November 22, 2024 • 37 mins
In this episode, we meet with Mark Wong, the founder of the Impossibrew Alcohol Free Brewing Company, who you may recognize from his appearance on Dragon's Den. , after hearing he had a liver condition that meant he could no longer drink alcohol, this beer loving Durham University philosophy student was so unimpressed with the lack of buzz he got from the alcohol free beers on the market that he set out to create his own alcohol alternative.
With the help of a professor from the University's Bioscience Department, and inspired by a trip to Hong Kong, where he dove into the rich culture of Asian medicine, mark has found ingredients that he says give his alcohol free beers the buzz and relaxation we associate with what he amusingly calls the legacy beer category
Mark Wong
https://impossibrew.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/impossibrewbeer
Discount Code: AFFFINDERS (For £5 OFF your first order)
Our 30-day group programme:
https://www.cleanlifecoaching.org/aff-group
The podcast home page
https://podcast.alcoholfreedomfinders.com/
Justine Clark
https://justineclarktherapy.co.uk/
https://www.instagram.com/wellwithjustine/
Barry Condon
https://www.cleanlifecoaching.org/
https://www.instagram.com/clean.life.coaching/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-condon-577b85294/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
This is Alcohol Freedom Finders.
In this episode, we meet withMark Wong, the founder of the
Impossibrew Alcohol Free BrewingCompany, who you may recognize
from his appearance on Dragon'sDen.
after hearing he had a livercondition that meant he could no
longer drink alcohol, this beerloving Durham University
philosophy student was sounimpressed with the lack of
(00:22):
buzz he got from the alcoholfree beers on the market that he
set out to create his ownalcohol alternative.
With the help of a professorfrom the University's Bioscience
Department, and inspired by atrip to Hong Kong, where he dove
into the rich culture of Asianmedicine, mark has found
ingredients that he says givehis alcohol free beers the buzz
(00:42):
and relaxation we associate withwhat he amusingly calls the
legacy beer category.
Let's meet the man himself.
Justine Clark (00:51):
hello everyone and welcome to Alcohol Freedom
Finders.
Today I am genuinely the mostexcited I have been because I
have got my, the maker of myfavorite drink ever joining us
today.
We have Mark Wong fromImpossibrew.
Welcome Mark.
Barry Condon (01:08):
Hi Mark., it's great to have you here.
Justine has, literally been afan as long as I've known her.
So, yeah, I'm, and I stillhaven't had a chance to, to to
try, imposter brew.
I live in the Netherlands and soI haven't come across it as yet.
But we're, we're dying to, tohear more about your story and
how you How you came to come up,came up with the idea of, of
Mark Wong (01:31):
into that.
I think for, you know, for thosewho don't know, we make non
alcoholic beers that give you abuzz without the alcohol.
And the main thing that sets usapart is not only that it tastes
great, it looks great, but thething that we really want to try
and ace is The way that it makesyou feel.
And so for me, I think my, myjourney started fairly early.
(01:51):
I think it started when I was18.
I've loved alcohol, lovealcohol, love drinking, love
beer.
It was, it was just the mostfantastic thing in the world.
I wanted to, I did my winedegree when I was about 19.
I wanted to go into the industrythinking, you know, I can do
what I enjoy and drink when Ienjoy it at work.
I thought, what better life isthere?
(02:12):
And then when I got to about 22or so at university, that was
when I heard from the doctorsthat I couldn't drink anymore,
my liver was not doing, notdoing very well.
And it was not, not where it wassupposed to be at 22.
And they said I had to stop.
And so faced with that, and Iwas thinking, well, That's not
only my sort of vocationfication gone I don't really
(02:35):
know what to do and I realizehow much of my social life has
been around drinking.
I, I thought, for example whatam I going to do after, after my
classes at uni?
Well, I go to the pub and meetmy friends.
What am I going to do afterdinner?
Well, I head to the pub and seemy friends again.
And all of those options areessentially off the table the
moment that happened and you canonly have so many diet cokes
(02:56):
Right and I was admittedly nevera non alcoholic beer drinker.
I never saw the point of it Inever really understood it.
I always just like beer beer andthen I thought, well, let's,
let's give them a try.
You know, let's, let's see howit goes.
And it's fair to say that Ididn't, I didn't enjoy my
experience.
You know, a lot of them seems tobe box ticking exercises.
(03:18):
It seems to be something thatsay bar operator puts in just to
make sure the non drinkers arehaving fun, but it's not that
much fun.
And I'm most likely just stuckto, I'm mostly just stuck to
either Diet Coke, soda water, oranything that's like, say,
coffee.
diet tonic or stuff like that.
it was not until I met aprofessor at, at university is
(03:41):
Dr.
Paul Jasso.
And he was from the sort ofneuro, I can't remember exactly
what the department was, but hewas a bioscience professor at
the time.
And I did philosophy at Durhamuniversity, which has nothing to
do with what I'm doing now andnothing to do with what he was
doing.
But we bonded over This idea of,you know, can we use natural
ingredients?
Can we use things, say, forexample, like caffeine?
(04:03):
Caffeine gives us energy andit's derived from the, it's
derived from coffee beans andgreen tea and so on.
Can we use natural ingredientslike these to replicate that
same feeling?
Because that was the elephant inthe room.
The elephant in the room was,you know, yeah, sure, we are all
drinking non alcoholic beveragesas we're not drinking, but, you
know, why did we drink in thefirst place?
(04:23):
Was it flavor that got us there?
Not if it was surely animportant part, but definitely
not the most important part on.
So we sort of bonded over thisidea of can we make something on
fast forward a couple of years.
We had a few prototypes.
Got it going.
I brewed in my university dormroom.
That was really fun.
(04:44):
That sort of gave me a new senseof something to do on.
So I started brewing beer,started making these
ingredients, working with Dr.
Shazo and getting it there.
But at the beginning, it washorrific.
Like, especially these plants,you can imagine some very herby,
planty, muddy, rooty taste thatjust does not tie in with beer
(05:05):
whatsoever.
And it took us a long time toget it right.
But ultimately the goal was kindof simple.
It was just something I wantedto be able to enjoy.
With my friends that I don'tfeel like I'm missing out.
I feel like I can enjoy my time.
You can, again, you can onlyhave so many Diet Cokes.
I want to truly enjoy my time inan experience that's
uncompromising.
(05:26):
And then fast a couple of years,we grew over time winning a
university competition.
That was how we got our firstbout of, tiny bout of funding.
And I can talk more about itlater on because I squandered
all of it at the beginning.
And then, and then using that toroll on and essentially build
the business from scratch.
(05:46):
So today, to this day, everybodythat has supported us, including
investors and, and everybodywere our customers, everybody
who's on this journey startedthat journey with us as
customers, which is somethingthat we're, we're really proud
of.
And, and yeah, that's that'swhere we are now.
Justine Clark (06:02):
Well that that's an awesome story.
And I love the fact that you'vetransformed something into kind
of a negative thing.
Oh my gosh, I can't drinkanymore, I've got health issues.
Into something that's become notonly your you've transformed
your health, but you've, you'veset your career trajectory with
it as well.
And I resonate with thatcompletely because actually the
(06:23):
reason that I'm here and thereason I'm doing this podcast
and that I'm a freedom fromalcohol coach is because I got
to a point where I realized thatalcohol just wasn't serving me
anymore.
It was me.
It was running the show.
You know, it was going through acycle of, cravings and
withdrawal.
Even if I wasn't an alcoholic,it was certainly ruling my day
(06:45):
and my weekends and my midweekand the start of the week.
So now it's become also rulingmy start of the week, my midweek
and my weekends, but it's in,in, in another way, which is
helping other people become freefrom alcohol and trying great
drinks like yours.
This is actually the first timeI've tried the rhubarb.
I, I kept putting it off tryingit and today's the first day
(07:07):
I've tried it and it's reallydelicious.
I know that you do like aseasonal, a summer drink.
You always have something a bitfruity.
I think last year was a, therewas a pink grapefruit one that
was yummy, but both of the, boththe products that you had that,
you know, the standard products,both the IPA and the lager
really kind of support what I'mtrying to achieve, which is
(07:28):
feeling good naturally.
And this really ticks the box aswell.
Mark Wong (07:32):
The rubub, especially it's something that we're, we're
super proud of and we had it,you know, we have these limited
batches that we only sort ofmake them for fun, really.
I mean, it's, it's the economicsdon't really make sense because
it's such a small batch but wethoroughly enjoy it.
We made a triple hot IPA earlierin the year.
We had a vanilla stouts lastyear, and as well as a sort of
Justine Clark (07:53):
I tried that.
Mark Wong (07:55):
nice.
And we also had a.
Yeah, for the list I had thedark red ale as well, but these
are just purely fun projectsthat we really like having fun
with.
And yeah, I'm glad you like thisone.
This is a really popular one aswell.
This one's been, this one's beenreally good.
Barry Condon (08:11):
Wow.
