Alcohol-free beer on tap did not reduce drinks revenue in a study of three United Kingdom pubs published in Drug and Alcohol Review on 25 September 2026, and the draught version attracted more customers than cans in a fridge or posters behind the bar. The University of York announced the result on 8 October 2026 and Anglia Ruskin University followed on 9 October.
The study is a before-and-after field test over nine months, not a laboratory experiment, and neither press release gives sales figures. This page sets out what was tested, what moved and what did not, how the result compares with a 2024 trial in Bristol (England), where the evidence stops and what the result means for a bar outside the United Kingdom without stretching it into a forecast.
What did the York and Anglia Ruskin researchers test in three pubs?
The researchers added alcohol-free beer to three United Kingdom pubs in three cumulative steps and collected daily sales data for nine months. Each pub first received canned alcohol-free beer in the fridge, then promotional posters, then alcohol-free beer on tap in place of one regular draught option. Interviews with publicans and staff completed the sales data.
The paper, titled "Nudging drink choice in pubs: the impact of introducing alcohol-free beer on alcohol sales and venue revenues", is signed by Nadine Waehning, Victoria Wells and Franziska Sohns. Waehning works at the University of York School for Business and Society and Sohns is an associate professor of economic geography at Anglia Ruskin University. The article was accepted on 15 September 2026 and published online on 25 September 2026 under DOI 10.1111/dar.70271.
In behavioural science a nudge changes the setting in which a choice is made without removing any option. The three steps map onto three levers: availability (cans in the fridge), information (posters behind the bar and in customer toilets) and function (a tap). Every pub received all three steps in the same order, so the design is quasi-experimental and non-randomised, and no pub stayed untouched as a comparison.
| Step | Intervention | Reported effect |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Canned alcohol-free beer added to fridge displays | Linked to lower wine and spirits sales |
| 2 | Promotional posters behind the bar and in customer toilets | Limited impact |
| 3 | Alcohol-free beer on tap, replacing one regular draught option | Strong rise in no and low alcohol sales; linked to lower soft drink sales |
| All | Three pubs, nine months of daily sales | No negative effect on total drinks revenue; alcoholic beer sales not reduced |
Did alcohol-free beer on tap reduce what the pubs earned?
No negative effect on total drinks revenue was reported. The Anglia Ruskin release states that the changes did not hurt overall takings and that sales of alcoholic beer were not reduced, and the University of York describes the shift as having no negative impact on drinks revenue. Neither release publishes revenue figures, percentages or sales volumes.
That absence of figures shapes how the finding should be handled. The direction is clear in the abstract, which reports that adding alcohol-free beer was linked to lower wine and spirits revenue while total drinks revenue stayed the same. The size of each movement is not in the press material, and the full text was not read for this page: the abstract and the two university releases were. A number for the loss in wine and spirits, or for the gain in alcohol-free beer, has therefore not been verified, and none is given here.
A second caution concerns the word revenue. The sources describe takings, and none reports margin by drink category. A pint of alcohol-free beer sold in place of a glass of wine can leave takings level and still change profit, in either direction, depending on price and cost.
Which drinks lost sales when alcohol-free beer arrived?
The Anglia Ruskin release links canned alcohol-free beer to lower wine and spirits sales and the draught version to lower soft drink sales, with alcoholic beer untouched in both cases. The split is the least expected result of the study: a pint of alcohol-free beer on tap drew customers who would otherwise have ordered something without alcohol.
Most commentary on alcohol-free beer assumes that it competes with alcohol. In these three pubs the tap version behaved differently, since the loss appeared among soft drinks and alcoholic beer held its volume. The sources consulted do not explain why format changes the origin of the substitution. One reading, offered as a reading and not as a finding, is that a poured pint serves a social role that a can does not, and so recruits customers who had been limiting themselves to a soft drink.
Temperature also mattered. Both releases report higher demand for no and low alcohol drinks in warmer weather. A nine-month series necessarily spans different seasons, which means that the effect of the nudges and the effect of the calendar are mixed in the same data, a point that returns in the section on limits.
Why did the tap outperform cans and posters?
Physical changes to availability moved sales and posters did not, which places the tap among the strongest levers tested. The University of York reports that customers often chose a freshly poured draught pint over canned alcohol-free beer, and the Anglia Ruskin release describes a strong rise in no and low alcohol sales once the tap was installed.
The posters result deserves attention because information is the cheapest nudge to deploy. Both releases describe its effect as limited. The sequence also means that the tap arrived last, when cans and posters were already in place, so the data cannot say how a tap alone would have performed in a pub with no cans and no posters.
The tap replaced one regular draught option, which makes the result a trade-off inside a fixed number of lines and not an addition to them. The keg itself carries a cost in cleaning and turnover, and the page on alcohol-free beer on draught and shelf life covers how long an opened alcohol-free keg stays at its best. Interviews with publicans and staff form the second half of the method, but their content is not summarised in the press material.
How does the York result compare with the 2024 Bristol trial?
