Most breweries boil off ordinary beer to make non-alcoholic beer.
Boiling makes it taste weird. Sugar is often added to cover the gap.
This was a fluid dynamics engineering problem. Instead of boiling, we physically filter out the alcohol at cold temperature.
Most breweries use the same alcoholic beer recipe. We re-designed the recipe just for non-alcoholic beer.
Like any beer. Never arrested early, so it never tastes thin or unfinished.
Dedicated process designed with our equipment partner.
| Method | How it’s made | The trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial (the big breweries) | Brew normal beer, then boil the alcohol off | Heat strips flavour; often sugar is added |
| Craft (smaller brands) | Only partially ferment beer to limit alcohol | Cheapest to make, but thin and unfinished. Leans on heavy hopping as a result. |
| Yesa | Fully ferment, then physically remove the alcohol cold | It’s hard to nail the process. Like really hard. |
Yesa (예사) means a gracious first refusal when someone offers a drink in ancient Korean culture.
In the 향음주례, codified in Korea’s National Five Rites in 1474, a cup is offered three times, and each offer is first met with that restraint. Yesa.
We all have fun memories from alcohol.
Yesa exists so you enjoy those moments without feeling bad tomorrow morning.
What the name means →
Co-founder · CEO
Eight years in private equity in Asia, getting deals done over drinks. Quit alcohol in 2024 when his wearable data showed one bottle of beer wrecked his sleep quality.
After suffering from boiled non-alcoholic beer for 2 years, decided to make a better one.
Spent a year of R&D to find the right technology. Then cold-emailed brewers across Asia to partner with.
99% said no. Then he met Todd.
Co-founder · Head Brewer
Mechanical engineer who built data centres across Europe and Asia, then walked away in 2020 to mill grain and wash kegs. Still loves the craft more than building AI data centres.
Became head brewer of one of the largest craft breweries in Hong Kong within three years.
Developed the city’s best-selling craft non-alcoholic beer, but wanted to make an even better one.
Nobody thought non-alcoholic beer was a good idea. Then he met Jongeon.
Nobody in Asia knew how to make non-alcoholic beer our way.
We decided to just build the facility ourselves.
When it opens late in 2026, it will be the first brewery in Asia built only for non-alcoholic lager made this way.
How Yesa is made →
Tell us who you are and how you found Yesa. We’ll only use this to contact you about early access.