How to Make Hop Water: An Abstrax Brand Guide for the Best Non Alcoholic Drinks

Quickly make and scale the best-tasting Hop Waters with Terpenes, Advanced Hop Products, and the Foundational Hop Water Recipe from Abstrax.

Beer taught the world to love hops, and hop water gives consumers that crisp hop experience without the hangover. It delivers real hop aroma and complexity without alcohol, bitterness, calories, or sugar. Put simply, hop water fits the moment. 

What might have seemed like a fringe beverage a decade ago is now normalized by large retailers stocking shelves with HOP WTR and DayPack Hop Infused Sparkling Waters from Athletic Brewing Co.¹ They slot into the same everyday occasions as sparkling water but still read as a suitable adult beverage option.

For brewers, adding hop water to your menu is a cheap, easy way to launch your brand into the future while staying true to yourself.

Making hop water is already less effort compared to beer, and now Terpenes and Advanced Hop Products can mitigate bitterness and flavor defects that may have snagged scaling efforts in the past.

Brewers that keep core beers as their anchor and build a non alcoholic lane that feels purposeful rather than apologetic can appeal to a rapidly growing segment of customers with a significantly lower lift than may be required for other beverages.

Ready to get started? Read on for a practical guide, flavor framework, and our brewery-ready recipe sourced from proven practice. 

Why Hop Water is the “It” Drink in the Growing NA Beverage Category

Hop waters meet the needs, interests, and preferences of a growing number of consumers, and the numbers don’t lie.

NIQ showed that U.S. hop water spend more than doubled from about $2.3 million in 2020 to $5.5 million in 2022.² January of 2024 saw roughly 48% higher sales than the same time the previous year,³ and Growth Market Reports predict hop water’s value will exceed $160 million by 2033.⁴

What’s fueling the growth of hop water? One of the biggest contributors is a decrease in alcohol consumption. In Gallup’s 2025 assessment, only 54% of U.S. adults say they drink alcohol at all; the lowest in nearly 90 years. Among 18–34 year-olds it’s about 50%, down from 59% just two years ago.⁵

While there is variation between age groups, a majority of consumers now hold the position that even “moderate” drinking is an unhealthy behavior. However, that doesn’t mean consumers are sprinting full-speed back to high-sugar soda. 

Older drinkers default to tradition and simplicity; younger drinkers default to exploration and added benefits. Everyone is cost conscious and flavor quality is the primary driver across generations after cost. Hop waters just happen to tick all of those boxes.

The best part is that this is far from a nail in the coffin for craft breweries. Hop waters are a beer-adjacent product that can use existing cold-side capabilities without tying up fermenters. That means beer doesn’t have to disappear! Beer can ride the wave while brewers introduce companion beverages rooted in the same tradition of craft brewing. 

With hop water, everybody wins.

What Do People Want in a Hop Water?

To answer that question, let’s take a look at the sparkling water market. In the U.S., bottled water is the largest packaged beverage by volume. Within that market, flavored sparkling water makes up a significant portion of those sales, and it’s forecasted to continue growing through 2032.⁶

Flavored sparkling water provides robust flavor without sweeteners while maintaining bubbles as a refreshing daily staple. It has a crisp base, zero alcohol, and a clean label that functions as a blank canvas for flavor.

Consumers reach for sparkling waters that provide flavor, familiarity, or a mix of both.  This expectation can also be met by hop waters that provide those same features with hop-forward flavor stories.

As we mentioned earlier, flavor quality is the primary driver across generations after cost. You can see it in traditional beer, NA beverages, and now hop waters. Unique, well-built flavor is a top ranking reason people try something new across age groups; the difference is how much the story around that flavor (benefits, identity, novelty) matters by generation.

For Gen X and Baby Boomers who favor familiar brands and straightforward functional claims, hop waters from well-known breweries can instill confidence. Millennials and Gen Z chase new flavors and say yes to functional claims when the value is right. They’re curious, willing to explore innovation, and they want a product to feel like “them.” 

Everyone wants familiar flavors without the bitterness or heaviness of beer, and they still want an “adult” beverage option. This is where hops step into the spotlight. 

