North Richland Hills-based False Idol Brewing debuted their sparkling water product called Terp2O at their three-year anniversary in May 2023. The five products in the current Terp2O line are Bravo Bomb Mixed Berry, Pineapple Gold, Northern Lights Indica Melon, Citrus Sunrise, and Lime. Each have zero sugar, preservatives or calories, according to the packaging. As co-founder Brandon Pitzer shares in the following Q&A, there’s more going on with Terp2O than just hops.
Terp2O uses hop terpenes. Could you provide a basic explanation of what terpenes are?
Brandon: Terp2O uses plant terpenes, not just terpenes from hops. Plant terpenes are biosynthetic building blocks of plants that have a variety of different roles, uses, etc. Essentially, terpenes are similar to food grade essential oils versus the essential oils used solely for aromatherapy. Terpenes are naturally occurring and can have medicinal properties.
How did you come to the decision that this product was right for your business?
Brandon: We wanted a healthy sparkling water that didn’t utilize artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners and also shown by various studies to have medicinal properties: such as immune support, pain relief (analgesic), etc. Terpene blends allow us to flavor the sparkling water in a truly new fashion. Not having any calories, or any chemicals that weren’t healthy. It also lends itself to both beer and non beer drinkers sparkling water, terpenes that highlight plants we are accustomed to eating or drinking. It can add character, interest into drinking water without adding anything that is deleterious to the body but actually adds terpenes that are healthy/helpful.
Besides your taproom, is Terp2O available at retail stores? If so, which ones? If not, will it be soon?
Brandon: It’s available in select stores now. Southside Cellar, Bodega W 7th, and Craft Beer Cellar are a few. However, distribution will begin to grow starting January 1 as Greenlight Distributing will begin to sell three of the five brands: Northern Lights, Lime, and Citrus.
In additon to these N/A products, are there future plans to introduce N/A beer to the TERP2O family?
Terp2O will remain the focused brand for the botanical sparkling water products. Any N/A beer we release would be under the False Idol branding.
For more info or to order, visit falseidol.beer.
