I can't drink alcohol but I love the taste of beer, so I drink Coors non alcoholic or O'douls.
Will the hops shortage affect them?
Walt
Yes, if said shortage in fact materializes.
First off, the NA's are not really alcohol free. To legally call themselves that the brewers have to get the ABV down to .05 It starts off as regular beer..... mash, wort, boil with hops additions, fermentation, conditioning.... all that. Hence the initial "yes", as it too needs hops.
After that the vast majority of the alcohol is removed by heating. Basically distillation except you keep the "waste" and get rid of the alcohol, although I'm sure they find a use for that. Problem is, you do this at 175º or so, you also "cook" it again, which affect flavor, quite negatively. One solution is to do it in vacuum, which lowers all boiling points, and then the alcohol boils off at about 120º....
Still, it's the alcohol removal that basically makes all NA beers taste the same, and not as good as the originals. The most palatable NA i've found out there is Clausthaler. It's a pilsener style beer that is halfway drinkable.