Sober Boozers Club
The Sober Boozers Club Podcast is brought to you by Ben Gibbs - Alcoholic. Since 2022 Ben has been sourcing and enjoying the best alcohol free beer the world has to offer and has been documenting these beverages during his sobriety journey. Ben has worked alongside craft breweries, bottle shops and sober activists to raise awareness of Grey Area Drinking and to help spread the word on the growing market that is AF/NA beverages, becoming the face of the Alcohol Free Beer Club and featuring on many podcasts, as well as securing a number of features on BBC Radio. In 2024 Ben became the first alcoholic in active recovery to win a British Guild Of Beer Writers award for commentary on beer. This podcast features experts from the Beer world, as well as Alcohol Free breweries and sober activists as we explore the world of Alcohol Free beer and sobriety.
Sober Boozers Club
The Art and Science of Alcohol-Free Beer Making Transforms an Industry
Discover the fascinating craft of alcohol-free brewing with Hamish McClellan, brewer at Barsham Brewery in North Norfolk. This engaging conversation takes you deep into the world of zero-proof beer creation, revealing why the best alcohol-free options aren't mere substitutes but masterpieces in their own right.
Hamish shares his journey from hospitality worker to passionate brewer, explaining how he found his calling through experimentation and self-education. When he joined Barsham, he came with a clear vision: to create an exceptional alcohol-free beer that would stand proudly alongside their traditional range. The result, "Stacked AF," has been winning over critics and customers alike with its remarkable depth of flavour and authentic beer experience.
What makes this episode particularly illuminating is the detailed exploration of the technical challenges involved in creating quality alcohol-free beer. While mainstream breweries often use expensive filtration systems to remove alcohol, smaller craft producers like Barsham must innovate with specialized yeasts and complex malt bills. Contrary to popular belief, brewing alcohol-free requires more skill and precision than conventional brewing, with tighter margins for error and more variables to monitor.
The conversation also touches on the unique social position alcohol-free beer occupies – not just as a choice for the health-conscious or designated drivers, but as a vital tool for those maintaining sobriety who still love beer culture. This dual purpose gives craft alcohol-free brewing a significance beyond mere product diversity.
Whether you're sober curious, a dedicated craft beer enthusiast, or simply interested in how passion and innovation can transform an industry, this episode offers invaluable insights into the present and future of brewing. Follow Sober Boozers Club on social media and seek out Barsham's beers to experience firsthand the remarkable evolution of alcohol-free craft beer.
To find out more about the wonderful world of alcohol free beer and to check in with me head to www.instagram.com/sober_boozers_club
This episode is not brought to you by any sponsors because nobody wants to sponsor me.
This is the Sober Boozers Club podcast. This podcast, we're going to talk to people from within these circles and find out a little bit about their journey. So you sit back, relax and enjoy. My guest this week is Hamish McClellan, who is one of the brewers over at Barsham Brewery. They went into the world of alcohol-free beer fairly recently and sent me a few beers, which was very kind of them. I was, to be honest, blown away by the liquid that Hamish had produced, so it's my pleasure to have him as a guest on this week's episode. Hello, how are you, mate? I'm very well. Thank you, how are you? Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty good. First time meeting, which is bizarre to do it. I feel like we're in fucking lockdown all over again, I know, I know, know, I know.
Speaker 1:it seems all dissociative, but so for those who might not know what's your name and what do you do for a living.
Speaker 2:So my name is hamish. I am a brewer here at barsham brewery, based in north norfolk and how long have you been in the brewing game?
Speaker 1:uh for Barsham.
Speaker 2:I have been here coming up for two years. It will be two years in the summer. I have been in the brewing industry for a total of about four years now, so I'm still early doors trying to cut my teeth, making myself a bit of a name, hopefully for all the right reasons.
Speaker 1:What made you want to get into brewing? What was reasons? What was it? What made you want to get into brewing? What was the thing that kind of made you want to do that? Was there a lot of breweries where you grew up or did you? Did you frequent tap rooms often? Or was it just something that you fell into? A misspent, a very misspent?
