BARS and pubs have not usually been the non-drinker’s friend. Knocking back pint after pint of juice or fizzy drink quickly gets boring. But beverage manufacturers are now showing more sympathy for their plight. Many companies regard non-alcoholic drinks as the “biggest opportunity in the market”, says Frank Lampen, who runs Distill Ventures, which helps small producers with investment and advice, and is backed by Diageo, a British drinks giant.

One of the fund’s recent investments, for example, is in Seedlip, a British firm that makes distilled, non-alcoholic “spirits” flavoured with botanicals, and which last year launched in America. Low-alcohol beer, once maligned for its paucity of flavour, is also in fashion. Technological advances mean alcohol can be filtered out of the beer without ruining its taste; other breweries use “lazy” yeast, which produces less alcohol to start with. Over the past couple of years, non-alcoholic craft breweries, such as Nirvana Brewery in London, or WellBeing Brewing Company in Missouri, have popped up; other craft brewers produce a non-alcoholic beer as part of their range.

Even large manufacturers are going on the wagon. ABInBev launched its alcohol-free “Budweiser Prohibition” in 2016, and Heineken followed suit last year with its “0.0” beer. ABInBev expects no- and low-alcohol beer (the latter defined as less than 3.5% alcohol by volume) to amount to a fifth of sales by 2025. As a rough comparison, figures from Euromonitor, a market-research firm, suggest that beer with less than 0.5% of alcohol by volume accounted for only 2% of global sales in 2016.

Nor is the opportunity limited to alcohol-free versions of boozier cousins. Copenhagen Sparkling Tea, for example, is smartly packaged in wine-like bottles, and sold in restaurants across northern Europe. Craft sodas are another new category, says Alex Beckett of Mintel, a market-research firm. These make much of their use of exotic, grown-up ingredients, such as chilli or even stinging nettles. Non-drinkers no longer need compromise on taste or adventure, says Catherine Salway, who runs the no-alcohol Redemption Bar in London, among whose offerings is a cocktail made from activated charcoal.

The buzz around alcohol-free drinks reflects the realisation both that the market has been relatively ignored, particularly at the premium end, and that it is expanding beyond pregnant women and drivers. Alcohol consumption, per person, has flattened or fallen across most large Western economies. Lunchtime drinking is out; “mindful drinking” is in. Cutting back is a popular tactic for the health-conscious and the sugar-wary.

Young people are drinking less frequently than their elders. Less than half of 16- to 24-year-olds surveyed in 2016 by Britain’s Office for National Statistics had had a drink in the previous week, compared with nearly two-thirds of 45- to 66-year-olds. And unlike the saturated markets for many alcoholic drinks such as gin and whisky, says Mr Lampen, there is still room for innovation. Non-drinkers’ cups may soon be running over.