mcld.co.uk

Just in time for Dry January - we made it to 250! Two hundred and fifty alcohol-free beers, from 20 different countries, ranked and rated, in our delightfully geeky spreadsheet. To celebrate it, in this thread below are some of our absolute favourites:

• Brulo, a Scottish brewery, makes a fabulous range of beers, almost all of them memorably good - for me, the "dry-hopped stout" is an absolute winner: foamy head, full-bodied stout with a touch of coffee, and a gentle crisp hoppiness. Unbelievably good for a 0.0% dark beer. --- You should also check out their "Sabro Galaxy IPA" which is also delicious.

• Can Belgian-style beers really be made alcohol free? Surely not, they're so strong! Well not until Force Majeure, a Belgian brewery - thier Tripel really has to be tasted, it's a fabulous achievement. A serious rendition of the Belgian "tripel" style but with no alc. Great frothy head, and a complex, banana-y but not overly sweet flavour, hint of black pepper and very well rounded.

• No Worries (by Lervig, Norway) - The "No Worries" beers were a revelation when we discovered them - truly Norway's finest. The original "No Worries" is a delicious IPA, and there's plenty I could say about it's great taste and body. But then! There's also a grapefruit version that's delcious and zingy, a pineapple version that's lots of fun. And the excellently-named "No Worries Driving Home For Christmas", a delightful dark (but not heavy) Christmassy ale, with a great foamy head and a lovely balanced taste of cinnamon. You should look out for the funky "No Worries" can design whichever version you find.

• We have officially drunk 70 alcohol-free IPAs, but there's exactly ONE which comes out on top every single time: Playground IPA, by the Dutch brewery Van de Streek. We've done multiple blindfold taste tests and nothing beats this: a lovely clear IPA taste and mouthfeel, and the balanced but detailed hoppy flavour you want.

• The best alcohol-free pale ale we've had recently is from the UK's Brewgooder. As soon as we poured this one we could tell it was going to be phenomenal, a pure great pale ale. Smells great, pours great. Then on drinking it’s a really tasty pale ale, with lovely frothy mouthfeel. And it's a true 0.0%! You should try this one, for sure.

• The UK is also producing some gorgeous alcohol-free IPAs. The breweries you need to know are Brulo, Big Drop and Northern Monk. I really liked Northern Monk's "Super Stredge" - A delightful IPA with a hazy look, a great ringing whack of mosaic dry-hopping, and a mineral finish. Also Big Drop's "Citra 4 hop" pale ale - they've been experimenting with various hop combinations and I think their "4 hop" is perhaps the peak.

• Want a wheat beer? The Netherlands also has you covered for that. The beer is "Vrijwit" from Brouwerij 't IJ in Amsterdam. It's a delightful Belgiian wheat beer! Frothy head, a complex full flavour, well-balanced and satifsying. If you prefer a German-style wheat, "Maisel's Weisse" is absolutely my favourite.

• Lowlander (yes, it's Dutch!) is a fabulous brewery that does a lot of sustainable work - they use surplus fruit to make new beers, for example - and they have a lot of interesting alcohol-frees. One you should know is the Lowlander "Cool Earth Lager", which is a delicious hoppy lager, with a mild hint of lemongrass sliding into the aftertaste.

• I have to tell you about the Polish beer called "For.rest". It's a crazy idea but a great result: the Polish "Nepomucen" brewery decided to use a heck of a lot of spruce pine to replace the "tang" of alcohol - what a great idea! The strong pine - there's more spruce in this than hops - "replaces" the alcohol sharpness brilliantly. Could be fizzer. But honestly it's great, and really memorable.

• How about something floral? My final Dutch recommendation is this recent discovery of "Bloesem Bluf" which has a delightful flowery flavour (some blossoms in the ingredients?) - slight mango smell, and lavender/violet tastte. Frothy/fizzy mouthfeel and good head - a soft and interesting pale-blonde beer.

When we started this nonsense back in "Dry January" 2019 we had no idea that Europe was going to produce such a burst of really innovative alcohol-free brewing. The only credible beer I was aware of back then was Nanny State. Our spreadsheet officially confirms that there are now at least 147 which are worth your time, scoring 7 or higher! Here's the spreadsheet or as PDF version