I mean, I could really get intothe weeds of, of how you
actually do this, but I'm just,that first question that came to
mind was, was in the dorm thatfirst time, you know, creating
it.
And, and how are you able tomake it non alcoholic then at at
the end of the process?
Cause I imagine there's sort offermenting going on.
Mark Wong (08:31):
It's a really good question.
So.
There are a couple of ways tomake non alcoholic products the
first one is the easiest one.
The first one is when you have afully alcoholic product and you
remove the alcohol from it.
So you can either use heat whichis pretty much the most common
way, or you dilute it.
Or you use reverse osmosis totake the alcohol out.
So all three of these waysinvolve the removal of alcohol.
(08:55):
While it's good, it's cheaper todo, and it's simple the problem
typically is that when youremove alcohol, a lot of the
flavor, the sort of esso flavorprofiles are stuck with the
alcohol compounds, stuck withthe ethanol compounds, and they
get released with it in the sametime.
So you almost by removing thething that Makes a special,
which is, which is alcohol.
(09:16):
You also remove a lot of theflavonoids and all the rest of
the parts that make italcoholic, but make it taste
like a beer.
And so, well, the good thing isa lot of companies use it
because it's, it's anoperationally efficient
approach, right?
You can turn a, imagine you turna 5 percent beer you can remove
the alcohol from it and thenwater it down with a malt water.
(09:36):
So either like water or anyunfermented malt water, and you
can.
Essentially dilute that up tothree times and one beer turns
into three beers without alcoholtax.
It seems like a massive steal,but the problem is The quality
isn't very good.
So we found a different way todo it, which was which is
something that we're very, veryproud about and happy with is
(09:57):
the idea that, you know, what ifyou don't remove alcohol at all?
You know, what would that mean?
That would mean that you wouldbrew a beer, one in one out,
same with a craft beer.
brewery wood, brewery wood.
You would go in, brew the beer,and just as it gets to the point
of 0.
5, just the right amount offermentation, you crash it with
(10:18):
a very cold temperature, andessentially you put the yeast to
bed.
You put them to sleep and theydon't consume any more sugars.
They don't ferment any further.
They don't increase the alcoholpercentage, but the result you'd
get is you do not lose any ofthe flavonoid compounds.
You keep everything right wherethey are and the yeasts are just
peacefully sleeping in coldtemperatures.
(10:40):
And that's the way that we foundto do it.
Of course, it's more costly torun because you're not
multiplying it by three times.
You're not diluting it down onein one out, which will be the
similar base of what a typicalcraft beer would be.
But.
That in a way, the reason why wepicked that route was because I
wanted one that I could drinkevery day.
And still to this day, since thevery beginning, once we had a
(11:01):
doc, once we had a drinkableproducts, of course, before that
point, it was not possible.
But at the moment we had adrinkable products, I still, to
this day, drink impossible isevery single day.
And I've not broken that chainand it's, it's something that,
you know, I can, I can enjoy,which is why we, we went for
this route and it's been reallyrewarding so far because I think
a lot of people are beginning torecognize the sort of quality
differences in there.
Justine Clark (11:23):
Brilliant.
And I, I think that, you know,you really can taste the
difference.
And it really does taste like acraft beer.
I will definitely say that.
I'm curious to know, becausethose of us in the alcohol free
space also want to socialiseand, and still feel, as you say,
feel that we're included in partof something.
And you've chosen to includesome special ingredients that,
you know, help elevate mood and,and lift the mood.
(11:46):
How did you come to choosing theones that you've chosen and how
effective do you think they are?
Mark Wong (11:51):
It's a really good question because we face a
challenge compared to most othercategories.
So, The categories we know say,these are called categories
called nootropics, but they'revery, it's a very loose term.
The most commonly consumednootropic is caffeine.
So we understand how caffeinefeels like when we're tired, we
have coffee, then we feel moreenergy, our heart rate goes up,
(12:12):
so on and so forth.
Like it's, it's easy tounderstand how that feels.
But whereas what happens whenyou flip it to the opposite
side, what happens with sort ofsedation and relaxation?
It's a much harder thing to feelwhen it doesn't impact your
motor functions,
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program, and you won't regretit.
Because no one ever woke up inthe morning and said, I wish I'd
had more to drink last night,did they?
Back to the episode.
because one of the key things we wanted to do was
to make sure you could stilldrive.
And by impacting your motorfunctions is typically how most
people would recognize thefeeling of relaxation is you
feel that you, you speak slower.
(13:20):
Your, your speech is a bit moreslurred, you move a bit slower.
That's typically how peoplerecognize the feeling of
relaxation.
And so we face that challengethere of how do we.
And there are a couple of routesto go about it.
The first one would be getting anovel ingredient, but the
problem is the regulatoryhurdles are too strong.
We typically can't get enoughtesting and not enough funding
(13:41):
to get that going.
So how do we do the second routeis we will have to leverage
something of nature.
There are a lot of ingredientsthat by name, they don't, they
don't really mean anything likealtheanine, ashwagandha, you
know, most consumers, itdoesn't, it doesn't mean
anything.
And first of all, how do youcommunicate that some of them
work?
And second of all, once you findthe literature of how it
(14:04):
actually works, and once we'vetested it throughout with with
the professors and some of the,with the help of Durham
University at the time as well,once we've tested it out, how do
we make sure that, You know, itdelivers the effects that are
promised because it's not assimple as just having caffeine
in there straight away.
And so the easiest way todescribe how it works is, you
(14:25):
know, how you have coffee andgreen tea.
And when you have both of them,they have a fairly similar
caffeine content, but yet youfeel sort of more Calm and
chilled green tea than it iswith coffee.
And even though they have thesame caffeine content, you
wonder why is that?
And there are some ingredientsin there in green tea that bring
down the energy aspect, theybring, they bring you sort of
(14:49):
into a more relaxed state and soon.
So it balances out some of thecaffeine.
So imagine when you would beable to do taking that out and
multiply its potency by 10, 20times.
Then that's where you would getthat sort of relaxing feeling
within the remits of what youcan get through the natural
world.
And we didn't come up with thisidea.
I mean, it was from when I wentback home to Hong Kong, I, I
(15:13):
never really understood sort ofAsian medicine.
I didn't really get it.
I was never a sort of quoteunquote believer in it, but I
would see that people wouldswear by the efficacies of them.
And, and I didn't understand howthat works.
And it turns out when I spoke todifferent, you know, people,
Experts in the area about it.
It's that they're essentiallyusing very concentrated plant
extracts.
(15:34):
And of course, once you reach acertain concentration with
different concoctions andrecipes that have been passed
down in the past, then you willget something that works.
And so can we reverse engineerthis process and have this in
beer instead as a means ofreplacing alcohol?
And that's where that journeytakes us.
sort of began.
And yes, we have a we have anumber of ingredients in that.
(15:57):
Individually, you look at thelabel.
It doesn't make sense that itgives you that relaxation.
But for us, efficacy is the mostimportant.
Some people would go foringredients that say it works.
So say, for example, we decidednot to use CBD simply from the
reasons that The clinicalliterature doesn't support
relaxation for us, although itis a derivative of the hemp
plant, that it is known andassociated mentally in the
(16:19):
consumer's mind with relaxationbecause marijuana is relaxing in
that way.
We didn't feel that it works.
The clinical studies didn'tsupport it for us, so we didn't
include it, even though it wouldhave been so much easier from a
marketing CBD relaxes We choseto go for a more obscure route
instead.
(16:39):
But focusing on efficacy beingthe true North Star, because
ultimately, it's what we alsoenjoy in the office too.
Barry Condon (16:46):
I love that.
The, that whole scientificbackground and particularly then
to, to, to delve into the yeah,that amazingly rich sort of
deep, deep, deep.
Chinese medicine history as wellis, is, is brilliant.
I know that for myself that canoften be the one thing that I
miss.
I go, I, I've talked to Justinea lot about once a year I go
(17:08):
away with the boys playing golfand they drink all day.
And, and somehow it, there'ssort of energy giving, even
though they're sort of gettingslowly sozzled, they're, they're
also, they can keep goingremarkably long with, because
there's sort of some, some sortof energy.
They're either getting it fromthe, from the sugar or, or
there's some sort of chemicalthing going on.
And that, and if I was to missanything about alcohol, that
(17:31):
would be the only thing that yousort of think, Oh, it does give
you, give you the ability to golonger.
And, and just, just, you know,you can, you can go on into the
night.
And I, I find myself doing a fewshots of expresso before, before
dinner and after dinner, just tosort of stay awake with the
lads.
And so I'm, I'll be really, I'mreally interested to hear or to,
to, to find out whether havingthis sort of nootropic in, in a,
(17:53):
in a beer, whether that will bethe thing that I'm missing.
Mark Wong (17:57):
I think I could, I could add to that as well, if
you're not, know, we could godeeper into the scientific parts
of it, because I think for someof the parts that you're
mentioning, you, you areabsolutely right in pointing out
that alcohol is not exactly asedative and it's not exactly a
stimulant either.
