Cross-cultural differences in consumer acceptance and emotional response to alcohol-free beer by an online survey and home use test

Introduction: For health reasons, alcohol-free beer is getting more attention. With increasing consumer spending in the Asian market, the interest in better understanding how Asian and Western consumers differ in terms of sensory perception and hedonic response is also increasing. As consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, online surveys and home use tests (HUT) are being used as an alternative to central location test. This work investigated the cross-cultural difference between Asian Chinese and Caucasian Danish in acceptance and emotional response to beers; and the effect of alcoholic and alcohol-free beers on consumer responses; as well as to compare the use of online survey and home use test. Methods: In the online survey, 263 Chinese and 231 Danish were recruited to evaluate eight beer images (3 alcohol-free beers and 5 alcoholic beers) for their hedonic and emotional responses. In the HUT, 85 Chinese and 75 Danish were recruited to evaluate four beers (2 alcohol-free beers and 2 alcoholic beers) at home with a real drinking experience. In both tests, participant's background including sociodemographic information, familiarity towards beer, food neophobia etc. were collected. Results: In both tests Chinese subjects had significantly stronger food neophobia and lower familiarity towards beers compared to Danish subjects. A cultural effect was also observed in emotional responses to beers. However, cultural difference in the hedonic responses of beers was only found in the online survey but not in the HUT. Alcohol-free beer tended to reduce Chinese hedonic response in the online survey but it did not happen in HUT for both populations. Compared to the online survey, respondents demonstrated stronger emotions in HUT.Discussion: This work highlights the importance of conducting cross-cultural research in beer between Asian and Caucasian subjects. The online survey and home use test are shown feasible in COVID pandemic.