Lowering the bar

“Dry January” always sees a surge in media interest in low-alcohol and alcohol-free beers, and they are certainly showing a substantial rise in sales, with annual increases of 6% being reported. This has led to an expansion of the selection available in supermarkets, where two or three years ago you would find very little beyond rather dull mainstream lagers and one or two rather unpleasant alcohol-free ales. My local branches of Tesco and Morrisons have both started doing three for £3 offers to appeal to customers who want to try a variety of different examples.

As I’ve reported before, this is an area of the market that I have dabbled with, so over the past couple of months I have sampled some of the newer arrivals.

• Brew Dog Punk AF (0.5% ABV) – this seemed to me to have a one-dimensional, aggressive hoppiness, whereas in Punk IPA this is balanced by the alcohol. Not to my taste at all.

• Coast Beer Co.(Belgium) Hazy IPA (0.0% ABV) – only subdued hoppiness, sweetish, citrusy flavour. Quite pleasant, but more like a vaguely beer-flavoured soft drink.

• Big Drop Brewing Company Stout (0.5% ABV) (pictured) – the pronounced stout flavour rather compensates for the lack of alcohol, although you do notice it eventually. Quite decent overall, from a new brewery specialising in low-alcohol beers.

• Brooklyn Special Effects Hoppy Lager (0.4% ABV) – darker than many IPAs, quite full-bodied, hoppy but not aggressively so. This is probably the best of these I’ve tasted – something you might well be happy to drink for its own sake.

It’s certainly true that both the range and quality of no and low-alcohol beers has shown a marked improvement over the past couple of years. I would say from these that the little bit of alcohol contained in a 0.5% beer, as opposed to a 0.0% one, does in general bring about a worthwhile improvement.

However, as I wrote around this time last year, the inherent limitations of non-alcoholic beers place a fundamental ceiling on their prospects in the marketplace, and I would say some of the more bullish projections of growth are overstated. However good they are, they will never be any more than a pale echo of normal-strength beers. They may mirror the experience of drinking it, but they omit the essential point of beer. And it’s impossible to escape the conclusion that the major brewers are promoting them partly to act as a shop window for their standard products.