It's a very, it's a very oddstate in between the two.
And it kind of depends on howthe person reacts.
And so, which is why some of theingredients we've selected, the
(18:17):
official term or the officialclinical efficacy for them is
called sort of.
alert relaxation because itstimulates alpha brain waves in
the brain by going through theblood bearing barrier.
This state of alert relaxationis this balance of, you know,
being focused as well as in thesame time you're still relaxed.
So it highlight, it's, it's theclosest thing we could find that
(18:40):
follows this somewhatparadoxical nature of alcohol.
Where there is this bit ofenergy as well as this bit of
sedation.
And the reason why we selectedthat relaxation without that
kind of drowsiness is becauseyou can also still function
responses wise.
You can still function.
And that to us is a reallyimportant point.
(19:01):
And, and ultimately you've gotto taste it to see, see what
it's like.
We'd recommend having an emptystomach when you have it and
have a full count yourself tosee the sort of full effects,
but, but yes, it's for usanyway, we've had.
Lots of great experiences withit.
We, we drink sometimes, youknow, it's, it's kind of silly
at this point.
And we sort of have it in the,like, after breakfast, we come
into work.
Sometimes we just go, it's a fewmore emails than we expected.
(19:24):
We crack open a beer and enjoyit.
And in ways where we couldn't doit without alcohol, so without
alcohol and yeah, it's it's beena great experience for us.
Justine Clark (19:32):
Well, I can definitely confirm that after
how much have I had, I've hadhalf a can and it definitely
mimics like no other alcoholfree product, that sort of
feeling in the stomach that youget when you've had alcohol,
that kind of, you know, alcoholhas a sort of a, I guess it's a
burn or something that you canreally feel it that's hit your
(19:53):
stomach.
I would say in a different waybut in a you could definitely
feel that you've had the socialblend of the nootropics has hit
your stomach with this.
So it does mimic the feeling,that Friday night feeling or the
relaxing feeling that you'relooking for in terms of I need
to change, I need something tohelp me change my state here.
And it definitely does that.
(20:15):
So just moving slightly fromthat kind of amazing product
that it is, Mark, I'm justcurious to know what, how you
feel about being someone that'sa mover and a shaker in an
alcohol free space.
Mark Wong (20:30):
Yeah, I think it's definitely a humbling
experience.
When I, when I started back,back in the beginning, I'd say
that was 2020.
Alcohol free wasn't that big atthe time, and the market was
never something I looked into.
It was simply from a personalneed.
So regardless of where themarket was going, I was, this
(20:52):
was going to happen, at leastfor me anyway.
At worst cases, you know, I'vejust made a homebrew that I
enjoy.
But I think over time, it's,it's been really lucky that the
market has been really receptiveand this space has been growing
faster than I could ever, than Icould ever imagine, you know,
the number of people notdrinking is now at an all time
high.
I mean, we're looking at sort ofGen Z's and millennials closer
(21:14):
to a third now don't drinkalcohol, which is something that
is, which is absolutely blowingmy mind.
And this also echoed myexperience when I first went to
university as well, because I'vealways been told by all my
seniors that.
You know, university was allabout, you know, everybody would
go out and drink.
And, and although that still,still did happen, the ratio was
(21:34):
a lot more, well, was veryunexpected for me.
I had friends that would justcompletely not drink whatsoever.
And that would be about, it'sabout 20, 20 to 25%.
And that was something Iabsolutely did not expect.
And I think.
With people's habits changing soquickly and it's, this has
(21:54):
fortunately led us to a positionwhere we've started early into a
market that's rapidly growing.
And, and yeah, it's definitely ahumbling experience, especially
in the face of some of thebigger players as well.
We've got, you know, Diageo, ABInBev, Budweiser, every, every
big sort of beverage corporationunder the sun has gone into the
space.
And, and yes, it's it's great tobe, you know, to be amongst.
(22:18):
All the other brands that are,that are trying to move towards
this healthier drinkinglifestyle.
Barry Condon (22:23):
And and how how a big alcohol playing it, are
they, are they playing fair?
Mark Wong (22:27):
I'd say, I'd say they're very, you know, they
understand where the trends aregoing and they bank that.
Essentially, they've always hadtheir success in the legacy
category.
Every bit, every part of theirbeverage is essentially powered
by one technology and seeing itthat way.
(22:47):
And that is alcohol.
And, and this is the fundamentalgrowth driver for them as, as
companies and, and they, most ofthem only do alcoholic products.
And this is.
In some ways, quite anexistential threat for them
because imagine your coretechnology is no longer being
adopted from, you know, beingone of the most in culturally
ingrained sort of technologiesof the world, whether that's
(23:09):
going out of fashion and peopleare no longer having it, it's,
it's quite a big shift that'srequired of their, of their
business models.
And, and they are, they arequicker to adapt than previous
trends.
Say from beer going to craftbeer, they were a little bit
slower, but in terms of going toalcohol free, they've been.
They've been fast, but because Ithink they know that this is,
this is something that they'llhave to do and And yes, they're,
(23:32):
they're definitely, they'recertainly trying.
And in, especially in areaswhere smaller brands are much
more difficult to compete.
So say for example, insupermarkets where they would
have much more preferentialnegotiation terms and listings
and same within bars and pubsand so on.
So, and of course the brand nameis already very well known.
People are already associatingthose beverages with their
(23:53):
existing brand and Using thatoff launching off the back of
them.
So I think it's a, it's a clevermove and I think they are also
moving with the times, butwhether they are keeping up with
some of the innovations, thenthat, that remains to be seen.
Justine Clark (24:07):
And that's certainly not in the nootropic
space like yourself, Mark.
So, you know, you've setyourself aside from the
beginning, which is awesome.
And I just wanted to touch onfor our viewers who, by and
large, are either alcohol freeor heading that way.
What's it been like foryourself?
Not, in the beginning it wassomething you had to do.
How do you feel now as someonewho doesn't drink?
Mark Wong (24:29):
Yeah, it's, it's definitely, it's certainly
changed over time compared tothe beginning.
So the beginning was purely outof, out of, you know, lack of
choice That I had to do it.
But then now, you know,sometimes we still benchmark
alcoholic products because ourgoal is to make it make our
beers as close to alcohol aspossible, and that would mean
that we we need to be aware ofhow or at least be reminded of
(24:52):
how sort of alcohol tasted liketo be as close as we can.
But I see it now less of a Idon't have to.
drink anymore.
I don't feel like I have to whenI go out.
I can happily have an impossibleor any or some other non
alcoholic beers that I can justknow that, you know, it's, yeah,
that's, that's fine.
But it's such a hard habit, likea cultural habit to change.
(25:16):
And, and I think the mindsetchange is, is the biggest part
of that.
Legwork, you know, productscertainly help, especially good
products.
Products certainly help.
But I think at the end of theday really is, is the shift in
mindset and seeing, seeingyourself going, you know, a
couple of months meeting withfriends in the same exact spots
that you were meeting them.
(25:38):
And seeing your social life, notonly not changed that much, but
also have improved for thebetter because your
conversations are better, youknow, you slur less and you
actually remember some of theconversations you've had.
And, and, you know, some ofthose parts you go, that's
actually, that's actually prettygood.
And so I think it's a lot of themind, mind killer parts that,
(25:58):
that's, that's the part thatwas, that was stuck and, and
things definitely change overtime once you've, Enjoyed
different things as well.
Barry Condon (26:07):
That's brilliant.
I saw on your site that you'dhad the GBS privilege of going
on this on dragon's den.
How was that?
Mark Wong (26:16):
That was a crazy experience.
And that was about, we filmedthe episode about three months
after the start of the business.
So that was, that was very, veryearly and we only had about 10,
000 pounds worth of sales.
Nothing was ready.
The design on that was somethingI made on PowerPoint.
Because because I spent at thebeginning, I thought, well, you
(26:38):
know, it was it was all aboutbrand.
So then I spent all the money onthat we had from the competition
winnings on a big, big brandingagency.
And, and it just didn't work.
It wasn't, it wasn't somethingthat We, we could do and it
wasn't something that I liked atthe end result.
So I just had to make itourselves, brutally ourselves
and sort all of those parts out.
(26:59):
And we, when I went on theepisode, the whole thing was
about an hour and a half long,and it gets edited down to about
11 minutes.
And you don't see the dragonsbeforehand.
You don't see them after theentire thing was one take all
the way through.
And it was, it was a terrifyingexperience.
And yeah, the questions weredifficult but I think the good
(27:22):
thing was, well, even though wedidn't get investment at the
end, cause it was just simplyway too early for them.
The good thing was that theyunderstood the mission of where
I was trying to go, where wewere going with the products.
Although some of them didn'treally understand what the
product was.
And I think over time, a lot ofour customers helped us
articulate what the productmeant to people a lot more.
