Brewing in 2026 – The shifts shaping the year ahead

As the industry enters 2026, brewers are planning against a backdrop of continued change. Consumer preferences are evolving, new beverage categories are gaining traction, and operational considerations are playing a larger role in how beers are designed and produced.

Individually, none of these shifts are new. Taken together, they are influencing how brewers think about ingredients, process control, and consistency across an increasingly diverse set of products.

Alcohol-free beer becomes part of standard production

Alcohol-free beer is leading the way. Growth data from IWSR shows no- and low-alcohol beverages continuing to outpace the broader beer category in many markets, with alcohol-free beer increasingly driven by repeat purchase rather than novelty.

From a production standpoint, alcohol-free beer presents distinct challenges. Lower alcohol levels reduce natural buffers in the beer, placing greater emphasis on body, balance, hop expression, and stability. Small changes in ingredient behaviour or process conditions tend to have a more noticeable impact on the finished product.

With many breweries now approaching alcohol-free beer as a core product, there’s a need to ensure they perform reliably over time.

This shift reflects what TNS is seeing across its application work. As Breeze Outhwaite, Head of Applications at TNS, explains:

“2026 looks set to be a year for no and low alcohol development, and for efficiency across the industry. Both bring their challenges, but our role is to make that transition easier. We support brewers through development, using a mix of brewing, sensory, analytical and applications expertise to take complexity out of the process and keep the focus on flavour and quality. It really is all about the creation of great-tasting beer, even without the alcohol.”

Efficiency is influencing decisions earlier

Efficiency has long been a consideration in brewing, but its role in decision-making is changing. Rising energy costs, labour constraints, and growing SKU counts mean that losses and rework now have a more direct impact on overall capacity.

Rather than addressing efficiency after a beer is in production, many breweries are factoring it into recipe and process design at an earlier stage. This includes evaluating how ingredients affect yield, tank residency, filtration behaviour, and predictability across batches.

Hop additions often feature prominently in these discussions because they influence more than flavour alone. The form and timing of hop inputs can affect beer recovery, fermentability, and downstream processing.

At TNS, this shows up during trials and scale-ups as a shift in focus. Brewers are increasingly looking for ways to avoid unnecessary loss or disruption while still achieving the intended sensory profile.

Consistency carries increased commercial importance

As beers move through wider distribution and longer shelf lives, consistency has become more visible and more commercially important. Variability in flavour or aroma can affect brand perception and customer trust.

Hop inputs remain one of the more variable elements in brewing. Differences between lots, seasons, and storage conditions can influence aroma intensity, bitterness quality, and mouthfeel. From an applications standpoint, this often appears as the same recipe behaving differently from batch to batch, even when brewhouse conditions seem unchanged.

Reducing avoidable variability has become a priority, particularly for beers that form part of a core range.

Hop character expands beyond beer

Hop-derived flavour is appearing across a broader range of beverages, including hop waters, botanical drinks, and alcohol-free cocktails. Research from Mintel and NIQ highlights growing interest in drinks described as crisp, refreshing, and easy to drink, often with lower sugar and alcohol levels.

These formats place different demands on hop behaviour. They are typically less tolerant of insoluble material, flavour drift, or instability. As a result, the way hop character is delivered becomes more critical, even outside traditional beer applications.

This expansion beyond beer has reinforced the importance of clean, predictable hop behaviour, something TNS has focused on through hop-derived liquid solutions designed to perform consistently across different beverage matrices.

Implications for hop use

Taken together, these shifts are influencing how brewers frame decisions around hop use.

Rather than focusing solely on hop variety or dosage, conversations increasingly centre on outcomes. Brewers are asking how to stabilise flavour over shelf life, how to manage bitterness quality in lighter styles, how to reduce dry-hop losses, and how to build hop character into alcohol-free beer without introducing instability.

Traditional hop formats introduce the full range of hop-derived compounds and plant material into the process. In many modern applications, only part of that contribution is required at a given stage, while the remainder can affect yield, filtration behaviour, fermentability, or flavour stability.

This has led to greater interest in approaches that allow brewers to separate hop functions and apply them more deliberately within the process.

How this connects to the TNS approach

TNS was built around the idea that hop character is not a single input, but a combination of functions that behave differently under brewing conditions.

Our portfolio reflects this by focusing on specific hop-derived fractions that support distinct roles in brewing, including late hop flavour, cold-side aroma, bitterness quality, and structural balance in alcohol-free beer. The aim is to give brewers additional tools where control, repeatability, and efficiency are priorities.

In practice, this shows up as more predictable flavour, improved beer recovery, and clearer translation from recipe intent to packaged beer, particularly in styles and formats where tolerances are tight.

Looking ahead

As brewing moves into 2026, the pressures shaping the industry are unlikely to ease. Alcohol-free beer will continue to demand tighter control. Efficiency will remain a key constraint. Flavour expectations will stay high across a widening range of beverages.

Traditional hop formats will continue to play an important role in brewing. Alongside them, more targeted approaches to hop application are becoming increasingly relevant where stability, consistency, and process performance matter most.

That is the context in which brewers are making decisions today, and it is the space TNS continues to work in: supporting brewers with hop solutions designed to behave predictably, perform reliably, and deliver the flavour outcomes modern brewing demands.