Milan and Simon, the SOBR founders, met each other in their first year as bio-engineering students. They discovered the science behind beloved brews by day and embraced the student art of sampling them by night. Transitioning from campus life to the professional grind, alcohol lost its seat in their lives. That's when they hit a sobering truth: non-drinkers were often relegated to the uninspired realm of overly sweet mocktails.
Driven by a craving for complex and bold flavours, the duo got to work. Recognizing fermentation as the secret behind the layered taste of many alcoholic drinks, they figured creating a non-alcoholic fermentation process was the magic solution. Old textbooks were dusted off and their kitchens transformed into a fermentation lab. With some advice from the university of Ghent and Antwerp, SOBR emerged from this mad scene —a non-alcoholic beacon with all the layered richness of its alcoholic cousins.
After a relentless two-year alchemy of trials, tweaks, and breakthroughs, the payoff is here: a non-alcoholic drink with a crisp bite that demands to be savored. And just like that, a new breed of grown-up drink was born.
The creation of a new fermentation process, was only the beginning. To make their drinks truly stand out, they started experimenting with herbal infusions. With the help of star chefs, they were able to find surprising and tantalizing herbal combinations. After countless trails and as many errors, the right temperature and steeping time was found for our different flavours. Everything is still done by hand in order to ensure top quality.
While alcohol clouds your tomorrow, SOBR aims to brighten it. That's why our drinks are infused with Lion’s Mane (Hericium erinaceus), a funghi that has been attributed with cognitive stimulation, memory improvement and increased clarity.
Don’t worry, this magnificent mushroom is not psychedelic! In our parts this superfood has yet to gain fame, but in Asia it has been revered for millennia for its brain-boosting powers and culinary use.
Although the official Latin name of this mushroom is Hericium Erinaceus, the funghi is much better known as Lion’s Mane. When you see a picture of this mushroom, you don’t need to be a genius to understand why. It is named after the long rows of spines that resemble a lion’s mane.
Studies have found that consumption of the Lion’s Mane mushroom can improve cognitive function and memory in animals and humans. Extracts from the fruiting body of Lion’s Mane have been found to promote the biosynthesis of nerve growth factor (NGF) in cultured astrocytes (central nervous system cells) of observed rodents. NGF in turn causes the growth and formation of nerve connections in these nerve cells.
In vivo studies on humans are indicating similar results. However, most research on the health benefits of the Lion’s Mane mushroom so far has been done in animals or cell cultures, and more research is needed to understand the mechanisms behind the mushroom’s functionality.
Envision a rock festival's electric pulse, where the crowd parts like the Red Sea for the imminent mosh pit. At its epicenter you find an almost primal force, shirtless and sporting long wild manes. That would be Milan in his natural habitat. Bet you wouldn't peg him for a bio-engineering whiz, but it's that very fusion of raw energy and engineering ingenuity that makes our drinks stand out. When he’s not busy crashing into other people without a shirt, Milan makes sure production goes smoothly. He’s also constantly experimenting with new techniques/ingredients to develop and improve our products.
Flashback to '06, when 50 cent ruled the airwaves, and scooby doo bracelets were worn with pride. The scene is set at a local library in Flanders. In comes our protagonist, a boy of 9 years old dragging a trolley bigger than himself, brimful with books. That’s Simon, and it’s quite hard to find a picture of young him without a book. His interest in the living world around him drove him to become a bio-engineer, but in his heart he is a storyteller. His purpose within the company is to share the SOBR story with the world and to inspire people to indulge in some clever pleasure. He also makes sure bills are paid in time and orders coffee.
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