The Natural Versatility of Hops

Hops naturally speak the same flavor language that sparkling water has trained people to crave, but with a “grown up” flavor that doesn’t hide behind alcohol. Plus, its biochemical versatility allows for seamless flavor pairings. The key hop volatiles that read as citrus, floral, tropical, herbal, and pine are many of the same compound families found in fruits and herbs. 

Monoterpene alcohols like linalool and geraniol show up in both hops and botanicals, and they’re potent flavor drivers at very low thresholds. Tropical thiols show up in both hops and tropical fruits like Mango and Passionfruit.

Since hop aroma exists in the same biochemical flavor lanes as both fruit and herbs, you can use this molecular scaffolding to naturally pair familiar hop flavors with herbals or expand into next-gen citrus like Blood Orange or Key Lime. Offer it at a fair price, and you’re ready for takeoff.

Also, let’s not forget that hop water is bursting with opportunities for signature flavors, hop pairings, and occasion based marketing. A focused seasonal or local collab each quarter means brewers will always have something new without ballooning their SKUs. Get the mix right and you’ll meet the moment with hop waters customers love.

Top 2 Hop Water Pitfalls to Avoid

Yes, hop water is bafflingly easy to create and its popularity is booming. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t formulation and flavor pitfalls to watch out for. Striking the right balance of intentional flavor notes while mitigating defects comes down to ideation and formulation. Two of the most common issues to consider include:

1. Bitterness: Using hops or T90s alone can drag in bitterness that’s hard to control in a zero-alcohol base. This lowers palatability and many of the first-to-market offerings have struggled to finetune their bitterness. An intentional hop water recipe harnesses bitterness as a factor rather than a variable.

2. Flavor Defects: Biomass can introduce off-notes caused by downstream sulfur compounds. This results in a boiled or dehydrated vegetal flavor defect that can be quite unpleasant. In beer, this is easier to manage with fermentation and malt. In a hop water, off-notes are much louder. 

At Abstrax, we offer solutions for both. For bitterness, a mixed system of whole hops or pellets, advanced hop products, and terpenes allows you to specify and deliver precise flavor targets. 

Our Quantum Series extracts and Omni Series terpenes allow you to chase richness, depth, and complexity without reintroducing unwanted bitterness or flavor defects. Additionally, the proprietary extraction technique behind our Quantum Series has decoupled bittering agents and sulfur defects from aroma compounds. That means you now have the ability to fine tune your flavor with precision and none of the unpleasant off-notes from years past.

Want to know how Abstrax’s proprietary extraction technique gives brewers superior control over top notes for cleaner, more hop-forward flavors? Read all about it in Defeating DMTS: How Quantum Extracts Prevent Flavor Defects.

How to Make Hop Water

We recommend starting with a single, documented base recipe. This will allow teams of all sizes to move quickly without losing control. Bench trials will be easily comparable to save time and product. 

This core recipe also reduces variables. Hop water lives on the cold side, so your controls are simple: water, oxygen, pH, dosing, mixing, carbonation, package. 

A foundational base recipe also speeds up scaling significantly. Keep that base constant, layer in flavors, and breweries can quickly go from bench dosing to tank dosing, discover what sells, and grow without overextending the brewhouse. Plus, with our Foundational Hop Water Recipe, you can jump right in!

Hop Water Flavor & Portfolio Playbook

Want data-backed hop water flavor formulas to help you get started? No problem. We’ve got tried-and-true flavor categories, the hops you’ll want to reach for, pairing options, and nuance notes so you can make it taste like YOUR brand.

1. Hop-Forward

This category is your “house” profile in a non alcoholic format. Keep it crisp, dry, and keep intensity low so it pours like an everyday option. The carbonation should carry the aroma without turning sharp, and it should have a name that’s clear and fits your flavor story.

• Hops: Citra, Centennial, Cascade
• Pairing Possibilities: A light lemon or stonefruit accent from Skyfarm to enhance the natural complexity of hops without overshadowing it.