Speaker 2:youth. Well, I, um, I mean, I've always been interested in, uh, good food and drink. Um, I was very fortunate that my, my parents were big foodies. They enjoyed eating out and enjoyed going to food events and things. My parents run a catering business, so it's always been in the background of life, even whilst growing up, you know, sort of at school. Um, but I fell into that whole world through the vein of hospitality originally and to make the jump over from hospitality to production, I was what are we going back now? Five years I had two very good friends that bought a pub during lockdown. It was in the middle of the second lockdown a fantastic time to be purchasing a hospitality venue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good plan?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. It's worked out for them and they do fantastically well and I'm really really proud. But it was a hell of a punt. With the pub came a little 400-litre microbrewery attached to it in a little outbuilding. And of the three of us, whilst we were doing it up as best we could off our own backs, of the three of us I had the most amount of experience.
Speaker 2:We were all from a hospitality background, but I specifically had worked in and run several tap rooms. I'd worked in a small tap room twinned with a little microbrewery on the Norfolk-Suffolk border for a couple of years. That's actually how I met them. They were customers of mine who then became friends and then ultimately germinated into a long-time friendship and employment. And so we came into that pub, started doing it all up and in the depths of that lockdown they threw me into this little dingy back room with a load of ingredients and just played around and eventually, using what little knowledge I had and, reading up off my own back, cobbled together three separate recipes. Reading up off my own back um, cobbled together three separate recipes. Uh, if I remember correctly, it was a best bitter or a session bitter. Uh, a strong golden ale and a session ipa all tasks all done and sold through the pub through the hand pulls. And I realized that that was where my real love of produce really started blossoming and came from.
Speaker 2:And whilst I was managing the pub I tried to find every little moment I could to go back into that dingy little brew house and make some more recipes. And it just went from there really leave hospitality. I'd done it for like the best part of 10 years and I was like no, I want to, I want to have a change, and brewing has really, really taken an interest more than any sort of academia. I was a bit of a jack the lad at school I suppose you could say um and uh mainstream education and I never really got on. So I realized that if I was going to do this, I'd have to do it off my own back. So I went and found a little brewery uh, that was actually a supplier of mine and then from there, uh, went on to join them for a year and cut my teeth with them and taught me the basics, and then I eventually found myself here wow, and so early doors, you say, making like best bitters cask beers.
Speaker 1:Were they the kind of beers that you found yourself wanting to make because you enjoyed drinking them, or was it just that this is kind of it? Was not the easiest to make, but was it just out of convenience of the beers that you were making at the time?
Speaker 2:So it came partly was out of convenience. The kit that we had, whilst it was a fantastic little kit for one person, it was quite rudimentary and you know it literally was just like an all-in-one hlt mash tun copper setup with a couple of like cold water cooled fermenters. It was. It was very plain jane, um, and so cask air was the only option to produce that. We didn't have the seller set up as well in order to then produce the keg beers, and I had no knowledge about carbonating. You know keg beers and the different fermentation cycles they go through. Ironically, I was producing beers and selling them through the pub, the likes of which I didn't drink at the time. I didn't enjoy cast beer. I was brought up on the floppy american keg beer drive, so for the longest time I was making these beers, enjoy making them, but I never take. I drank them but only as like quality control, and then I relied on customers telling me they were actually nice drinkable.
Speaker 1:So you said you had like a little bit of experience prior to kind of starting. This was that like are we talking the fucking wilco homebrew kits, that sort of no.
Speaker 2:So so I have still, to this day I have never brewed on a. Well, actually that's technically now a lie, but to about maybe six weeks ago I had never brewed on a grain father homebrew kit at all. I skipped the homebrewing step completely and I regret that now because I'm in the commercial world where there are targets and KPIs and margins and everything like that and your creativity can be a little bit stifled at times. I'd love to produce like a 10% imperial stout, but I know that the huge chief base of my customers that won't sell so well, so I'm not able to produce that at the level, the size we are now.