(27:43):
But throughout that journey,People saw us on TV and began to
understand what we were tryingto do and how we were trying to
bring drinking to a differentplace, to change the nature of
social drinking.
And I think that experience, youknow, really gave us a positive,
gave us a positive start.
And, and, and, and, And yeah, Imean, I could go on all day with
that, with that day, and younever, you don't see what the
(28:06):
edit is like at the end untilthe episode airs, and the risk
of incredible public humiliationwas just always looming over my
head, and I thought, I've seenso many of those episodes, where
You know, somebody fumbles theirnumbers forgets something, and
it just, that person becomes,you know, a bit of a laughing
stock and so on.
(28:26):
And I was worried.
I'm like 24 at the time.
I thought this, this could bethe end of my personal
reputation.
But but yes I think, you know,God bless it when it went, it
went the right way.
So that was good.
Justine Clark (28:39):
Well, I mean, totally amazing.
And ultimately, no publicity isbad publicity, right?
And that's what's come out of itfor you, which is brilliant.
And I just want to touch on whatyou said earlier about mindset.
So you just talked about having,bringing a product to market
that helps people socially, butreally, you know, That's what
we're here for.
We are all about that shift inmindset and the shift in beliefs
(29:02):
that gets you to the point whereyou can do those firsts, the
first party, the first holiday areunion, all of those things
without alcohol and each timeyou do that you, you, you flex a
new muscle and the body learnsthat And the mind learns that
actually it's pretty excitingout on the other side and
there's actually freedom on theother side You found that with
(29:25):
your product.
That's awesome We'd like to askour guests a one last question,
which is what three words Bestdescribe to you what it means to
be an alcohol freedom finder
Mark Wong (29:41):
Yeah.
It's a, it's a good question.
And I'd say.
First one is, you know,exploration it's, it's to see,
you know, that there are so manymore choices away from alcohol
that it's not just you know,it's not just drink or not
drink.
There are so many more choicesand I think having that
(30:02):
explorative mindset is going tobe really important.
And the other part innovationand not even just on a, on a, on
a sort of company or productlevel is not, not any of that,
but it's, but it's innovatingthe way in which you interact
with, interact in a socialsituation because alcohol has
(30:24):
always been a, been a prop insome ways, and that's been sort
of the only prop and can youinnovate and find your own way
that you can find other thingsto replace that sort of process.
You know, behavior, action,reward, that kind of loop.
Can you find something thatreplaces that loop and be
innovative in your approach?
And it could be whatever floatsfor, for people, you know, it
(30:46):
could be, you know, three deepbreaths or it could be any,
anything whatsoever.
So, but just being inventive, Ithink that, that plays a key
part.
And the last one I think isalso.
The last one's adaptability, I'dsay.
It's, it's being adaptable todifferent, different situations
and understanding that, youknow, the default response may
not be the right one.
(31:06):
The default response that we'vehad all throughout our lives,
you know, we're a bit, whenwe're a bit stressed, oh, it's
alcohol.
Or when we're, you know, feelinga little bit socially anxious,
the conversation's not goingvery well, or maybe that
person's just made a reallyawkward joke.
Oh God, I wish I had a drink,you know, changing some of those
being adaptable in how.
You approach social situationsand so on.
(31:28):
And I think that's, yeah, those,those would be, those would be
really good things, at least forme anyway.
Barry Condon (31:33):
That really, really resonates with me.
I mean, I, the, the thing, whenI decided, okay, that's it, I'm
not drinking anymore.
The thing that I went in searchof was how do I make this?
Okay.
How do I feel that I'm notmissing out?
And, and while you can byunderstanding the science and an
understanding what the sort ofnet effect is of, of, of
(31:54):
drinking, you can see.
The net result is, is you, youlose, you know, you get that
buzz at the beginning, but then,you know, the, the, the, the,
the body's reaction to that isleaves you depleted in, in, in
so many different ways.
But there's always that thingwith, yeah, but the buzz, yeah,
but the, the, the the dopaminehit that you get.
(32:17):
And, and that's the thing that,that obviously the, our.
We, we delve into that a lot inour methodology that, that the,
the psychology behind that andthe subconscious feeling is that
that's, you know, somethingthat's, that's really desirable
and, and very difficult to sayno to.
So if you can come up with a wayof, of, of tweaking, you know,
of triggering a little bit ofthat and then also have the sort
(32:38):
of non alcoholic benefits thatthat that we all understand.
You know, that that that's just,you know, the, the the Holy
Grail as far as I'm concerned.
Mark Wong (32:48):
And I think you're, you're absolutely right in
saying, you know, that thereneeds to be some, some sort of
replacement.
And I'm sure you guys know somemore about this than, than I do.
I mean, it's all about sort of,you know, behavior, behavior,
action, you know, So triggeraction, reward and investment,
right?
Like as, and typically withoutcall, the problem is you've got
a behavior of what the cue comesup, the trigger comes up and you
(33:08):
go, you drink alcohol and thenreward comes with a dopamine.
And then as you mentioned, thenyou get the hangovers the next
day.
And with the hangovers that,that kind of investment where
you go, well, actually that'sperfectly sinking in with the
cue to drink more than you justhave this cycle that keeps
perpetuating forward, butcutting off.
The reward after an action is inthe solution to the problem just
(33:30):
by cutting off the reward.
Does it mean the reward nolonger exists and the reward has
to be replaced with somethingelse that that there is a clear
reward, but it doesn'tnecessitate the retriggering of
another queue.
And I think true behavior changecan only come from, you know,
satisfying sort of kind of beingaware that there are some
certain human needs that wewould like to address.
(33:50):
To be met and see if we cansatisfy those needs in a way
that's significantly lessharmful.
And I think I, I absolutely
Barry Condon (33:58):
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Have you?
I just did say it was the lastquestion, but I've got one that
I'm just interested.
I think that Professor DavidNutt, have you come across his
work on on on on the Gabbamechanisms and and and his
working in the in the on nonalcoholic spirits?
Is that something you'd beinterested in?
Mark Wong (34:15):
I've read up on some of his, some of his works.
I think he's, he's definitely apioneer in, in the field.
You know, he's been focallyadvocating for sort of the, the
damaging, damaging effects ofalcohol and so on much sooner
than I think a lot of peoplehave.
And, And I believe he's alsolaunched his own, his own
product at the moment, usingsort of different various
(34:35):
plants.
And I think the spirit is a veryinteresting space.
I think there are uniquechallenges with spirits.
Well, there are also uniquebenefits with spirits that the
main benefit being, you know, ofcourse, it's, it's very.
Shelf stable, so you can have itat a bars will much more likely
stock it, for example, comparedto beers on.
Then you can mix it in widevariety of beverages that you
(34:56):
can enjoy different tastes of,you know, if you like pineapple
versus strawberries, you canstill make a spirit work for
that.
But the difficulty is.
You know, it's really hardbalancing flavor, especially of
spirits.
There is always an innateexpectation that a spirit gives
you a kick that you're, you'remeant to have that sort of burn
when you have it.
And, and, you know, that, thatkind of reinforces the whole
(35:18):
experience.
So, so I think there'sdefinitely some work to be done
on the spirit side.
And it's, we're definitelyinterested in, in, in catering
to drinking occasions beyondbeer itself.
Beer made sense to us simplybecause we're a, you know, we're
a bunch of people that reallylike beer.
But, but beyond, but beyond thaton a wider point, and I think
(35:39):
spirits definitely do havesomething, something with them
as well, that serves a uniqueplace in people going on their
journey of trying to, trying todrink less but better.
Justine Clark (35:49):
Mark, that's awesome.
Now, speaking of tryingImpossibru how best for our
people to try Impossibru?
What do you recommend they do?
How do they get hold of theproduct?
Mark Wong (36:01):
Easiest, the absolute easiest way would be heading
over to our website atimpossibly.
co.
uk and that is I N P O S S I B RE W.
And the reason for that is wedon't typically go to, we're not
in any sort of supermarketsbars, pubs, but we're in some of
them, but not national.
And the goal for that is we wantto make this experience for your
(36:22):
at home.
After 5 p.
m.
moment and we've always beenbaffled at the idea that you
have to carry around 10 beersfrom the grocery shop into, sort
of, into your living room andthat's, that's quite a journey.
So we take the hassle all theway out, go on the website, easy
to order, couple of clicks andit comes the next day.
So that's, that's likely theeasiest way to
Barry Condon (36:42):
And for now just the UK or elsewhere.
Mark Wong (36:45):
For now, just the UK, we're a very small team at the
moment.
And so we've, and, and on a sidepoint as well, we've been
finding it difficult to keep upwith production demand and so
on.
So we can only sort of cater tothe UK at the moment, but later
on soon enough, we'll behopefully in the other regions
as well.
Barry Condon (37:01):
I'm there next week so I'm going to put my
order in now and I'll I'll beable to taste it next week and
I'll post it on the socialmedia.
