239 years and we’re incredibly proud of our beer portfolio, and it is not going anywhere. We believe beer continues to present significant opportunities for innovation and growth. But we also need to recognize that consumers’ taste preferences are evolving and our focus needs to meet evolving tastes and preferences, ensuring we offer a wide range of high-quality products that appeal to different occasions. 

Related: Ted Fleming Is Taking Non-Alcoholic Beer Mainstream With Partake

We feel strongly about ensuring that we can serve all consumers for all occasions. Now the challenge is: what’s next? We feel really confident on non-alcoholic beer, so it’s time to evolve our offerings for an even broader variety of taste preferences and drinking occasions. 

If consumer demand is any sign, we expect the sector to continue to be strong. Meanwhile, companies like ours are meeting consumers with more innovation and more offerings and fuelling their appetite. Those two things combined mean we have a long, bright future and a lot more growth to come from low and non-alcoholic drinks.

—As told to Rebecca Gao