Speaker 2:But I just in terms of early experience running the tap rooms that were linked with the brewery, every like half an hour I could find I would go into the brewery and just like, sit on a step like some sort of doughy-eyed schoolboy and watch the brewers brewing and I'd be asking I must be the I must have been the most annoying colleague to have because I was just asking them. I was like what's that? And they go these are hops. These bitter, the beer. They go in. At this point I'm like what's that vessel? And they're like this is a mash tun. This is where the grain goes, and you had to really hold my hand and lead me through it, but I was really interested to to learn, I think from there.
Speaker 1:When you get into a brewery, like if you're into it, even the smell of it. When you go into an actual when, when the brew is happening, there's a smell, but it's just like smell in the world. It's like if you're into tattoos and you smell Dettol, you're like, oh, give me some of that.
Speaker 2:Brings you back, doesn't it? So, sadly, I have become somewhat nose blind here at the brewery and during a brew day I don't find myself sinking so deeply into it. But if I've had, like a couple of days away, if I've gone and, you know, had some talks or gone to an event, and I come back and one of my colleagues is brewing and I'll drive into the yard and the steam is billowing out of the roller doors. That smell of the like the grain sparging or the kettle for boiling. Oh, it's just a fantastic smell and it just takes you right back and I have the same interest and energy about it now as I did when I first started I think it is.
Speaker 1:It does get you, doesn't it? The whole the brew? I mean, I'm very much you when you are sitting on the step asking questions. I have been told how beer is brewed and I've seen how it's brewed. If I was asked to do anything I'd be like shit. I don't like it.
Speaker 2:I know how to dry hop. You should come over and do a brew day. I'd love to go to a brew day with you. I'm so up for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it'd be fantastic that would be a real treat.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd love to have you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I'm well up for that. Which leads us nicely onto the beer that we're here to talk about, primarily yes, which is, of course, the first ever dip of the toe into alcohol free brewing from Basham, yeah, from all of us here at basham yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:How did that come about? And if it is, if it is, you know, because there are a lot of alcohol, free beers and january was coming up and it's like we need to sell a little bit more. That's not a dirty thing to say, like I think that's, that's fine, yeah, that's glad to know, because there is certainly in the.
Speaker 2:You know, we're a commercial business. We're in the business to sell beer, so you need to produce stuff in the right quantities, types and times where they're going to be. The, you know, the most exploited is the wrong word, but it's the best one I can think of no, no, I'm with you but more came around.
Speaker 2:Um, it started at my interview uh, here, um, one of my leading points based on my research that I'd done of Barsham they didn't have an alcohol-free option available at the time. Obviously, this was out the back of lockdown, where we were really starting to get back to proper quote-unquote normality and I could see from a consumer side. I could see that the alcohol-free market was exploding in popularity and a lot of producers were starting to produce really good quality alcohol-frees and there's no reason why a small, hardworking brewery such as this couldn't do the same thing. So I kind of sowed that seed, like if I come on, this is going to be a baby of mine that I really want to champion and want us to push for. So it came from that. They were really impressed and they'd wanted to do it as as well, and so it started.
Speaker 2:I mean, we, we released it obviously to the wider public not that long ago. But, like all things, there's a bit of you know lag in terms of the epicenter of it versus you actually rolling it out to the public. So the r&d has taken, especially with an alcohol-free beer, because we wanted to do it right. The r&d has taken that much longer than just cobbling together a couple of pile of brews and and then throwing it into production. So it all came around from wanting to produce a really good quality, alcohol-free alternative that people would. You know custom beer aficionados would drink and you know they could maybe tell it was alcohol-free, but they would go. This is this is perfectly drinkable compared to the rest of your alcoholic lineup. I could sit here and have multiple pints of this, the same as I could have multiple pints of your session bitter I think that is something that it really does achieve.
