Last Updated on September 14, 2026
Just over 40 sites on draught, 1 January 2020
More than 1,000 UK venues on tap by January 2026
100,000 free beers through 31 pub operators
£21.7m revenue, 18 months to 29 June 2025
The move
On 1 January 2020, Lucky Saint put its alcohol-free lager on draught in just over 40 pubs and bars. The Duke of Sussex on the Southbank. The Rake. Market Halls. Mostly London, mostly small, all of them named in the trade press at the time.
The obvious route for a new alcohol-free beer was the supermarket. Bottles, the fridge, a shelf in the low and no section somewhere near the cordial. Lucky Saint went for the bar instead, and specifically for the tap, which is the most contested and most expensive bit of real estate in British drinking.
Draught is not a packaging decision. It changes what the customer is doing. A bottle of alcohol-free beer passed over the bar is visibly a different thing from what everyone else is holding. A pint pulled from a tap into a branded glass is not. The order takes the same time. It goes in the same round. Nobody has to explain themselves at the table.
Six years on, Lucky Saint is on tap in more than 1,000 UK venues. In January 2026 it gave away 100,000 beers through 31 pub operators, including Mitchells and Butlers, Greene King, Fuller’s and Young’s, with the offer running to 15 February. It donated £10,000 to the Licensed Trade Charity alongside it.
The money is not tidy. The first full accounts filed at Companies House show £21.7m of revenue for the 18 months to 29 June 2025, and cumulative losses past £20m.
Why it worked
Nobody wants a soft drink. Everybody wants a round.
Most alcohol-free marketing argues with the customer. It lists the health benefits, the calories, the clear head on Saturday morning. All true, and all beside the point, because the reason people drink in a pub is rarely the alcohol. It is the being there.
Lucky Saint worked on the awkwardness instead of the argument. The barrier to ordering an alcohol-free beer in a pub was never taste or price. It was the fifteen seconds at the bar where you have to say it out loud, and the rest of the evening holding something that looks like a decision. A tap and a branded glass remove both. The product did not change. The moment of purchase did.
The pub route also fixed the credibility problem for free. Getting a handle means a licensee has given up a slot they could have sold to a lager with a national media budget. That is a harder endorsement to buy than any campaign, and it is visible to every customer who walks in. Lucky Saint was later admitted to the British Beer and Pub Association, the first alcohol-free brewer in the association’s 119-year history.
The principle
Find the exact moment your customer has to justify choosing you, and redesign that moment so they do not have to. Most buying friction is not about price or quality. It is about how the choice looks and feels in front of other people, or in front of themselves. You usually cannot argue a customer out of that feeling, but you can often design it away by changing where the sale happens, what it is served in, or what it is called.
Steal this
None of this needs a brewery. It needs you to be honest about the fifteen seconds where your customer hesitates.
Write down the sentence the customer has to say. Every purchase has one. “Can I get a quote for the small job, not the full rewire.” “I only want a trim.” “I need someone to sort three years of receipts.” Write the real sentence, in their words, not yours. If it is embarrassing to say, that embarrassment is costing you money.
Put your offer where the hesitation happens. Lucky Saint moved from the fridge to the tap. A plumber whose customers fear the call-out charge puts a fixed price on the van and on a website page, not in a quote sent after the visit. An accountant whose customers are ashamed of the shoebox of receipts runs a page called “behind on your books” rather than “bookkeeping services”.
Give the awkward option a name and a price, out loud. Name it on the menu, the price list, the booking form. A named option is a normal option. A salon with “dry cut, 20 minutes, £22” on the board has made the small booking respectable. An unnamed one is a favour the customer has to ask for.
Get one gatekeeper to stock you, then use it as proof. One pub handle beat any advert Lucky Saint could have bought at that stage. Your version is one letting agent who recommends you, one wholesaler who ranges you, one clinic that refers to you. Win one properly, then say so plainly on your website with their name on it and their permission in writing.
Time your push to a moment that already exists. Dry January was already in the calendar and already had an owner. Lucky Saint attached to it rather than inventing a season. Find the week your customers already think about your problem, which might be January, the new tax year, the first cold snap or the school holidays, and be visible in it.
Sources & further reading
- Lucky Saint launches on draught during Dry January · The British Guild of Beer Writers
- Lucky Saint urges Brits to stay social with 100k free pints this January · The Morning Advertiser
- Thou Shalt Go To The Pub, this Dry January challenge · Alcohol Change UK
- Lucky Saint stuck in the red despite soaring sales · The Grocer
- Lucky Saint brings non-alcoholic beer mainstream · British Brands Group
- Lucky Saint and the alcohol-free beer boom · Raconteur
The Whito verdict
Lucky Saint did not win an argument about alcohol. It bought its way, slowly and expensively, onto the one surface where the decision is actually made, and then made that decision look like everybody else’s. Forty taps became more than a thousand. The accounts show it has cost more than it has returned so far, which is worth saying plainly, because the lesson is about placement rather than profit.
Your job is not to persuade people that your service is sensible. It is to find the fifteen seconds where choosing you feels awkward, cheap or embarrassing, and to remove the awkwardness by changing where and how the choice is offered. Most businesses spend their marketing budget arguing. The money is usually in the moment before the argument starts.
Start Stage
Where does choosing you feel awkward?
Check your site free and find out whether your offer is easy to say yes to.
Frequently asked questions
Why did Lucky Saint go on draught instead of into supermarkets?
Draught changes the social experience of ordering, not just the packaging. A pint pulled from a tap into a branded glass looks the same as everyone else’s drink, so the customer does not have to explain their choice. Lucky Saint launched on draught on 1 January 2020 in just over 40 sites and is now on tap in more than 1,000 UK venues.
Is Lucky Saint profitable?
Not yet on the published numbers. The first full set of accounts filed at Companies House covers the 18 months to 29 June 2025 and shows £21.7m of revenue with cumulative losses past £20m, as reported by The Grocer. Sales growth and profit are not the same thing, and this is a case study about distribution rather than margin.
How can a small business copy this without a drinks budget?
By changing where the sale happens rather than what you say about it. Name the awkward option on your price list, put your fixed prices where the hesitation occurs instead of in a quote sent afterwards, and win one credible stockist or referrer you can point to by name. The giveaway is not the transferable part. The tap is.
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