2. Citrus-Forward

Let the fruit lead, but use hops for peel and pith. Recheck pH before you scale since too low tastes sour and too high mutes brightness! Keep the finish bone-dry so it lives next to premium sparkling water. 

• Hops: Amarillo, Motueka, Centennial
• Pairing Possibilities: Grapefruit, Blood Orange, or Lemon/Lime Skyfarm pair beautifully with almost any Omni profile.

3. Tropical-Pop

NA is the perfect format to let tropical notes shine, so consider a slightly firmer bubble to keep tropical aromas lively without reading too sweet. If coconut peeks in from a hop like Sabro, keep it tiny so it stays fresh rather than creamy.

• Hops: Mosaic, Galaxy, Krush
• Pairing Possibilities: Pineapple and/or Mango Skyfarm over a dry, snappy finish. Pair tropical hops with Pineapple Express BrewGas for added depth.

4. Orchard Dry

This is a food-friendly, wine-adjacent lane that bridges lager drinkers and cider heads. It can work as a seasonal option or a single SKU staple to attract fans of ciders and perries. Maintain medium carbonation to keep it elegant.

• Hops: El Dorado, Nelson Sauvin, Motueka
• Pairing Possibilities: While they’re not yet publicly available from Skyfarm, we recommend Pear, Green Apple, and White Grape. Work with us to dial in any flavors not publicly available OR for custom flavors!

5. Herbal Spritz

Give your staff one clean line of this culinary category to present to sophisticated customers. It should integrate micro-dosed herbs and botanicals with pine-leaning hop notes to taste elegant and not perfumy.

• Hops: Simcoe, Chinook, CTZ, Comet
• Pairing Possibilities: Lemon Peel and Rosemary, Bay, or Juniper.

Now, it’s time to get started! Launch two SKUs (one core hop-forward and another citrus-forward) and add one rotating lane for seasonal experimentation or account needs.  Give ‘em a name that reads fast on the shelf AND the tap like “Citra Lime” or “Nelson Orchard,” but don’t be afraid to simply call it HOP WATER either.

Ready to get started? Looking for a Glossary, Workflow Checklist, or even a Quick Reference Build Matrix? Get all of that and MORE in our white paper “How to Make Hop Water: An Abstrax Brand Guide for the Best Non Alcoholic Drinks.”

The Abstrax Difference | Make Your Next Breakthrough Beverage a Reality

Our advanced hop products separate aroma from bittering acids, so you can dose on the cold side, hit a number, and hit it again. Inputs are built for easy experimentation and clean labels, which means fewer variables to babysit and fewer surprises in the package.

Get range without chaos. Citrus, tropical, orchard, pine, herbal. We’ve got deep libraries built from hop volatiles and terpenes that jive nicely in sparkling water.

Skyfarm adds fruit lift without burying your hops. BrewGas brings a bolder, cannabis-adjacent character that’s still light and refreshing. Beer taught the world to love hops. Now put that love in a format built for how people drink today.

Contact us and we’ll help turn your hop water dreams into reality.

1. Daypack: Hop infused sparkling water: Athletic Brewing Co.. Athletic Brewing Company. (2025). https://athleticbrewing.com/collections/daypack

2. Richter, D. (2022, October 19). Hop water: A new non-alcoholic beverage trend. NIQ. https://nielseniq.com/global/en/insights/education/2022/hop-water-a-new-non-alcoholic-beverage-trend/ 

3. Infante, D. (2025, January 27). Hop water is poised for a breakout year. VinePair. https://vinepair.com/articles/hop-take-future-of-hop-water/  

4. More, A. B. (2025). Hop water market research report 2033. Growth Market Reports. https://growthmarketreports.com/report/hop-water-market

5. Saad, L. (2025, August 13). U.S. Drinking Rate at New Low as Alcohol Concerns Surge. Gallup.com. https://news.gallup.com/poll/693362/drinking-rate-new-low-alcohol-concerns-surge.aspx

6. Sparkling Water Market Size & Share | Industry Report, 2030. Market Research Biz. (2023, May). https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/sparkling-water-market