We were not fans of this German offering, which gave off bad homebrew vibes. To be honest, even our very high-scoring winner would pale in comparison if tasted directly after a pint of your favourite hoppy number, so keep that in mind when you’re drinking them. We scored these in terms of what they are – alcohol-free beers – rather than comparing them to our fave regular brews. Assisted ably by tasting convenor Katy Goldring, The Spinoff’s office manager, we tried each beer blind and in random order.Ī word of warning before we delve into the results: if you’ve never tried alcohol-free beer before, don’t expect it to live up to the boozy kind (especially if you’re used to drinking high-quality, hop-forward stuff). This year’s tasting panel comprised Spinoffers Sam Brooks, Alex Casey, Duncan Greive, Calum Henderson, Stewart Sowman-Lund and me, Alice Neville. (On that note, if you’re wondering why Mac’s Stunt Double, which we’ve heard good things about, wasn’t included in this tasting, it’s because it’s out of stock everywhere). Shop around or try again a few days later and pray for replenished stock. A word of warning: if you’re struggling to get hold of any of these beers, particularly the winner, it’s because demand has been through the roof and the brewers are struggling to keep up. Some of the beers we tasted were supplied, others we bought from local supermarkets. We ditched the strict 0% requirement, tasting beers up to 0.5% (which is the legal requirement for labelling a beverage “non-intoxicating” or words to that effect). The criteria for being included in this year’s tasting were not having been part of the first tasting, which essentially means they weren’t around, or at least not widely available, back then. And with sales of low- and no-alcohol beer up 1,116% in the past five years, according to an industry study, they’d be foolish not to tap into the growing market. This time around, Kiwi brews took out the top four spots in another 11-strong lineup, suggesting not only that New Zealand brewers have caught on to the international trend for boozeless beer, but that they’ve got quite the knack for what’s a notoriously difficult process. No, I’m not suggesting these two things are related.Īnyway, back in March 2020, just one New Zealand beer featured in our lineup of 11, and it came second to last, scoring a shoddy 1.9/10. But on the upside, the quality of booze-free brews available in this country has markedly improved. Two years on, the world has been ravaged by a global pandemic. Also, to be honest, the beers we tasted were pretty bad. When we published our first non-alcoholic beer rankings, there had been just a handful of Covid cases in Aotearoa and lockdowns were still a foreign concept. Here are 11 newish offerings, reviewed and ranked. The Spinoff takes on another batch of booze-free beers, and is delighted to discover the field has come on in leaps and bounds.
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