Big Drop was launched in October 2016 by then lawyer Rob Fink (right), along with his school-friend and band-mate James Kindred (left). Photo courtesy Big Drop Brewing.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Here at NonBooze, we’re always looking to share great stories about how folks got into the NA scene. So we’ve started a new feature, The NonBooze Interviews, where we sit down with some of the influential folks behind the non-alcoholic beverages we all love. Entrepreneurs. Brewers. Winemakers. Distillers. Hop and wine grape growers.
Our first interview is with Rob Fink, CEO & Founder of Big Drop Brewing Company. We hope you enjoy the interview. If you know someone we should feature on The NonBooze Interviews, contact us today and we’ll reach out. Near beer cheers!
Rob Fink had a vision the non-alcoholic craft beer market had legs long before most, co-founding the Big Drop Brewing Company in London in 2016 along with his longtime friend James Kindred.
But the high school friends and band mates didn’t know exactly what they were sitting on (kegs of tasty craft near beers, apparently), until they got confirmation the day renowned beer writer, Pete Brown, stood up in front of a conference full of skeptical bar owners and declared he was going to talk about NA beer.
“He said, ‘The only difference between a pint of water and a pint of great beer, is that if you drink a pint of water, you don’t want another because you’re not thirsty anymore. If you drink a great beer, you immediately want another,'” Fink recalls. “He held up the Big Drop Galactic Stout and said: ‘This is the first time I have ever drunk an NA beer, and immediately wanted the same again.'”
There he had it. Big Drop Brewing Company’s mission? Brew great beer.
Boom. Drops mic. Job done.
Over the next five years, Big Drop would become the “King of Craft” and go on to win countless awards at the World Beer Awards, European Beer Challenge, Stockholm Beer & Whiskey Festival, International Beer Challenge, U.S. Open Beer Championship, The International Brewing and Cider Awards, and more.
Big Drop was founded in London but has expanded to Chicago, brewing out of Great Central Brewing Company to produce U.S. batches of Pine Trail Pale and Galactic Extra Dark, with a (spoiler alert) special IPA coming soon. You can read our review of the Galactic Extra Dark here.
Overseas, they’ve teamed up with experimental brewer, Johnny Clayton, previously of Wild Beer Company, and have churned out a wide variety of brews, including stouts, lagers, pales, IPAs, browns, winter ales and sours.
In early March 2021, Fink sat down to discuss that success with us, kicking off The NonBooze Interview series …
What’s the best part about your job?
Fink: A lot of people with cool jobs say this: but the fact that every day is different. Big Drop has a ton of great people doing amazing things to help us build the World’s Best NA Brewery. But my job is to (try to) steer the ship and keep it all on track. Which involves getting stuck into all the different aspects of the company.
What got you into brewing NA beers?
Fink: I simply hit that point that a lot of craft beer fans get to, I think, which is: I want a great beer but I don’t want the alcohol. And that’s just because we’ve all grown up a bit. I’ve got 3 kids and a wonderful wife, a busy job and I try to exercise a bit. Guess what? Alcohol doesn’t always fit into that, but sometimes I want a great beer. And Big Drop scratches that itch.
What’s your favorite NA currently?
Fink: In the Big Drop range, I have circled back around to the Galactic Stout. It was our first beer and, for me, it’s still the best. Everyone loses their mind for hazy IPAs nowadays, but give me a dark, chocolatey stout any day.
In terms of other breweries, I have just tried Boston Beer’s Just the Haze. That is probably the best juicy IPA I’ve tried to date. I’ve no idea how they did it, but they’ve nailed it. Fair play.
Can you describe your favorite beer in one sentence?
Fink: Big Drop’s Galactic Stout is a dark, rich, velvety stout made with cocoa nibs to give it a chocolate edge. It’s got outstanding mouthfeel and has won numerous international beer awards against full-strength beers. It’s a giant amongst beers!
What’s the biggest misconception about NA beverages?
Fink: That they all taste bad. That’s not true any more. But what really winds me up is when companies which should know better put out drinks which still taste bad. You know who you are. If Big Drop can make great NA beer, then so can you. Stop it.
What was your favorite batch in the past?
Fink: The first Pale Ale, back in 2017. We’d nailed the stout, but the Pale Ale (now known as Pine Trail) when it first came out of the tank was a revelation. There was genuinely nothing like it back in 2017.
Any new releases we should be looking forward to?
Fink: Keep an eye out for our Paradiso Citra IPA coming to our webstore soon: us.bigdropbrew.com. The Pine Trail is a traditional bitter pale ale, whereas the Paradiso is much juicier.
Oh. And it won Gold in the World Beer Awards Specialty IPA category – against full-strength beers.
So, if anyone tells you that NA beer isn’t as good as alcoholic beer, point that out to them!
The NA market is growing rapidly. What’s in store for Big Drop?
Fink: We’re brewing in the U.S. now and hope to increase our distribution here, as well as the UK, Australia and Canada. We’ll release more beers in each market as we grow and bed in.
Where do you see the market in 5 years?
Fink: There are a lot of statistics bandied around about how big NA beer could get in the next 5 years. But of course, as soon as you write a forecast down, the only thing you know for sure is that it will be wrong. So I always just ask a simple question: do you think that in the next 5, 10, 15 years, people are going to be drinking more or less alcohol? And I’m pretty confident that the answer to that is less. Great tasting beer without the alcohol therefore certainly has a role to play in that.
Has the pandemic hurt or helped the industry? Why?
Fink: Like all brewers, not having access to consumers through the on-premise has been difficult. However, this made us focus on our ecommerce sales channel to an extent we had never really thought we would. And it has proved extremely fruitful as I think people are a bit more reluctant to drink as much alcohol at home as they would do when they go out.
And our ability to bypass the three-tier system and sell directly to consumers will no doubt be a boon and something we plan to use to help bring Big Drop to even more people.
What’s next for the NA craft beer market?
Fink: More brands, more beers, more innovation. And hopefully better beer. As I say, if a company is going to put out a NA beer, please make sure it tastes good, rather than jumping on the bandwagon. You do nobody any favours by releasing rubbish NA beer.
How can we help better promote the industry?
Fink: At the very beginning of this trend, back in 2017 (in the UK anyway), there was a reluctance on the part of professional reviewers to “call out” the bad beers because everyone saw it as a young, entrepreneurial sector that was providing a “better for you” option to drinkers. Fair enough.
But I think now the ecosystem is big enough for reviewers and professional beer sites to flag the great beers and call out the bad beers. Let people know that there are great options out there and they don’t have to settle for second (or third) best anymore.
Editor: We’ll toast to that! Thanks for joining us Rob! #NearBeerCheers!