Mark Wong (37:06):
think we still have some, we still have some Rebub
left and we also have a referrerfriend thing as well.
So you guys can, I guess, refereach other and and Yeah, that
could
Justine Clark (37:15):
I have, I have referred a lot of friends I tell
you, Mark.
Thanks so much for being withus.
Barry Condon (37:21):
Yeah, thanks very much.
Yeah, thanks very much.
This is Alcohol Freedom Finders.
In this episode, we meet withMark Wong, the founder of the
Impossibrew Alcohol Free BrewingCompany, who you may recognize
from his appearance on Dragon'sDen.
after hearing he had a livercondition that meant he could no
longer drink alcohol, this beerloving Durham University
philosophy student was sounimpressed with the lack of
(00:22):
buzz he got from the alcoholfree beers on the market that he
set out to create his ownalcohol alternative.
With the help of a professorfrom the University's Bioscience
Department, and inspired by atrip to Hong Kong, where he dove
into the rich culture of Asianmedicine, mark has found
ingredients that he says givehis alcohol free beers the buzz
(00:42):
and relaxation we associate withwhat he amusingly calls the
legacy beer category.
Let's meet the man himself.
Justine Clark (00:51):
hello everyone and welcome to Alcohol Freedom
Finders.
Today I am genuinely the mostexcited I have been because I
have got my, the maker of myfavorite drink ever joining us
today.
We have Mark Wong fromImpossibrew.
Welcome Mark.
Barry Condon (01:08):
Hi Mark., it's great to have you here.
Justine has, literally been afan as long as I've known her.
So, yeah, I'm, and I stillhaven't had a chance to, to to
try, imposter brew.
I live in the Netherlands and soI haven't come across it as yet.
But we're, we're dying to, tohear more about your story and
how you How you came to come up,came up with the idea of, of
Mark Wong (01:31):
into that.
I think for, you know, for thosewho don't know, we make non
alcoholic beers that give you abuzz without the alcohol.
And the main thing that sets usapart is not only that it tastes
great, it looks great, but thething that we really want to try
and ace is The way that it makesyou feel.
And so for me, I think my, myjourney started fairly early.
(01:51):
I think it started when I was18.
I've loved alcohol, lovealcohol, love drinking, love
beer.
It was, it was just the mostfantastic thing in the world.
I wanted to, I did my winedegree when I was about 19.
I wanted to go into the industrythinking, you know, I can do
what I enjoy and drink when Ienjoy it at work.
I thought, what better life isthere?
(02:12):
And then when I got to about 22or so at university, that was
when I heard from the doctorsthat I couldn't drink anymore,
my liver was not doing, notdoing very well.
And it was not, not where it wassupposed to be at 22.
And they said I had to stop.
And so faced with that, and Iwas thinking, well, That's not
only my sort of vocationfication gone I don't really
(02:35):
know what to do and I realizehow much of my social life has
been around drinking.
I, I thought, for example whatam I going to do after, after my
classes at uni?
Well, I go to the pub and meetmy friends.
What am I going to do afterdinner?
Well, I head to the pub and seemy friends again.
And all of those options areessentially off the table the
moment that happened and you canonly have so many diet cokes
(02:56):
Right and I was admittedly nevera non alcoholic beer drinker.
I never saw the point of it Inever really understood it.
I always just like beer beer andthen I thought, well, let's,
let's give them a try.
You know, let's, let's see howit goes.
And it's fair to say that Ididn't, I didn't enjoy my
experience.
You know, a lot of them seems tobe box ticking exercises.
(03:18):
It seems to be something thatsay bar operator puts in just to
make sure the non drinkers arehaving fun, but it's not that
much fun.
And I'm most likely just stuckto, I'm mostly just stuck to
either Diet Coke, soda water, oranything that's like, say,
coffee.
diet tonic or stuff like that.
it was not until I met aprofessor at, at university is
(03:41):
Dr.
Paul Jasso.
And he was from the sort ofneuro, I can't remember exactly
what the department was, but hewas a bioscience professor at
the time.
And I did philosophy at Durhamuniversity, which has nothing to
do with what I'm doing now andnothing to do with what he was
doing.
But we bonded over This idea of,you know, can we use natural
ingredients?
Can we use things, say, forexample, like caffeine?
(04:03):
Caffeine gives us energy andit's derived from the, it's
derived from coffee beans andgreen tea and so on.
Can we use natural ingredientslike these to replicate that
same feeling?
Because that was the elephant inthe room.
The elephant in the room was,you know, yeah, sure, we are all
drinking non alcoholic beveragesas we're not drinking, but, you
know, why did we drink in thefirst place?
(04:23):
Was it flavor that got us there?
Not if it was surely animportant part, but definitely
not the most important part on.
So we sort of bonded over thisidea of can we make something on
fast forward a couple of years.
We had a few prototypes.
Got it going.
I brewed in my university dormroom.
That was really fun.
(04:44):
That sort of gave me a new senseof something to do on.
So I started brewing beer,started making these
ingredients, working with Dr.
Shazo and getting it there.
But at the beginning, it washorrific.
Like, especially these plants,you can imagine some very herby,
planty, muddy, rooty taste thatjust does not tie in with beer
(05:05):
whatsoever.
And it took us a long time toget it right.
But ultimately the goal was kindof simple.
It was just something I wantedto be able to enjoy.
With my friends that I don'tfeel like I'm missing out.
I feel like I can enjoy my time.
You can, again, you can onlyhave so many Diet Cokes.
I want to truly enjoy my time inan experience that's
uncompromising.
(05:26):
And then fast a couple of years,we grew over time winning a
university competition.
That was how we got our firstbout of, tiny bout of funding.
And I can talk more about itlater on because I squandered
all of it at the beginning.
And then, and then using that toroll on and essentially build
the business from scratch.
(05:46):
So today, to this day, everybodythat has supported us, including
investors and, and everybodywere our customers, everybody
who's on this journey startedthat journey with us as
customers, which is somethingthat we're, we're really proud
of.
And, and yeah, that's that'swhere we are now.
Justine Clark (06:02):
Well that that's an awesome story.
And I love the fact that you'vetransformed something into kind
of a negative thing.
Oh my gosh, I can't drinkanymore, I've got health issues.
Into something that's become notonly your you've transformed
your health, but you've, you'veset your career trajectory with
it as well.
And I resonate with thatcompletely because actually the
(06:23):
reason that I'm here and thereason I'm doing this podcast
and that I'm a freedom fromalcohol coach is because I got
to a point where I realized thatalcohol just wasn't serving me
anymore.
It was me.
It was running the show.
You know, it was going through acycle of, cravings and
withdrawal.
Even if I wasn't an alcoholic,it was certainly ruling my day
(06:45):
and my weekends and my midweekand the start of the week.
So now it's become also rulingmy start of the week, my midweek
and my weekends, but it's in,in, in another way, which is
helping other people become freefrom alcohol and trying great
drinks like yours.
This is actually the first timeI've tried the rhubarb.
I, I kept putting it off tryingit and today's the first day
(07:07):
I've tried it and it's reallydelicious.
I know that you do like aseasonal, a summer drink.
You always have something a bitfruity.
I think last year was a, therewas a pink grapefruit one that
was yummy, but both of the, boththe products that you had that,
you know, the standard products,both the IPA and the lager
really kind of support what I'mtrying to achieve, which is
(07:28):
feeling good naturally.
And this really ticks the box aswell.
Mark Wong (07:32):
The rubub, especially it's something that we're, we're
super proud of and we had it,you know, we have these limited
batches that we only sort ofmake them for fun, really.
I mean, it's, it's the economicsdon't really make sense because
it's such a small batch but wethoroughly enjoy it.
We made a triple hot IPA earlierin the year.
We had a vanilla stouts lastyear, and as well as a sort of
Justine Clark (07:53):
I tried that.
Mark Wong (07:55):
nice.
And we also had a.
Yeah, for the list I had thedark red ale as well, but these
are just purely fun projectsthat we really like having fun
with.
And yeah, I'm glad you like thisone.
This is a really popular one aswell.
This one's been, this one's beenreally good.
Barry Condon (08:11):
Wow.
I mean, I could really get intothe weeds of, of how you
actually do this, but I'm just,that first question that came to
mind was, was in the dorm thatfirst time, you know, creating
it.
And, and how are you able tomake it non alcoholic then at at
the end of the process?
Cause I imagine there's sort offermenting going on.
Mark Wong (08:31):
It's a really good question.
So.
There are a couple of ways tomake non alcoholic products the
first one is the easiest one.
The first one is when you have afully alcoholic product and you
remove the alcohol from it.
So you can either use heat whichis pretty much the most common
way, or you dilute it.
Or you use reverse osmosis totake the alcohol out.
So all three of these waysinvolve the removal of alcohol.
(08:55):
While it's good, it's cheaper todo, and it's simple the problem
typically is that when youremove alcohol, a lot of the
flavor, the sort of esso flavorprofiles are stuck with the
alcohol compounds, stuck withthe ethanol compounds, and they
get released with it in the sametime.
