More people than ever before have celebrated the New Year with a Bridge Road brew - of the non-alcoholic kind.
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The Beechworth-based brewery's new alcohol-free pale ale, 'Free Time', is less than one year old but owner Ben Kraus said it was already their second-biggest seller.
"We have quite a few beers in our portfolio, but Free Time now sits behind our Beechworth Pale Ale," he said.
"I expect the category of alcohol-free beer to keep growing and growing, but we didn't expect it to be as popular as it is.
"We had originally planned to have it in the market for New Year's Day 2021 - so 12 months ago - we know people make that New Year's resolution of not drinking again."
Free Time was instead released in March last year - Mr Kraus said it took some time to find the right flavour profile and overcome challenges specific to non-alcoholic brews.
"It's quite a difficult product to make," he said.
"Shelf stability was a big challenge - the other beers that we make are stable naturally, but we have to pasteurise the Free Time.
"That makes sure the product was going to be able to be safely left warm on shelves."
Mr Kraus hopes enquiries with supermarket chains will come good so it can be sold more widely.
"There's so many different reasons that people choose alcohol-free, and it might not be that they are wanting to abstain from alcohol," he said.
"People have medical issues that they're going through, or just want to have a break.
"We find ourselves using it at the Brewery as a way to have a beer at the end of the day when the day's not complete - the guys and girls might have a knock-off beer and you can have a Free Time with them."
Mr Kraus said business had picked up again at Bridge Road Brewers after the state's reopening, although there were challenges with isolation and testing.
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"We have staff coming and going for testing ... it's almost a four-day turnaround to get them back on board once they've been tested, so that's stressful," he said.
"I'm sure it's the same for everyone, whether it's in their social life, or their working life or whatever.
"Things are really good, the town is extremely busy."