Speaker 1:Like and also it's it's a beer. I think that if you're in the world of alcohol-free and you're exclusively drinking alcohol-free beers like I have to because I'm a naughty alcoholic there's not really been a beer like it. Like the malt characteristics are there and it's very malt-heavy and usually with that you get like synthetic sweetness with alcohol-free and especially alcohol-free bitters and things like that and especially alcohol-free bitters and things like that. This there's just such a hit of bitterness, but in the best possible way.
Speaker 2:It's a lot, but it needs to be a lot. It's not a synthetic bitterness or an artificial bitterness, so it comes from that ethos that we have. So we're a very malt-forward brewery, so we're what's called a grain-to-glass producer. So the estate that the brewery finds itself in, the land around us, the farm grows the base marasota grains that we use to brew our beer. So it's always been at the heart of what we do. I mean our slogan is we grow, we harvest, we brew, and we wanted that to carry across to the alcohol free. Even though it was the first foray into a realm of beer that the brewery had never gone in before. We wanted there to be a really strong textile link to the rest of what Barsham is.
Speaker 2:So we absolutely put the emphasis on the malt, on the grist. So it's a really complicated grist for us. I won't say too much. I don't want to give the trade secrets away. The grist was always going to be the heart secrets away. The grist was always going to be the heart and soul of the beer and the real backbone of what we wanted our alcohol-free beer to be.
Speaker 2:So a lot of time, a lot of knowledge was was spent on making that grist as deep and complex and robust as we could. We we had some fantastic help, um, from some experts over our local maltings at chris maltings, which is only about five miles down the road. They came over and helped us, you know, made sure we hit the certain characteristics from each of the malts. We wanted to use what and how best to exploit those and we took that and we thought, you know, this is going to be the backbone of the beer If we get this right.
Speaker 2:The rest is a little bit more customizable. We can play around to see where it then kind of leads to. But if we have that really fantastic biscuity multi-body that a lot of in our market research, a lot of alcohol-free options, particularly from the bigger guys in the industry, were really lacking, we would do, you know, the market research we would do. We'd have some big names lined up with also some smaller names and the big guys were really thin. The beer was really watery, you know, and you could tell that it was. It was synthetic the word you use is really, really accurate and we didn't want our beer to be anything compared to any of those.
Speaker 1:We wanted it to stand out, you know, on its own but be related back to the, the multi backbone that is barsham yeah, I feel like with with a lot of those like macro brews, they're often going to be people's first venture into alcohol-free beer, so like the first alcohol-free beer, but most people will try as a heineken. Yeah heineken zero blue, yeah exactly I mean guinness do it quite well. I still think there's a little bit of syntheticness there.
Speaker 2:I would say from a professional side, certainly what we found. The Guinness Zero is one of the best macro brew alternatives that are out there, both compared to other alcohol-free beers but also compared to their alcoholic counterpart for their own, whereas there are some macro breweries where you have their alcohol and then their alcohol-free version, and even those two are really different. You can tell sometimes you can tell the difference even by looking at them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, massively, and I think that you know these. I was talking to someone recently about how, with alcohol-free growing as a category, actually what we're seeing is these brands having more of a foothold because more venues are taking on alcohol free and they're going to these macros that people already know. So I think that we're running the risk, as it is a growing sector, of actually kind of reducing the market share for everybody, because the more people that try this stuff when it's not very good because I'm not, you know, I'm not going to say that every alcohol free beer is good, of course it isn't. Some of it is terrible, um, and if people are trying these brews and they're not good, can you throw shade on any of the bad ones, the ones that you say are terrible?
Speaker 1:heineken is dog shit, carlsberg is dog shit, brew dog fucking awful so, funny enough, you say brew dog.