So you almost by removing thething that Makes a special,
which is, which is alcohol.
(09:16):
You also remove a lot of theflavonoids and all the rest of
the parts that make italcoholic, but make it taste
like a beer.
And so, well, the good thing isa lot of companies use it
because it's, it's anoperationally efficient
approach, right?
You can turn a, imagine you turna 5 percent beer you can remove
the alcohol from it and thenwater it down with a malt water.
(09:36):
So either like water or anyunfermented malt water, and you
can.
Essentially dilute that up tothree times and one beer turns
into three beers without alcoholtax.
It seems like a massive steal,but the problem is The quality
isn't very good.
So we found a different way todo it, which was which is
something that we're very, veryproud about and happy with is
(09:57):
the idea that, you know, what ifyou don't remove alcohol at all?
You know, what would that mean?
That would mean that you wouldbrew a beer, one in one out,
same with a craft beer.
brewery wood, brewery wood.
You would go in, brew the beer,and just as it gets to the point
of 0.
5, just the right amount offermentation, you crash it with
(10:18):
a very cold temperature, andessentially you put the yeast to
bed.
You put them to sleep and theydon't consume any more sugars.
They don't ferment any further.
They don't increase the alcoholpercentage, but the result you'd
get is you do not lose any ofthe flavonoid compounds.
You keep everything right wherethey are and the yeasts are just
peacefully sleeping in coldtemperatures.
(10:40):
And that's the way that we foundto do it.
Of course, it's more costly torun because you're not
multiplying it by three times.
You're not diluting it down onein one out, which will be the
similar base of what a typicalcraft beer would be.
But.
That in a way, the reason why wepicked that route was because I
wanted one that I could drinkevery day.
And still to this day, since thevery beginning, once we had a
(11:01):
doc, once we had a drinkableproducts, of course, before that
point, it was not possible.
But at the moment we had adrinkable products, I still, to
this day, drink impossible isevery single day.
And I've not broken that chainand it's, it's something that,
you know, I can, I can enjoy,which is why we, we went for
this route and it's been reallyrewarding so far because I think
a lot of people are beginning torecognize the sort of quality
differences in there.
Justine Clark (11:23):
Brilliant.
And I, I think that, you know,you really can taste the
difference.
And it really does taste like acraft beer.
I will definitely say that.
I'm curious to know, becausethose of us in the alcohol free
space also want to socialiseand, and still feel, as you say,
feel that we're included in partof something.
And you've chosen to includesome special ingredients that,
you know, help elevate mood and,and lift the mood.
(11:46):
How did you come to choosing theones that you've chosen and how
effective do you think they are?
Mark Wong (11:51):
It's a really good question because we face a
challenge compared to most othercategories.
So, The categories we know say,these are called categories
called nootropics, but they'revery, it's a very loose term.
The most commonly consumednootropic is caffeine.
So we understand how caffeinefeels like when we're tired, we
have coffee, then we feel moreenergy, our heart rate goes up,
(12:12):
so on and so forth.
Like it's, it's easy tounderstand how that feels.
But whereas what happens whenyou flip it to the opposite
side, what happens with sort ofsedation and relaxation?
It's a much harder thing to feelwhen it doesn't impact your
motor functions,
If you're looking to take backcontrol of your drinking, why
don't you join our AlcoholFreedom Finders 30 day group
(12:34):
program.
It's a great place to start.
Because we approach it as anexperiment, rather than a
challenge.
Whereas, as well as getting agreat detox, you learn the
science and the psychology aboutwhy you're drunk in the first
place.
So whether you want to stopaltogether, or just become a
more mindful and moderatedrinker, why don't you give it a
crack?
Use the link in the show notesto sign up to our next 30 day
(12:58):
program, and you won't regretit.
Because no one ever woke up inthe morning and said, I wish I'd
had more to drink last night,did they?
Back to the episode.
because one of the key things we wanted to do was
to make sure you could stilldrive.
And by impacting your motorfunctions is typically how most
people would recognize thefeeling of relaxation is you
feel that you, you speak slower.
(13:20):
Your, your speech is a bit moreslurred, you move a bit slower.
That's typically how peoplerecognize the feeling of
relaxation.
And so we face that challengethere of how do we.
And there are a couple of routesto go about it.
The first one would be getting anovel ingredient, but the
problem is the regulatoryhurdles are too strong.
We typically can't get enoughtesting and not enough funding
(13:41):
to get that going.
So how do we do the second routeis we will have to leverage
something of nature.
There are a lot of ingredientsthat by name, they don't, they
don't really mean anything likealtheanine, ashwagandha, you
know, most consumers, itdoesn't, it doesn't mean
anything.
And first of all, how do youcommunicate that some of them
work?
And second of all, once you findthe literature of how it
(14:04):
actually works, and once we'vetested it throughout with with
the professors and some of the,with the help of Durham
University at the time as well,once we've tested it out, how do
we make sure that, You know, itdelivers the effects that are
promised because it's not assimple as just having caffeine
in there straight away.
And so the easiest way todescribe how it works is, you
(14:25):
know, how you have coffee andgreen tea.
And when you have both of them,they have a fairly similar
caffeine content, but yet youfeel sort of more Calm and
chilled green tea than it iswith coffee.
And even though they have thesame caffeine content, you
wonder why is that?
And there are some ingredientsin there in green tea that bring
down the energy aspect, theybring, they bring you sort of
(14:49):
into a more relaxed state and soon.
So it balances out some of thecaffeine.
So imagine when you would beable to do taking that out and
multiply its potency by 10, 20times.
Then that's where you would getthat sort of relaxing feeling
within the remits of what youcan get through the natural
world.
And we didn't come up with thisidea.
I mean, it was from when I wentback home to Hong Kong, I, I
(15:13):
never really understood sort ofAsian medicine.
I didn't really get it.
I was never a sort of quoteunquote believer in it, but I
would see that people wouldswear by the efficacies of them.
And, and I didn't understand howthat works.
And it turns out when I spoke todifferent, you know, people,
Experts in the area about it.
It's that they're essentiallyusing very concentrated plant
extracts.
(15:34):
And of course, once you reach acertain concentration with
different concoctions andrecipes that have been passed
down in the past, then you willget something that works.
And so can we reverse engineerthis process and have this in
beer instead as a means ofreplacing alcohol?
And that's where that journeytakes us.
sort of began.
And yes, we have a we have anumber of ingredients in that.
(15:57):
Individually, you look at thelabel.
It doesn't make sense that itgives you that relaxation.
But for us, efficacy is the mostimportant.
Some people would go foringredients that say it works.
So say, for example, we decidednot to use CBD simply from the
reasons that The clinicalliterature doesn't support
relaxation for us, although itis a derivative of the hemp
plant, that it is known andassociated mentally in the
(16:19):
consumer's mind with relaxationbecause marijuana is relaxing in
that way.
We didn't feel that it works.
The clinical studies didn'tsupport it for us, so we didn't
include it, even though it wouldhave been so much easier from a
marketing CBD relaxes We choseto go for a more obscure route
instead.
(16:39):
But focusing on efficacy beingthe true North Star, because
ultimately, it's what we alsoenjoy in the office too.
Barry Condon (16:46):
I love that.
The, that whole scientificbackground and particularly then
to, to, to delve into the yeah,that amazingly rich sort of
deep, deep, deep.
Chinese medicine history as wellis, is, is brilliant.
I know that for myself that canoften be the one thing that I
miss.
I go, I, I've talked to Justinea lot about once a year I go
(17:08):
away with the boys playing golfand they drink all day.
And, and somehow it, there'ssort of energy giving, even
though they're sort of gettingslowly sozzled, they're, they're
also, they can keep goingremarkably long with, because
there's sort of some, some sortof energy.
They're either getting it fromthe, from the sugar or, or
there's some sort of chemicalthing going on.
And that, and if I was to missanything about alcohol, that
(17:31):
would be the only thing that yousort of think, Oh, it does give
you, give you the ability to golonger.
And, and just, just, you know,you can, you can go on into the
night.
And I, I find myself doing a fewshots of expresso before, before
dinner and after dinner, just tosort of stay awake with the
lads.
And so I'm, I'll be really, I'mreally interested to hear or to,
to, to find out whether havingthis sort of nootropic in, in a,
(17:53):
in a beer, whether that will bethe thing that I'm missing.
Mark Wong (17:57):
I think I could, I could add to that as well, if
you're not, know, we could godeeper into the scientific parts
of it, because I think for someof the parts that you're
mentioning, you, you areabsolutely right in pointing out
that alcohol is not exactly asedative and it's not exactly a
stimulant either.
It's a very, it's a very oddstate in between the two.
And it kind of depends on howthe person reacts.
And so, which is why some of theingredients we've selected, the
(18:17):
official term or the officialclinical efficacy for them is
called sort of.
alert relaxation because itstimulates alpha brain waves in
the brain by going through theblood bearing barrier.
