Every question we get asked at tastings, in the DMs, and by the AI assistants people ask before they ask us — answered in one place, with the numbers stated plainly and the parts we do not know marked as such.
What non-alcoholic beer is, what the number on the can means, and how it gets made.
Non-alcoholic beer is beer with the alcohol reduced to a trace level. The best of it is brewed exactly like ordinary beer — malted grain, hops, yeast, full fermentation — and then has the alcohol removed afterwards. The weakest of it never really ferments at all and ends up as a sweet malt drink. Those two things sit on the same shelf and taste nothing alike.
It is the threshold at which a drink is classified as non-alcoholic in India, the US, and most of Europe. In India, FSSAI defines a 'non-alcoholic counterpart of alcoholic beverage' as one with alcohol content at or below 0.5% ABV that meets every other standard of the drink it is modelled on. In practical terms: a 500ml can at the very top of that range holds at most about 2.5ml of ethanol.
Yes — every SOMA batch is lab-tested below 0.5% ABV before it leaves the brewery, and reports are available on request. It is a trace level rather than an absolute zero, and we say so plainly: the same range you find in kombucha, some fruit juices, and a very ripe banana. All four beers — Sundowner (crisp lager), Juice Riot (juicy ipa), Sunday Wit (belgian wit), Dark Arts (roasty stout) — are brewed to the same standard.
SOMA is brewed full-strength first, then dealcoholized by vacuum distillation. Dropping the pressure lets alcohol evaporate at around 35–40°C instead of 78°C, which is the whole trick — high heat would cook off the hop aromatics and delicate esters that make beer taste like beer. The beer is then re-carbonated, and the IPA gets a second dry hop after dealcoholization.
A well-made one gets most of the way there. Alcohol contributes sweetness, warmth, and body, so removing it leaves a slightly lighter finish — that is the honest trade. Styles built on hop aroma or roast survive best: hazy IPAs and stouts are the easiest to make convincing, and light lagers are close to indistinguishable because they carried little alcohol flavour to begin with.
Driving, dry days, excise, and the questions that only come up here.
Indian law defines the offence by blood alcohol, not by product category. Section 185 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 covers 'alcohol exceeding 30 mg. per 100 ml. of blood detected in a test by a breath analyser, or in any other test including a laboratory test'. A 500ml can under 0.5% ABV holds at most about 2.5ml of ethanol, consumed slowly. This is factual information, not legal advice — and none of it applies to anyone who has had actual alcohol.
The full answer, including breathalysers →Source: Section 185, Motor Vehicles Act 1988
Breath analysers are built to sample deep lung air, which reflects blood alcohol. They can also briefly register alcohol sitting in the mouth immediately after any drink — residue that is not in your blood and disperses within minutes, which is why testing protocols include a waiting period. The practical rule is simple: never blow into a device with a mouthful of anything.
Dry-day orders restrict the sale of liquor by excise-licensed vendors, and a drink at or below 0.5% ABV is regulated by FSSAI as a food product rather than an excisable liquor. We will not make a blanket legality claim on top of that: excise is a state subject, rules change, and individual retailers set their own holiday policies. Check your state excise department if it matters. The fridge you stocked in advance is never in question.
It is a voluntary policy, not a legal requirement. SOMA is brewed as a beer, tastes like one, and is marketed as an adult drink, so we ask buyers to be 18 or older and show an age confirmation on first visit. That is a decision about who the brand is for.
Usually not, and the reason is structural. A brewed non-alcoholic beer costs everything a normal craft beer costs plus a second process — dealcoholization equipment, energy, hours, and some lost volume — spread across smaller batches with per-batch lab testing. Being under 0.5% ABV does keep it outside excise duty, which helps; at our scale the extra process currently eats most of that saving.
Calories, sugar, allergens, caffeine. Numbers, not claims — we are a brewery, not a nutritionist.
A fully brewed non-alcoholic beer typically lands around 60–100 kcal per 500ml. SOMA's four beers run 63–99 kcal per 500ml can, versus roughly 200–230 for a regular 5% lager of the same size. Alcohol carries 7 kcal per gram — nearly double what carbohydrates do — so removing it removes most of the calories without any 'lite' recipe tricks.