Speaker 2:Obviously you're talking about venues taking on maybe the bigger names because it's maybe more of a guarantee of, if not good quality, but at least consistency. Brewdog started off as that really punk edgy brand and they've tried to hold onto that, even though they've grown so exponentially. And they were one of the first mainstream alcohol-free beers that I started drinking. I'm not a teetoter or anything like that, but I like alcohol-free beers that I started drinking. I'm not a teetotaler or anything like that, but I I like alcohol-free beer anyway, particularly obviously the good alternatives, and I thought, looking at them, I thought brew dog. They are a brewery that I grew up on and I enjoyed all of their alcoholic products, so surely their alcohol-free is going to be great. But I tried their, I tried their hazy af or their punk af there's a punk af, there's a hazy af and there's an elvis juice so the elvis juice I haven't had, but I've had the punk af and the hazy af and the hazy af.
Speaker 2:I couldn't drink, I couldn't finish. I had it and I just thought this is it's so far removed from the alcohol version of that beer but it's so far removed from brew dog as a whole. I was so disappointed, I think it is terrible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's one brew dog beer that I didn't mind, and that was is it wingman?
Speaker 2:wingspan the wingman the new session ipa or fairly new.
Speaker 1:That session is okay. Alcohol free yeah, I can't compare it to the alcohol version, because the alcohol version didn't exist when I started drinking. Yeah, of course, of course, which is strange. It's strange that there's beers that exist now that I will have never tried because they didn't exist when I was a drinker. Another example of that is Brew York with Juice for Scythe.
Speaker 2:I've not tried the Brew York juice for Scythe, but I've seen you obviously particularly talk about the alcohol-free version and I'd love to try some. Yeah, I need to find a stockist.
Speaker 1:I suspect it was very different to the original. You think Like I can't imagine a full-alcohol beer tasting like that. Another one, thornbridge Joypore. Yeah, joypore was one of my favorite beers Like I grew up on that stuff. Jaipur and Sierra Nevada they were my two coming-of-age beers and it's different. Jaipur Alcohol-Free is different but it's still really good, so I don't mind that so much, but it's not the gnarly kind of Jaipur that you would expect from Thornbridge.
Speaker 2:Jaipur, you would expect from Thornbridge.
Speaker 1:So I suppose it's difficult, isn't it, to make a beer that kind of provides that authenticity of the brand when it's alcohol free. Like, how do you get those characteristics? How do you make sure people drink this? And this is still a Brewdog beer, people drink it and it's still a Barsham beer. It's nice that you guys took the time to make sure you got that right, because it would have been I'm not going to say it would be easy to just spaff out an alcohol-free beer, because of course it's not, but it would have been a lot easier to put out something that was simple, rather than something that was what you wanted it to be right.
Speaker 2:If you tick the box and say that we've done an alcohol-free, we could have spent a lot less time on it and, as long as the figures qualify you for an alcohol-free, you could have put it out to market. We did so much quality control and so much taste testing and self-critique as you rightly should because we were all completely unanimously in agreement that we didn't want a product that we would send out to be so different from the rest of our produce and someone drink it and go. Even if it was a decent alcohol-free pint, we didn't want them to drink it and go. This doesn't taste like a Barsham beer. Why would they put this out? So we spent a lot of time and a lot of effort making sure that, whilst it is different and it is explorative in its own direction, it's still very much related to the core of what we do is explorative in its own direction, it's still very much related to the core of what we do.
Speaker 1:What are the differences between an alcohol-free brew and a full-out brew? In terms of the process?
Speaker 2:There are different processes you can go through to achieve an alcohol-free beer. So a lot of the big guys, a lot of the macro breweries will produce. The brew process itself is exactly the same, and then to achieve the alcohol-free state, they pass it through a reverse osmosis engine so it will filter out the ethanol, replacing that obviously with water, diluting it down, and you can control that alcohol-free generation down or alcohol reduction, I should say down to like 0.05 of a percent. That's how you get zero beer. We obviously those sorts of kits are incredibly expensive. Oh my goodness. Yeah, I mean I'd love to have one. So please like to anyone go and buy barsh and beer so I can get one. I'd love that. But they are, yeah, starting price of like 300000 pounds even for the size we would need.