This state of alert relaxationis this balance of, you know,
being focused as well as in thesame time you're still relaxed.
So it highlight, it's, it's theclosest thing we could find that
(18:40):
follows this somewhatparadoxical nature of alcohol.
Where there is this bit ofenergy as well as this bit of
sedation.
And the reason why we selectedthat relaxation without that
kind of drowsiness is becauseyou can also still function
responses wise.
You can still function.
And that to us is a reallyimportant point.
(19:01):
And, and ultimately you've gotto taste it to see, see what
it's like.
We'd recommend having an emptystomach when you have it and
have a full count yourself tosee the sort of full effects,
but, but yes, it's for usanyway, we've had.
Lots of great experiences withit.
We, we drink sometimes, youknow, it's, it's kind of silly
at this point.
And we sort of have it in the,like, after breakfast, we come
into work.
Sometimes we just go, it's a fewmore emails than we expected.
(19:24):
We crack open a beer and enjoyit.
And in ways where we couldn't doit without alcohol, so without
alcohol and yeah, it's it's beena great experience for us.
Justine Clark (19:32):
Well, I can definitely confirm that after
how much have I had, I've hadhalf a can and it definitely
mimics like no other alcoholfree product, that sort of
feeling in the stomach that youget when you've had alcohol,
that kind of, you know, alcoholhas a sort of a, I guess it's a
burn or something that you canreally feel it that's hit your
(19:53):
stomach.
I would say in a different waybut in a you could definitely
feel that you've had the socialblend of the nootropics has hit
your stomach with this.
So it does mimic the feeling,that Friday night feeling or the
relaxing feeling that you'relooking for in terms of I need
to change, I need something tohelp me change my state here.
And it definitely does that.
(20:15):
So just moving slightly fromthat kind of amazing product
that it is, Mark, I'm justcurious to know what, how you
feel about being someone that'sa mover and a shaker in an
alcohol free space.
Mark Wong (20:30):
Yeah, I think it's definitely a humbling
experience.
When I, when I started back,back in the beginning, I'd say
that was 2020.
Alcohol free wasn't that big atthe time, and the market was
never something I looked into.
It was simply from a personalneed.
So regardless of where themarket was going, I was, this
(20:52):
was going to happen, at leastfor me anyway.
At worst cases, you know, I'vejust made a homebrew that I
enjoy.
But I think over time, it's,it's been really lucky that the
market has been really receptiveand this space has been growing
faster than I could ever, than Icould ever imagine, you know,
the number of people notdrinking is now at an all time
high.
I mean, we're looking at sort ofGen Z's and millennials closer
(21:14):
to a third now don't drinkalcohol, which is something that
is, which is absolutely blowingmy mind.
And this also echoed myexperience when I first went to
university as well, because I'vealways been told by all my
seniors that.
You know, university was allabout, you know, everybody would
go out and drink.
And, and although that still,still did happen, the ratio was
(21:34):
a lot more, well, was veryunexpected for me.
I had friends that would justcompletely not drink whatsoever.
And that would be about, it'sabout 20, 20 to 25%.
And that was something Iabsolutely did not expect.
And I think.
With people's habits changing soquickly and it's, this has
(21:54):
fortunately led us to a positionwhere we've started early into a
market that's rapidly growing.
And, and yeah, it's definitely ahumbling experience, especially
in the face of some of thebigger players as well.
We've got, you know, Diageo, ABInBev, Budweiser, every, every
big sort of beverage corporationunder the sun has gone into the
space.
And, and yes, it's it's great tobe, you know, to be amongst.
(22:18):
All the other brands that are,that are trying to move towards
this healthier drinkinglifestyle.
Barry Condon (22:23):
And and how how a big alcohol playing it, are
they, are they playing fair?
Mark Wong (22:27):
I'd say, I'd say they're very, you know, they
understand where the trends aregoing and they bank that.
Essentially, they've always hadtheir success in the legacy
category.
Every bit, every part of theirbeverage is essentially powered
by one technology and seeing itthat way.
(22:47):
And that is alcohol.
And, and this is the fundamentalgrowth driver for them as, as
companies and, and they, most ofthem only do alcoholic products.
And this is.
In some ways, quite anexistential threat for them
because imagine your coretechnology is no longer being
adopted from, you know, beingone of the most in culturally
ingrained sort of technologiesof the world, whether that's
(23:09):
going out of fashion and peopleare no longer having it, it's,
it's quite a big shift that'srequired of their, of their
business models.
And, and they are, they arequicker to adapt than previous
trends.
Say from beer going to craftbeer, they were a little bit
slower, but in terms of going toalcohol free, they've been.
They've been fast, but because Ithink they know that this is,
this is something that they'llhave to do and And yes, they're,
(23:32):
they're definitely, they'recertainly trying.
And in, especially in areaswhere smaller brands are much
more difficult to compete.
So say for example, insupermarkets where they would
have much more preferentialnegotiation terms and listings
and same within bars and pubsand so on.
So, and of course the brand nameis already very well known.
People are already associatingthose beverages with their
(23:53):
existing brand and Using thatoff launching off the back of
them.
So I think it's a, it's a clevermove and I think they are also
moving with the times, butwhether they are keeping up with
some of the innovations, thenthat, that remains to be seen.
Justine Clark (24:07):
And that's certainly not in the nootropic
space like yourself, Mark.
So, you know, you've setyourself aside from the
beginning, which is awesome.
And I just wanted to touch onfor our viewers who, by and
large, are either alcohol freeor heading that way.
What's it been like foryourself?
Not, in the beginning it wassomething you had to do.
How do you feel now as someonewho doesn't drink?
Mark Wong (24:29):
Yeah, it's, it's definitely, it's certainly
changed over time compared tothe beginning.
So the beginning was purely outof, out of, you know, lack of
choice That I had to do it.
But then now, you know,sometimes we still benchmark
alcoholic products because ourgoal is to make it make our
beers as close to alcohol aspossible, and that would mean
that we we need to be aware ofhow or at least be reminded of
(24:52):
how sort of alcohol tasted liketo be as close as we can.
But I see it now less of a Idon't have to.
drink anymore.
I don't feel like I have to whenI go out.
I can happily have an impossibleor any or some other non
alcoholic beers that I can justknow that, you know, it's, yeah,
that's, that's fine.
But it's such a hard habit, likea cultural habit to change.
(25:16):
And, and I think the mindsetchange is, is the biggest part
of that.
Legwork, you know, productscertainly help, especially good
products.
Products certainly help.
But I think at the end of theday really is, is the shift in
mindset and seeing, seeingyourself going, you know, a
couple of months meeting withfriends in the same exact spots
that you were meeting them.
(25:38):
And seeing your social life, notonly not changed that much, but
also have improved for thebetter because your
conversations are better, youknow, you slur less and you
actually remember some of theconversations you've had.
And, and, you know, some ofthose parts you go, that's
actually, that's actually prettygood.
And so I think it's a lot of themind, mind killer parts that,
(25:58):
that's, that's the part thatwas, that was stuck and, and
things definitely change overtime once you've, Enjoyed
different things as well.
Barry Condon (26:07):
That's brilliant.
I saw on your site that you'dhad the GBS privilege of going
on this on dragon's den.
How was that?
Mark Wong (26:16):
That was a crazy experience.
And that was about, we filmedthe episode about three months
after the start of the business.
So that was, that was very, veryearly and we only had about 10,
000 pounds worth of sales.
Nothing was ready.
The design on that was somethingI made on PowerPoint.
Because because I spent at thebeginning, I thought, well, you
(26:38):
know, it was it was all aboutbrand.
So then I spent all the money onthat we had from the competition
winnings on a big, big brandingagency.
And, and it just didn't work.
It wasn't, it wasn't somethingthat We, we could do and it
wasn't something that I liked atthe end result.
So I just had to make itourselves, brutally ourselves
and sort all of those parts out.
(26:59):
And we, when I went on theepisode, the whole thing was
about an hour and a half long,and it gets edited down to about
11 minutes.
And you don't see the dragonsbeforehand.
You don't see them after theentire thing was one take all
the way through.
And it was, it was a terrifyingexperience.
And yeah, the questions weredifficult but I think the good
(27:22):
thing was, well, even though wedidn't get investment at the
end, cause it was just simplyway too early for them.
The good thing was that theyunderstood the mission of where
I was trying to go, where wewere going with the products.
Although some of them didn'treally understand what the
product was.
And I think over time, a lot ofour customers helped us
articulate what the productmeant to people a lot more.
(27:43):
But throughout that journey,People saw us on TV and began to
understand what we were tryingto do and how we were trying to
bring drinking to a differentplace, to change the nature of
social drinking.
And I think that experience, youknow, really gave us a positive,
gave us a positive start.
