Ranking first among all Chinese non-alcohol brands by the total number of awards won, "Xin Ling" non-alcoholic beer aims to make happiness independent of getting drunk | Project Report

Author | ZHONG Yixuan

When Chinese-style flavored beers with Longjing tea, green plum and bayberry flavors compete against rivals from all over the world, especially traditional powerhouses like Germany, the United States and Belgium, how likely is the former to win?

"New Zero" non-alcoholic beer has given the answer. At the World Beer Awards (WBA) in August this year, New Zero Beer won the National Championship, Gold, Silver and Bronze awards in the non-alcoholic/low-alcohol flavor category at the same time; at the concurrent World Cider Awards (WCA), its "Persimmon Coconut Orange" cider won the overall championship and gold award in its category, and the "Bayberry Wax Apple" cider won the bronze award.

With a total of 13 medals from the two events, New Zero has since become the Chinese non-alcoholic brand with the largest number of medals. "We won the recognition of overseas judges through Chinese flavors," Sun Xiaonan, founder of New Zero Beer, told 36Kr.

This is not the first time 36Kr has come into contact with New Zero. When we first reported on New Zero in 2021, it had just received the angel round investment from GL Ventures, and non-alcoholic beer in China was still a category that few people bet on. Four years later, the figure given by founder Sun Xiaonan is that from 2021 to 2025, the total sales volume of New Zero for 5 consecutive years has exceeded the total annual import volume of non-alcoholic beer by China Customs. In major channels such as Sam's Club, Freshippo and ALDI, it ranks first in sales in the non-alcoholic beer category, and even ranks first in sales among all beer categories in Sam's Club.

"New Zero" becomes the Chinese non-alcoholic brand with the largest number of medals

Instead of subtracting alcohol, we re-create beer

In 2013, Sun Xiaonan first came into contact with craft beer. After traveling to many countries on business trips, he found that the shelves of non-alcoholic beer abroad were getting larger and larger, but this market had never taken shape in China.

At that time, China's beer industry was facing a turning point: sales volume peaked and then went down all the way, but sales revenue was rising. Sun Xiaonan judged that consumers were drinking less, but drinking better quality beer.

He began to notice the opportunities for non-alcoholic beer. In fact, due to the late start, non-alcoholic beer is still a newly sprouted seed in China's hundreds of billions of beer industry. Until 2026, non-alcoholic beer in China only accounts for about 1% of beer consumption. Therefore, its real reference system is overseas. Today, the non-alcoholic market share in Germany and Japan is about 10%, and non-alcoholic products have gradually become daily consumer goods in Europe and the United States. IWSR data also shows that in 2025, the total beer sales volume in 21 major markets around the world decreased slightly by 1%, while the sales volume of non-alcoholic beer increased by 8% against the trend.

More importantly, young people have begun to show restraint in alcohol consumption. Sun Xiaonan told 36Kr that Pernod Ricard, a well-known spirits group, once communicated with New Zero and mentioned that their survey found that 40% of young people around the world do not drink alcohol at all. At the same time, the overall sales volume of Chinese Baijiu has halved, and the reduction of gift-giving and business banquet scenarios has led to a decline in the price of high-end Baijiu.

Product image of "New Zero" non-alcoholic beer

Therefore, Sun Xiaonan quickly started his second venture in life and founded the non-alcoholic beer brand New Zero. Different from the traditional large manufacturers that produce beer first and then remove alcohol, New Zero's idea of making non-alcoholic beer is the "clear brewing method", that is, to redesign the whole process around non-alcohol from the brewing stage.

At present, there are two relatively mainstream dealcoholization routes in China, namely distillation and dealcoholization filtration. The former uses the boiling point of alcohol at 78.5℃ to evaporate it, while the latter uses a semi-permeable membrane to filter alcohol. Their common point is that they all need to brew beer first and then use technology to remove alcohol.

But Sun Xiaonan told 36Kr that these two methods have three inherent flaws: first, they cannot achieve truly zero alcohol; second, filtration will lose a large number of flavor substances; third, to ensure the taste, it is necessary to add flavors back.

Since its establishment, Sun Xiaonan has decided that New Zero will not do "alcohol subtraction", but re-create beer from scratch.

The clear brewing method is designed around non-alcoholic beer from the very beginning of malt, yeast, fermentation method, temperature, pressure and equipment parameters. Over the past few years, New Zero has carried out a lot of independent R&D in raw materials, technology, equipment, alcohol removal/control technology, low energy control, beer taste simulation and other links, owning 5 invention patents and 20 other patents. According to Sun Xiaonan, the product can achieve completely zero alcohol, while reducing purine to 4.2 mg per 100 ml, and the national standard threshold for low purine is ≤ 50 mg per 100 ml.