A randomised crossover trial in 14 pubs and bars in Bristol (England), published in Addiction on 21 March 2024, found that offering alcohol-free beer on draught lowered alcoholic beer sales by 29 litres a week, about 5 percent, with no net change in takings. The York and Anglia Ruskin study differs in design, length and reported effect on alcoholic beer.
| Feature | York and Anglia Ruskin (2026) | Bristol (2024) |
|---|---|---|
| Design | Non-randomised before-and-after, three cumulative nudges | Randomised crossover field trial |
| Venues (number) | 3 pubs | 14 pubs and bars |
| Duration | 9 months of daily sales | 8 weeks, in alternating periods of 2 weeks |
| Alcoholic beer sold | Not reduced | 29 litres per week lower (about 51 pints, 5 percent) |
| Total takings | No negative effect | No net impact |
| Journal | Drug and Alcohol Review | Addiction |
The two studies agree on revenue and disagree on displacement. In Bristol the alcoholic beer that went unsold was matched by alcohol-free beer sold. In the 2026 study alcoholic beer was not reduced and the losses fell on wine, spirits and soft drinks depending on format. Different venues, different seasons and different sets of interventions make a direct comparison of the two sizes unsafe, and no source consulted attempts one.
What limits what three pubs can show?
The study covers three pubs and nine months, applies the same sequence in each and has no untouched comparison pub, so it cannot separate the effect of the nudges from seasons, events or local habits. The press releases give no sample sizes, statistical tests or margins, and the University of York release lists no limitations.
Weather is the clearest confounder, because the studied drinks sell more in warm spells and the nudges were introduced one after another over the same months. Funding is not stated in the release. A finding from three venues describes those venues and does not establish a rate for a sector. The article passed peer review at a specialist journal, and its abstract addresses pub managers and policymakers, but the scale of the effect in a different pub, town or country remains unmeasured.
What does a three-pub result mean outside the United Kingdom?
The study contains no data from outside the United Kingdom, so no effect on revenue elsewhere can be claimed. What transfers is a design question and not a forecast: a physical option at the point of order moved sales in the study, a poster did not, and a tap that replaces a line has to earn its place against the line it removes.
In Belgium two constraints sit beside any such decision. Value added tax on drinks served on site is 21 percent whether or not the drink contains alcohol, as the page on Belgian VAT on non-alcoholic drinks sets out, so an alcohol-free pint earns no tax advantage at the counter. And price matters at the till, a subject treated in the page on why alcohol-free beer costs so much. Whether the offer changes how much customers drink is a separate question, covered in the page on whether alcohol-free beer helps people drink less.
Does alcohol-free beer on tap reduce a pub's revenue?
No negative effect on total drinks revenue was reported in a three-pub study published in Drug and Alcohol Review on 25 September 2026. Neither the University of York nor Anglia Ruskin University released revenue figures, so the size of any change is unknown.
Where was the York and Anglia Ruskin study published?
It appeared in Drug and Alcohol Review as article e70271, DOI 10.1111/dar.70271, accepted on 15 September 2026 and published online on 25 September 2026. The authors are Nadine Waehning, Victoria Wells and Franziska Sohns.
Did alcohol-free beer replace alcoholic beer in the study?
No. Anglia Ruskin University reports that sales of alcoholic beer were not reduced. Canned alcohol-free beer was linked to lower wine and spirits sales and the draught version to lower soft drink sales.
How many pubs and how long did the study run?
Three United Kingdom pubs were followed for nine months of daily sales data, with interviews of publicans and staff added. The Bristol trial of 2024 used 14 venues over eight weeks.
Sources
- University of York, Offering alcohol-free beer on tap boosts pub choices while keeping revenues intact (news release, 8 October 2026): three pubs, three cumulative nudges, no negative impact on drinks revenue, limited effect of posters, wine and spirits sales down, higher demand in warmer weather. Consulted 21 October 2026.
- Anglia Ruskin University, Low alcohol doesn't mean low takings (news release, 9 October 2026): alcoholic beer sales not reduced, canned alcohol-free beer linked to lower wine and spirits sales, draught linked to lower soft drink sales, quote by Franziska Sohns. Consulted 21 October 2026.
- White Rose Research Online, Waehning N, Wells V, Sohns F, Nudging drink choice in pubs: the impact of introducing alcohol-free beer on alcohol sales and venue revenues, Drug and Alcohol Review, e70271 (accepted 15 September 2026, published online 25 September 2026), DOI 10.1111/dar.70271: abstract with nine months of daily sales data, three pubs, interviews with publicans and staff. Consulted 21 October 2026.
- University of Bristol, news release of 21 March 2024 on the randomised crossover field trial published in Addiction (Maynard, Attwood, Munafò and colleagues): 14 pubs and bars, eight weeks, 29 litres less alcoholic beer per week, no net impact on takings. Consulted 21 October 2026.
- Calculated figure: 29 litres divided by 0.568 litres per UK pint gives about 51 pints.
The best-documented finding is narrow and useful: in three pubs over nine months, adding alcohol-free beer, most visibly on tap, left total drinks revenue where it was, and the draught version drew its customers partly from soft drinks and not from alcohol. What the study does not supply is a number, a margin or a second sample.
zeroproof.one follows the category with the source and the date attached to each figure. The Journal holds the reference pages on draught beer, prices, labels and national markets.