Booze-free ‘liquor’ stores offer options, as some B.C. craft brewers decline and fall

VANCOUVER — Whatever your tipple, Angela Hansen’s liquor store on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive has stock to satisfy, from Prosecco to tequila — so long as you don’t want any actual liquor.

Hansen’s “alcohol free liquor store” Mocktails opened last March, and just a few days into the new year, she was anticipating a “boom” for her business.

“Dry January, I think is gonna be a big thing for the alcohol-free world,” she said, referring to the global movement to cut back on alcohol this month. “Some people are begrudgingly doing it, and others are very, very enthusiastic to do it, and they’re excited that they have this. You don’t have to do Dry January with a Coca-Cola or something like that.”

It’s not the only business catering to the market — just a block away is The Drive Canteen, a snack-bar that offers “sophisticated non-alcoholic beverages” in its store. In Port Coquitlam, B.C., there’s Bevees, a “booze-free bottle shop” that opened in November 2023.

The rise of stores like Mocktails and others comes as health concerns around alcohol rise — and as British Columbia’s once-booming craft beer industry goes through tough times. A series of high-profile brewers have closed down or are in financial strife; many cite economic conditions as well as a shift in drinking preferences.

It’s unclear whether greater awareness of health risks associated with alcohol are reducing demand, but the rise of booze-free options offer alternatives to those seeking to cut back after an alcohol-fuelled holiday season.

“We’re coming out of December, which is like the heaviest drinking month of the year for most people,” said Dr. Tim Naimi, director of the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research.

The research body launched an online tool this month that allows individuals to calculate their alcohol risks based on their consumption, and Naimi said it’s important for consumers to make “informed decisions.”

The risks of excessive alcohol consumption are well-documented, but have come into sharper focus in Canada since January 2023, when the government-supported Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction said the risk of cancer rises at much lower levels of alcohol consumption than previously thought.

Any more than two standard drinks a week put people at higher risk, it said in its report.

Last week, the U.S. Surgeon General released a new advisory about alcohol and the risks of cancer it carries, calling for health warning labels on alcohol products.

Naimi was involved in the research that went into updating the CCSA alcohol guidance, and said it is “common sense” for the U.S. Surgeon General to call for better labelling.

“Other packaged food and beverage products in Canada require quite a bit of information. But if I buy a bottle of Scotch, it just says 40 per cent (alcohol by volume) and that’s pretty much it.”

Naimi said a lot of information consumers get about alcohol comes from the industry, and the calculator tool employs “good up-to-date science” to inform people of their health risks.

“But more importantly, it’s just for people who are considering cutting back,” he said.

The upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic saw alcohol consumption peak, Naimi said.

“Alcohol consumption was at an all-time high during COVID and it’s come down a little bit to more like pre-COVID levels,” he said. “I don’t think it’s changed that much.”

For some in the booze business, though, the aftermath of the pandemic has coincided with tough times.

Award-winning Andina Brewing closed its East Vancouver brewery, just a dozen or so blocks away from Mocktails, in April 2023, after six years in business. Other closures followed, including Burnaby’s Studio Brewing that permanently closed in December 2023, then Riot Brewing in Chemainus on Vancouver Island a month later.

In a farewell message, Studio Brewing cited “consumer preference shifting away from craft beer” as well as other economic challenges.

After a decade as one of Vancouver’s smallest brewers, Callister Brewing shut down around the same time as Studio and Riot brewing. But it had a fallback.

While the company cited rising costs at its brewery site, it also said there was a need to focus on the “rapid growth” of its non-alcoholic Callister Craft Soda.

It pitches the sodas in a language familiar to the craft-beer scene — they are “crafted locally”, and made in “small batches.”

Meanwhile, B.C.’s craft beer reckoning continues.

In November 2024, Central City Brewing in Surrey — maker of Red Racer beer, as well as de-alcoholized brews under the Street Legal brand — sought creditor protection. Court documents outline post-pandemic financial troubles that required it to restructure.

Company president Daryll Frost detailed “economic challenges” including minimum wage increases, labour shortages, higher taxes and higher food and supply costs.

Another factor, Frost’s court filing said, was “reduced demand for alcohol products generally.”

Naimi said he was unaware whether demand has actually diminished, though he said recent indications that younger people are drinking less than previous generations are “kind of interesting.”

Customers at Mocktails said they had a number of reasons for going booze-free.

Hilary Hansen — no relation to the owner — stopped by for alcohol-free tequila to make margaritas. She said she can’t drink alcohol because she’s pregnant.

“Obviously the baby’s the biggest concern, but I would say in general I would like to drink less outside of being pregnant,” she said. “It’s not the alcohol, it’s the taste, so I just want something really nice in a cocktail that I can enjoy and not have any negative health impact for either me or, right now, the baby.”

“Having options like this is really nice,” she said.

Enrique Rodriguez, the husband of Mocktails’ owner, said he’s also reduced his alcohol intake after initially not wanting to follow Hansen down a sober path.

He said that at parties with his family in Mexico, he used to see alcohol as “the climax of freedom, but it’s not.”

Now, he said he alternates between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks on nights out.

“For me it’s like an awakening,” he said. “I can make better decisions to say, ‘OK, I had enough, I gotta go, you know, tomorrow I have things to do’ and boom, I had the best of both.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 9, 2025.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press