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What to drink at the beach? It’s a challenging question, one that goes back way before the introduction of the beach blazer.

Canned beverages have long ruled the cooler. It’s partly out of convenience: They’re not as heavy as bottles, and you don’t need to remember to bring a corkscrew or bottle opener. But it’s probably going to be hot, so you don’t want something so strong that you get blitzed by 3 p.m.

That line of thinking corresponds with consumers’ increasing demand for healthy—or at least not dramatically unhealthy— drinks that are family-time friendly. The no- and low-alcohol beer market is keenly aware of this. Anheuser-Busch InBev NV predicts these kinds of brews will represent 20% of its production by 2025.

Bill Shufelt, co-founder of Athletic Brewing Co. in Connecticut, left Point72 Asset Management to make nonalcoholic beer because he saw an opportunity for a modern beverage that lent itself to people’s professional careers and social lives. “You can take our cans anywhere, including places where alcohol isn’t allowed,” he says.

And if nonalcoholic beverages are big, CBD (or cannabidiol) drinks are even bigger. A study by Zion Market Research forecast that the global cannabis beverage market will reach $4.46 billion by 2025.

We’ve selected a dozen standout new cans to fill up your next 12-pack. They’re convenient to carry, and, for the environmentally conscious, they have a lower carbon footprint than glass bottles because they’re lighter to ship and are more often made up of recycled material. Ranging from athletically minded brews to spiked seltzers gunning for the La Croix crowd, all are increasingly available to consumers—at least until they sell out. “Two years ago, no one would talk to us,” Shufelt says. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago: “We did a limited release of 50 cases of gose, and they sold out online in under a minute.” 

A Less Unhealthy Option

26.2 Brew, Boston Beer Co.120 calories; 9g carbs; 4% ABVAs the name suggests, 26.2 was created with runners in mind, thanks to brewer and marathoner Shelley Smith, who worked with other athletes to create the blend for Marathon Brewing, a new line from Boston Beer. While it’s made to pair with an active lifestyle, Smith says she didn’t want to sacrifice too many calories for taste; she accents the brew with coriander and salt for a flavorful, savory hit.

Da Shootz, Deschutes Brewery99 calories; 4.2g carbs; 4% ABVOne of the country’s largest independent brewers, the company that put Oregon on beer drinkers’ maps has gotten into the low-alcohol game. In March, Deschutes began selling flower-emblazoned cans of this toasty, light-bodied pilsner.

Repeat Kolsch-Style Beer With Bee Pollen, Sufferfest Beer Co.95 calories; 5g carbs; 3.5% ABVFounded in 2016 by long-distance runner Caitlin Landesberg, Sufferfest is based around athletes who desire a decent post-workout beer. (The tag line: “Athletes who love beer.”) The company, bought by Sierra Nevada in February, makes a point of adding good-for-you ingredients: this kolsch is brewed with bee pollen, so it’s light and floral. 

Slightly Mighty, Dogfish Head95 calories; 3.6g carbs; 4% ABVLike other brewers, Dogfish Head, which was just bought by Boston Beer Co., has seen demand grow for low-calorie, low-carb drinks. The Delaware beer specialists recently brought out this sessionable drink after more than a year of development. It’s made with monk fruit, the Asian melon that’s a favorite sweetener in the keto diet world. The end product is a hoppy IPA with tropical fruit flavors.

Alcohol-Free

Cerveza Atletica, Athletic Brewing Co.  60 calories;

Cold Brew Shandy, La Colombe60 calories; 6g carbs; 0% ABVClassically speaking, a shandy is a beer-and-lemonade drink. But the cult coffee roaster La Colombe decided to broaden the definition, substituting cold brew for the classic “brew” to create the first official coffee shandy. The lightly roasted cold brew comes in three refreshing flavors—lemon, grapefruit, and cherry—with a little sugar to round it out.  

The “Hard” Stuff

Black Cherry Rosemary, Bon & Viv Spiked Seltzer90 calories; 2g carbs; 4.5% ABVIf you’re not familiar with spiked seltzer, welcome to Earth. The drink is geared toward the La Croix crowd who wants a ready-to-open, lower-alcohol beverage instead of a vodka and soda blend. Bon & Viv got major exposure when it ran an ad introducing the updated product during the 2019 Super Bowl. (The label is owned by Anheuser-Busch.) The drink, made with sparkling water and fruit flavors, now has an ABV of 4.5%, down from 6%, and botanical flavors like the tart and slightly woodsy black cherry rosemary. Other flavors include cranberry and clementine hibiscus.

Cherry Lime, Mighty Swell Spiked Spritzer110 calories; 4g carbs; 5% ABVThe newest flavor from the three-year-old Austin-based beverage company Mighty Swell. Their founders are veterans of Sweet Leaf Tea, Deep Eddy Vodka and Goldman Sachs, and their canned wine coolers, spiked with orange wine, are made without high-fructose corn syrup or food coloring, and have a notably bright juicy fruit flavor.

Ancient Berry Hard Kombucha, Flying Embers100 calories; 4.5% ABVSome people grab a bottle of kombucha as an alternative to alcohol, but if you add more sugar and ferment it for longer you can up the booze level. The Ojai, Calif.-based Flying Embers began distributing their drinks, which are made from black tea and ingredients like turmeric, in December. The crunchy granola flavors include Ginger & Oak, and the darkly fruity Ancient Berry. In keeping with the name, 1% of the company’s revenues go to firefighting charities.

Hibiscus Session Apple Cider, Stem Ciders145 calories; 15.6g carbs; 4.3% ABVHere’s the secret about hard ciders: Most of them come in at more than 5% alcohol, giving those apples quite a boozy punch. But Stem has made a point of keeping their alcohol levels lower. The Colorado-based cider house, which last year opened a tap room and restaurant outside Denver called Acreage, makes their summery floral selection with fresh apple juice and dried hibiscus flowers.

Just Add CBD

Citrus Original Soda, Sprig110 calories; 26g carbs; 20 mg CBDA major player in the cannabis and CBD-infused beverage market, California’s Sprig became the most widely distributed CBD beverage in the U.S. earlier this year. They have a new “zero sugar” line, which contain only 5 calories per can, but the best flavor is the original soda, which has the refreshing taste of grapefruit along with a dose of CBD oil, and cane sugar instead of stevia.

Chill Brew, Abracadabra20mg CBDBefore 2018, Abracadabra was known around Woodstock, Vt., as a coffee roaster. Then the shop teamed up with a neighboring hemp farm (they met at a farmers market) and began producing CBD-infused beverages. Chill Brew combines carefully sourced Ethiopian beans with particularly aromatic hemp extract to round out the fruity flavor of the coffee. Worth noting, too, are the cans, arrayed with trippy doodles.   

To contact the author of this story: Kate Krader in New York at kkrader@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Gaddy at jgaddy@bloomberg.net

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