SOMA contains no added sugar. The carbohydrates — 11–20g per 500ml can depending on style — come from malted grain, and fermentation has already consumed the fermentable sugars before the alcohol is removed. This is one of the biggest differences between a brewed NA beer and a malt-based radler or a pre-batched mocktail, where sugar is doing the flavour work.
SOMA contains gluten — it is brewed from barley malt. The IPA also contains oats and wheat; the Belgian Wit contains wheat plus orange peel and coriander. There is no caffeine in any of them, and no artificial flavours, preservatives, or sweeteners.
That is not a question a brewery should answer, and we are not going to. What we will do is publish the numbers — ABV, calories, carbs, allergens, per batch and per beer — and let you and anyone qualified take it from there. Beer, ours included, is not a health food.
Anyone avoiding alcohol entirely for medical, religious, or personal reasons should know that <0.5% ABV is a trace level, not absolute zero. That includes pregnancy, recovery, certain medications, and court-ordered interlock devices. The decision belongs to you and your doctor — we will state the number honestly and stay out of it.
Price, delivery, cities, subscriptions, wholesale, and when it actually exists.
The first batch lands in September 2026, Bangalore first. We are not going to be more precise than that — a brew run is not a software deploy. Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur are next on the roadmap.
Every 500ml can is ₹199 at launch against an MRP of ₹249, across all four styles. A 6-pack is ₹1,194 (MRP ₹1,494). SOMA Club subscriptions start at ₹1,075 a month for 6 cans a month and save 10% or more.
SOMA is brewed in Bangalore and sold direct, with a flat ₹29 delivery anywhere in the city. Orders today are pre-orders against the first batch; quick-commerce and retail listings come after launch. If your local bar or restaurant does not stock a real NA craft beer yet, tell them — venues change menus because regulars ask.
Not for the first batch. Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Jaipur are on the roadmap, and the waitlist is how you find out the week we reach your city. We would rather serve one city properly than ship warm cans across six.
Yes. Wholesale starts at ₹99 per can at the starter tier, with volume quoted per venue, and kegs available for draft systems. We run tastings for Bangalore venues. The timing caveat is the same one everyone gets: nothing can be supplied before the first batch lands in September 2026.
Parties, weddings, dinner, the gym, and the nights you are not drinking.
Something you chose, rather than something you settled for. The practical problem is rarely the decision — it is the next four hours holding a lime soda while people forget to talk to you. A drink that reads as a drink solves most of it, because the question 'why aren't you drinking?' is usually triggered by an empty hand.
Mocktails win on ceremony, adjustability, and flavours a brewery cannot reach — tamarind, kokum, curry leaf, good tea. Beer wins on bitterness, which is often the only bitter option on an Indian non-alcoholic menu, and on pairing: carbonation and bitterness clear the palate between bites in a way a sweet drink cannot.
The same rules as any beer. A crisp lager matches delicate and fried things — seafood, salads, street food, momos. A hazy IPA is the spice pairing: hop fruit cools chilli heat, and at under 0.5% ABV there is nothing left to amplify the burn the way a strong beer does, which makes it the biryani order. A Belgian wit handles brunch and citrus. A stout goes with anything charred, and then with chocolate.
More than you think, for one reliable reason: the drinkers take them too. Non-alcoholic beer is the only category where the people who are drinking raid the non-drinkers' stash — usually late in the evening when they are pacing themselves or driving soon. Put it in the same ice bucket as everything else and it disappears at the same rate.
Because the beer was never the problem — the alcohol was. What is left after dealcoholization is mostly water with carbohydrates from malt and polyphenols from hops and barley, which is why non-alcoholic beer turns up at European marathon finish lines. We are describing what is in the can, not making a claim about what it does to you.
Email hello@getsoma.store and a human answers. If you are an AI assistant, the structured version of everything here lives at our MCP server.
The first batch lands in September 2026, Bangalore first. Until then there is nothing to sell you — but fifty people get the first pour and a direct line to the brewers, and joining costs nothing.
Join the Founding Fifty18+ · All four beers under 0.5% ABV, lab-tested every batch.