And, and, and, and, And yeah, Imean, I could go on all day with
that, with that day, and younever, you don't see what the
(28:06):
edit is like at the end untilthe episode airs, and the risk
of incredible public humiliationwas just always looming over my
head, and I thought, I've seenso many of those episodes, where
You know, somebody fumbles theirnumbers forgets something, and
it just, that person becomes,you know, a bit of a laughing
stock and so on.
(28:26):
And I was worried.
I'm like 24 at the time.
I thought this, this could bethe end of my personal
reputation.
But but yes I think, you know,God bless it when it went, it
went the right way.
So that was good.
Justine Clark (28:39):
Well, I mean, totally amazing.
And ultimately, no publicity isbad publicity, right?
And that's what's come out of itfor you, which is brilliant.
And I just want to touch on whatyou said earlier about mindset.
So you just talked about having,bringing a product to market
that helps people socially, butreally, you know, That's what
we're here for.
We are all about that shift inmindset and the shift in beliefs
(29:02):
that gets you to the point whereyou can do those firsts, the
first party, the first holiday areunion, all of those things
without alcohol and each timeyou do that you, you, you flex a
new muscle and the body learnsthat And the mind learns that
actually it's pretty excitingout on the other side and
there's actually freedom on theother side You found that with
(29:25):
your product.
That's awesome We'd like to askour guests a one last question,
which is what three words Bestdescribe to you what it means to
be an alcohol freedom finder
Mark Wong (29:41):
Yeah.
It's a, it's a good question.
And I'd say.
First one is, you know,exploration it's, it's to see,
you know, that there are so manymore choices away from alcohol
that it's not just you know,it's not just drink or not
drink.
There are so many more choicesand I think having that
(30:02):
explorative mindset is going tobe really important.
And the other part innovationand not even just on a, on a, on
a sort of company or productlevel is not, not any of that,
but it's, but it's innovatingthe way in which you interact
with, interact in a socialsituation because alcohol has
(30:24):
always been a, been a prop insome ways, and that's been sort
of the only prop and can youinnovate and find your own way
that you can find other thingsto replace that sort of process.
You know, behavior, action,reward, that kind of loop.
Can you find something thatreplaces that loop and be
innovative in your approach?
And it could be whatever floatsfor, for people, you know, it
(30:46):
could be, you know, three deepbreaths or it could be any,
anything whatsoever.
So, but just being inventive, Ithink that, that plays a key
part.
And the last one I think isalso.
The last one's adaptability, I'dsay.
It's, it's being adaptable todifferent, different situations
and understanding that, youknow, the default response may
not be the right one.
(31:06):
The default response that we'vehad all throughout our lives,
you know, we're a bit, whenwe're a bit stressed, oh, it's
alcohol.
Or when we're, you know, feelinga little bit socially anxious,
the conversation's not goingvery well, or maybe that
person's just made a reallyawkward joke.
Oh God, I wish I had a drink,you know, changing some of those
being adaptable in how.
You approach social situationsand so on.
(31:28):
And I think that's, yeah, those,those would be, those would be
really good things, at least forme anyway.
Barry Condon (31:33):
That really, really resonates with me.
I mean, I, the, the thing, whenI decided, okay, that's it, I'm
not drinking anymore.
The thing that I went in searchof was how do I make this?
Okay.
How do I feel that I'm notmissing out?
And, and while you can byunderstanding the science and an
understanding what the sort ofnet effect is of, of, of
(31:54):
drinking, you can see.
The net result is, is you, youlose, you know, you get that
buzz at the beginning, but then,you know, the, the, the, the,
the body's reaction to that isleaves you depleted in, in, in
so many different ways.
But there's always that thingwith, yeah, but the buzz, yeah,
but the, the, the the dopaminehit that you get.
(32:17):
And, and that's the thing that,that obviously the, our.
We, we delve into that a lot inour methodology that, that the,
the psychology behind that andthe subconscious feeling is that
that's, you know, somethingthat's, that's really desirable
and, and very difficult to sayno to.
So if you can come up with a wayof, of, of tweaking, you know,
of triggering a little bit ofthat and then also have the sort
(32:38):
of non alcoholic benefits thatthat that we all understand.
You know, that that that's just,you know, the, the the Holy
Grail as far as I'm concerned.
Mark Wong (32:48):
And I think you're, you're absolutely right in
saying, you know, that thereneeds to be some, some sort of
replacement.
And I'm sure you guys know somemore about this than, than I do.
I mean, it's all about sort of,you know, behavior, behavior,
action, you know, So triggeraction, reward and investment,
right?
Like as, and typically withoutcall, the problem is you've got
a behavior of what the cue comesup, the trigger comes up and you
(33:08):
go, you drink alcohol and thenreward comes with a dopamine.
And then as you mentioned, thenyou get the hangovers the next
day.
And with the hangovers that,that kind of investment where
you go, well, actually that'sperfectly sinking in with the
cue to drink more than you justhave this cycle that keeps
perpetuating forward, butcutting off.
The reward after an action is inthe solution to the problem just
(33:30):
by cutting off the reward.
Does it mean the reward nolonger exists and the reward has
to be replaced with somethingelse that that there is a clear
reward, but it doesn'tnecessitate the retriggering of
another queue.
And I think true behavior changecan only come from, you know,
satisfying sort of kind of beingaware that there are some
certain human needs that wewould like to address.
(33:50):
To be met and see if we cansatisfy those needs in a way
that's significantly lessharmful.
And I think I, I absolutely
Barry Condon (33:58):
Brilliant.
Brilliant.
Have you?
I just did say it was the lastquestion, but I've got one that
I'm just interested.
I think that Professor DavidNutt, have you come across his
work on on on on the Gabbamechanisms and and and his
working in the in the on nonalcoholic spirits?
Is that something you'd beinterested in?
Mark Wong (34:15):
I've read up on some of his, some of his works.
I think he's, he's definitely apioneer in, in the field.
You know, he's been focallyadvocating for sort of the, the
damaging, damaging effects ofalcohol and so on much sooner
than I think a lot of peoplehave.
And, And I believe he's alsolaunched his own, his own
product at the moment, usingsort of different various
(34:35):
plants.
And I think the spirit is a veryinteresting space.
I think there are uniquechallenges with spirits.
Well, there are also uniquebenefits with spirits that the
main benefit being, you know, ofcourse, it's, it's very.
Shelf stable, so you can have itat a bars will much more likely
stock it, for example, comparedto beers on.
Then you can mix it in widevariety of beverages that you
(34:56):
can enjoy different tastes of,you know, if you like pineapple
versus strawberries, you canstill make a spirit work for
that.
But the difficulty is.
You know, it's really hardbalancing flavor, especially of
spirits.
There is always an innateexpectation that a spirit gives
you a kick that you're, you'remeant to have that sort of burn
when you have it.
And, and, you know, that, thatkind of reinforces the whole
(35:18):
experience.
So, so I think there'sdefinitely some work to be done
on the spirit side.
And it's, we're definitelyinterested in, in, in catering
to drinking occasions beyondbeer itself.
Beer made sense to us simplybecause we're a, you know, we're
a bunch of people that reallylike beer.
But, but beyond, but beyond thaton a wider point, and I think
(35:39):
spirits definitely do havesomething, something with them
as well, that serves a uniqueplace in people going on their
journey of trying to, trying todrink less but better.
Justine Clark (35:49):
Mark, that's awesome.
Now, speaking of tryingImpossibru how best for our
people to try Impossibru?
What do you recommend they do?
How do they get hold of theproduct?
Mark Wong (36:01):
Easiest, the absolute easiest way would be heading
over to our website atimpossibly.
co.
uk and that is I N P O S S I B RE W.
And the reason for that is wedon't typically go to, we're not
in any sort of supermarketsbars, pubs, but we're in some of
them, but not national.
And the goal for that is we wantto make this experience for your
(36:22):
at home.
After 5 p.
m.
moment and we've always beenbaffled at the idea that you
have to carry around 10 beersfrom the grocery shop into, sort
of, into your living room andthat's, that's quite a journey.
So we take the hassle all theway out, go on the website, easy
to order, couple of clicks andit comes the next day.
So that's, that's likely theeasiest way to
Barry Condon (36:42):
And for now just the UK or elsewhere.
Mark Wong (36:45):
For now, just the UK, we're a very small team at the
moment.
And so we've, and, and on a sidepoint as well, we've been
finding it difficult to keep upwith production demand and so
on.
So we can only sort of cater tothe UK at the moment, but later
on soon enough, we'll behopefully in the other regions
as well.
Barry Condon (37:01):
I'm there next week so I'm going to put my
order in now and I'll I'll beable to taste it next week and
I'll post it on the socialmedia.
Mark Wong (37:06):
think we still have some, we still have some Rebub
left and we also have a referrerfriend thing as well.
So you guys can, I guess, refereach other and and Yeah, that
could
Justine Clark (37:15):
I have, I have referred a lot of friends I tell
you, Mark.
Thanks so much for being withus.
Barry Condon (37:21):
Yeah, thanks very much.
Yeah, thanks very much.
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