Carlsberg have created a non-alcoholic beer measuring only twelve millimeters in height and containing 0.005 centiliter of non-alcoholic beer. The bottle is as small as a grain of rice and contains just a single drop of non-alcoholic beer. It comes complete with a Carlsberg label and a sealed cap.

As such, this is the world’s smallest non-alcoholic beer – and a symbol of moderate and responsible drinking.

“To promote responsible drinking, we present our most moderate idea ever. The world’s smallest beer holds only one-twentieth of a milliliter and is so small that it’s easy to miss. But the message is much bigger: we want to remind people of the importance of drinking responsibly”, says Casper Danielsson, Head of Communications at Carlsberg Sweden.

“Some might think the bottle doesn’t exist, or that the images are AI-generated. But it’s actually the product of craftsmanship, innovation and a close collaboration between us and several experts, Casper Danielsson continues.

How Carlsberg created the world’s smallest non-alcoholic beer

The project brought together several leading partners and experts. RISE (a Swedish state-owned research and innovation institute) made it possible to fill the bottle using precision capillaries designed for fiber optics. Glaskomponent, a company specializing in glassblowing for laboratory equipment, developed the bottle. Miniature artist Åsa Strand crafted and applied the cap, label, and coloring. Meanwhile, the non-alcoholic beer itself was specially brewed at Carlsberg’s experimental brewery in Falkenberg, Sweden, to deliver an intense taste experience despite the tiny volume of just 0.0050 centilitres.

“Crafting and applying the colour, cap and label for a bottle just twelve millimeters tall has been incredibly challenging and great fun. There was no established way of doing this, but with precision, patience and creativity we managed to make it work, says Åsa Strand, miniature artist.

Students now challenged to create an even smaller beer

In relation to the launch, Carlsberg and Tekniska Högskolan Studentkår (the Student Union at KTH Royal Institute of Technology) are presenting a competition inviting university students across Sweden to outdo Carlsberg. The rules are simple: the smallest beer wins. The aim is to encourage boundary-pushing thinking – much like Carlsberg has done historically through innovations such as pure yeast cultivation and the discovery of the pH scale.

“Like Carlsberg, we students usually focus on the big questions. But we know that we can also grow even more from the smaller and trickier challenges, or as KTH would call them, intractable problems. I’m excited to see how KTH students take on this one, says Lydia Boij, President of Tekniska Högskolans Studentkårer.

The prise includes 10,000 SEK and a visit to the Carlsberg Research Laboratory in Copenhagen.