This road is not easy. Sun Xiaonan divided the process from 0 to 1 into four hurdles: it took nearly a year to turn alcohol from existence to non-existence; after solving this problem, he found that alcohol was not the biggest problem, but good taste was; when the taste was finally qualified, he encountered batch consistency: the beer tasted good this month, but why was it different next month? The last hurdle is time: will it still taste good after six months? What about after nine months?

"The first three problems can be answered after the experiment is done, and the last one can only rely on time," Sun Xiaonan said.

When drinking becomes an active choice

Who on earth is drinking non-alcoholic beer?

Sun Xiaonan told 36Kr that the user profile of New Zero is almost completely opposite to that of ordinary beer: women account for about 65% and men about 35%, while men account for more than 85% of ordinary beer consumers. In addition, more than 70% of New Zero's users are under 30 years old, the monthly repurchase rate exceeds 40%, and middle-class family users account for more than 60%.

But different from his initial imagination, these young people who consume non-alcoholic products have put forward a counter-consensus for New Zero: people who drink non-alcoholic beer do not do it because they "cannot touch alcohol", but because they do not want to touch it that day.

There is a huge difference between "cannot" and "do not want to". Sun Xiaonan said that the traditional drinking table culture has obviously lost its effect on the new generation. Young people like active slight intoxication and resist passive drunkenness. For example, young women will choose to bring their own non-alcoholic beer in social occasions: "I'm not disrespecting you, I'm also drinking, it's just non-alcoholic."

He summarized to 36Kr that this is a proactive change, from "drinking for others" to "drinking for yourself".

Sun Xiaonan still remembers that when he worked at InterContinental Hotels Group, he once asked the international executive chef of the hotel what the best-tasting beer he had ever drunk was.

The other party gave a rather interesting answer: "As long as it is free wine, it is the best tasting."

In most Western cultures, drinking is often regarded as a way of leisure and relaxation. No matter the occasion, no matter you are slightly drunk or fully drunk, you can have a drink at any time. However, traditional Chinese drinking culture pays attention to atmosphere and etiquette, which leads to the fact that in many social occasions, people drink for others.

This phenomenon is now changing. The joy of drinking can be independent of getting drunk. Sun Xiaonan believes that non-alcoholic, low-alcohol and traditional beer are not mutually exclusive. A person who needs to go to work that day can choose non-alcoholic beer, can choose low-alcohol beer for a small gathering the next day, and can choose beer with normal alcohol content when camping on weekends. This means that New Zero does not want to be a substitute for alcohol. On the contrary, its solution is to create more demands. "We no longer divide products by 'people' as labels, but by life status and scenarios," he said.

Among many demands, gift-giving during the Chinese New Year is the most unexpected one for him. In recent years, the sales volume of New Zero non-alcoholic beer has risen significantly around the Spring Festival. Users who have bought it told him that they buy New Zero for two intentions: one is the novelty of letting others try new things; the other is the care for health, hoping that the other party can be healthy.

At present, New Zero's product system is divided into craft beer line, Chinese style line and innovation line. The craft beer line is the oldest, with three flavors of Pilsner, Belgian White Beer and IPA, targeting men who have a preference for beer tasting; the Chinese style line uses local Chinese flavors such as osmanthus, Longjing tea, litchi, hawthorn and bayberry to brew beer, adhering to the concept of "Chinese flavor, made in China"; the innovation line is responsible for creative products, and its representative work is the butter beer derived from Harry Potter - in the original novel, it is allowed to be drunk by underage wizards. New Zero brews it into a completely zero-alcohol version with malt, hops and yeast, which also has the aroma of grains, biscuits and toffee. It sells well at ACG exhibitions and is now one of the recommended products in Sam's Club.

"New Zero" butter-flavored non-alcoholic beer

In terms of channels, New Zero has entered new retail channels such as Sam's Club, Freshippo and ALDI. 36Kr also learned that New Zero officially started large-scale overseas expansion last year. Although the proportion is not large, its revenue has doubled. North America and the Middle East are currently the key overseas regions for New Zero to expand. In North America, butter beer has become a stepping stone and is very popular locally; while in the Middle East, where there is extremely zero tolerance for alcohol, completely zero-alcohol non-alcoholic beer perfectly fills the gap in necessary drinking party scenarios.

In terms of team, founder Sun Xiaonan is not from a brewing background, but has been dealing with consumer products for many years. He used to work at many Fortune 500 companies such as Tesco UK, Amazon, Nike and InterContinental Hotels Group. At present, New Zero has less than 20 employees with an average age of 28. The chief brewer Fang Zhiyuan is a national beer judge, and most of the R&D team have synthetic biology backgrounds.

Sun Xiaonan told 36Kr that the most important thing for New Zero in 2026 is to "subtract": focus on non-alcoholic beer, focus on channels with real gross profit, "widen the narrow path, polish the products well, and be a friend of time. If we do the right things, sales revenue will be the natural result."