@tom

reviewed Erdinger Alkoholfrei

Erdinger's non-alcoholic Weissbier looks the part straight out of the bottle, proper hazy gold, and a head that actually sticks around instead of collapsing into nothing the second it hits the glass, which is more than I can say for some AF attempts. Aroma's a bit shy, but still there, don't expect the exact same hit you'd get off the boozy version, but that's about the only complaint I can find. If you've not had the alcoholic version, then it could quite easily pass on it's own merit as a genuinely delicious AF beer. Taste-wise it's genuinely close to a real Weissbier: proper wheat body, soft, none of that thin watery finish that seems to plague a few AF versions. Genuinely refreshing bottled beer that I will be buying again, no question.

reviewed Proper Job IPA

Genuinely impressive. Great aroma with nice citrus notes and a touch of floral, well balanced without being overpowering. Where a lot of AF IPAs fall down is body and finis; this one doesn't. It's got real weight on the palate and the taste actually lingers after swallowing rather than vanishing, which is exactly what you want from a full-strength IPA and rarely get at 0.5%. Bitterness gives it that classic ale character, though it edges towards a touch too much for my personal palate, worth noting that's a subjective call and IPA fans who like it bitter may love this even more for it. A proper session AF IPA! Easy to drink several without it getting boring, and one of the better AF IPAs I've tried.

reviewed Lucky Saint 0.5% Hazy IPA

The pour is where it starts, no compromise here - it heads up exactly like a proper canned IPA, and that head sticks around for the whole glass rather than vanishing in the first few sips. Visually it's textbook: cloudy, pale amber and orange, the kind of look that tells you what you're getting before you've even smelled it. And the nose backs that up. Plenty of fragrance, a classic hop character that makes itself known without going up your nose and taking over. Citrus forward, but it stays IPA - it never wanders off into cider territory the way some AF IPAs have in the past. The taste is where this one properly earns it. I wasn't expecting bad, but I wasn't expecting this good either. The hop profile is close to perfect - it lingers on the tongue without ever muscling out the citrus notes sitting alongside it. And that's the bit that matters most. This is what's been missing from AF IPAs for me: that lingering hop finish. So many alcohol free IPAs get the smell and the first taste right, then the flavour just falls off a cliff - it's genuinely anticlimactic. Lucky Saint does the opposite. The flavour doesn't drop away, it quietly fades, leaving your tastebuds sat in that fresh hop character right to the end. This is my first proper review on here, and it's set a high bar. Going to be a tough one for the next IPA to beat. As someone who's embraced sober life, this is about as close to the real thing as I've had. Should honestly be the benchmark every other AF IPA gets measured against. Cheers 🍻