Speaker 2:So it's an awful lot of beer I'd have to sell. So obviously there are alternatives to achieving that. That a lot of breweries, including ourselves, certainly smaller guys, have to go down to do A series of specialist malts. So you reduce your enzyme activity. You're you know you're reducing the overall level of fermentable sugars as well. A risky balancing game, because if you reduce, reduce things by too much, the product that comes out the other end is really recognizable as being very different from the alcohol alternative, the alcohol versions of your products you can. That's where you get very thin tasting beer, very watery beer.
Speaker 2:Engine that we use is we use a specialist yeast that's been deliberately grown and designed to not ferment maltose and maltriose, which are the two primary sugars present in wort, which then ferments and becomes ethanol, and that's how you have beer. So ours will only ferment ethanol and that's how you have beer. So ours will only ferment. It still goes through a fermentation because the fermentation process is really important for the final end taste, you know, of the product you get. A lot of bitterness can drop off in fermentation. Um, you get some lovely esters, obviously that get imparted from from yeast. So there's a hugely integral part of the process. So to you, to not use yeast and have no fermentation would be disastrous, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:You'd have to be like what day is lager?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yeah, there are some. I won't say any names, but there are some closer to home.
Speaker 1:That was shady from me.
Speaker 2:That was probably not cool, it's okay, you have the platform you get to. I'm a guest, so I'm just trying to be polite.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know why I'm being such a bitch today, fucking hell, that's good.
Speaker 2:More people should just speak out and just say how it is, I suppose. But there are some locally that you know. There's an even cheaper method you can go, which is where you essentially add like dead yeasts. You know, completely inactive that sounds so bleak already.
Speaker 2:So, so bleak. And obviously, because you don't get any fermentation, they have to force carbonate it in in, regardless of the packaging. So whether they can it bottle it, you know, keg doesn't matter, you have to force carbonate it to get that fizz that we all associate with a nice pint of beer. And that forced carbonation process dries the beer out to like the nth degree and it's you. You taste it and it's bitter and dry and flat, you know, ironically flat, and you, just, you just think this there's. So there's so many better ways. With a little bit of effort you could go about achieving this from some names that are really quite established within the industry. So you know, I was when we set out. I was like I definitely do not want us going down that route. If we're going to decide, if the conversation starts going down there, shelve the whole product, yeah, the whole project, until we're ready to do it properly but of course a lot can still go wrong when you're doing it properly yes and, quite tragically, in the.
Speaker 1:I mean you. I'm sure you won't mind me saying you had a few little hiccups, but you are not alone in that. Being in this world and surrounding myself with alcohol-free beer, I have heard stories of exploding cans, horror stories Like yeasts getting excited and continuing like turning a 0.5 beer into a 3 alcohol beer, you know, aiming towards the no alcohol 0.5 percent and below boundary, but it wasn't a a hard line um and they produced it.
Speaker 2:it's a very nice beer. I had the pleasure of drinking the last of the stock of it, just as I joined um in bottle form. But during the fermentation process the yeast got a bit carried away and it turned the 0.5, 0.8% planned ABV into a 2.5% beer and so they ended up changing tack and we decided to have a table beer for a while and it was a lovely, lovely beer. But we said like if we're going to do this again, we have to get that 0.5% ceiling. You know we have to come underneath that. I haven't had Touchwood to this day. I haven't had any exploding cans or anything like that. We ourselves don't do the packaging. We send a bulk amount of the raw beer off to our packages and they're very, very good, very consistent, and they do our bottling and our canning and we're very happy with them. I have had my tragedy.
Speaker 2:We used and I can say this, I'm happy to include this bit of the recipe because we no longer include it for this very reason we used flaked torrified rice in the first pilot brew of this Well, I say the first pilot brew in the first small single batch that we produced and on the particular brew kit that we were brewing it on. It's a slightly more modern kit with a bit more modular design and it had the base plate in the mash tun, had drill holes as opposed to like your kind of traditional lined grating, and using the superheated temperatures that we were using at the time, it basically gelatinized the rice, turned it into like a cement pad on the bottom of the mash tun and caused a vacuum underneath and snarled all my kit up. And there's a photo where everyone was really trying to lighten the mood. We were trying for maybe two hours to save the mash and you know you're getting to the point where there's so many processes that have gone on within that longer than they were ever designed to or you ever wanted them to, that even if you could save the solution, what you'd get out the other end would be totally unusable and we ended up pulling the plug.
Speaker 2:And there's a photo somewhere in our record books. There's a photo of everybody gathered around the mash tun. I've opened the door and let the mixture spill onto the floor and I'm blading it up into waste bags and everyone's kind of laughing and everyone's trying to be upbeat about it and in the background, if you look really really closely, there's me and you can just see like a single tear rolling down my cheek because I was absolutely crest. I was crestfallen. Yeah, it really was. That was a lot. That was a hard, hard day hard day at work.
Speaker 1:You were you close after that to saying, maybe in a few years, but not right now. Or was it just a right? Let's learn from this. What can we do different? Let's continue to grow it. Obviously you've got the monetary implications. That can't go on forever.
Speaker 2:If, if it, you know, yeah, absolutely and and there was certainly was a there certainly was a feeling from myself of like I'm in way over my head and I don't want to not only cost the business more money, but I don't want to run the risk of, you know, trying again and people losing faith in me and I losing faith in myself. But I'm surrounded by a fantastic team here. We all, you know we're a small team. We all chip together each other on the back when we do a good job and tell each other honestly, when we do a bad job and we sort of picked ourselves up and go, you know there's going to be teething problems. You know, to nail it on the very first attempt would have been amazing, but incredibly rare, I think, for anyone. So we, we just we just packed up, tidied away back to the drawing board or back to the brew sheet, looked at what we could do differently, and and and carried on. And the very next time we did it, we got a product packaged up that was drinkable and we thought, right, well, that's already a step. You know, the very fact it's got to the next vessel was a step in the right direction. So mind, never mind. We were able to actually drink it, you know, after a couple of weeks and it just, yeah, just, it just went from there and each little critique we had from both ourselves and, you know, wider tasting audiences that we started to involve, um, we took that and we learned and we applied the knowledge that we have.
Speaker 2:But also, because we were treading in kind of uncharted waters, we did a lot of learning on the job. My colleague andy, the head brewer here, he's been in the industry for 40 years and he had never brewed an alcohol-free beer either, at a you know true alcohol-free level. So we were both, you know, really learning on the job. But that gave a gave a certain sense of energy of you know, if we get this right, you know we're going to do something that Barsham's never done before and that's fantastically exciting. And so the passion for it even during the setbacks, if anything, the passion grew and grew and grew and we're now got to a point where people like yourselves that are really knowledgeable in the field are paying us compliments on the products we've produced. And that's, you know, ultimately to see your hard work come out in the right direction, with people from all walks of life enjoying it, that's, that's the best motivation that we have yeah, that was that was.
Speaker 1:My next question was how. How has it been received generally by the wider public and by, like specifically from barsham customers? Yeah, how has how has that been received?
Speaker 2:it's been. It's been received really, really well. Um, we've, you know, we, we, we do it in, obviously, in small packing cans like you've had yourself. We also do it, um, in a some kegs and we do it in 30 liter kegs to some select you know customers, you know really loyal customers that we have. The feedback across the board, from people within the trade to just day drinkers, has been really positive. People have blown away by you know how complex and multi and deep that an alcohol-free beer can can be and we've had people you know the greatest compliment is people drink it and go. If you told me that that wasn't alcohol-free, I wouldn't have known that. I take that every time I hear that comment. I take that comment and run. That's fantastic to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the goal, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, that's the goal.
Speaker 1:Because I mean, I've always said this People that are drinking full-alcohol beer, people that are drinking alcohol-free beer, the majority of us just want a nice beer Like ABV doesn't come into it for the majority of drinkers. I mean, it did for me for a little bit, but I'm a self-confessed alcoholic. Like most normal people that drink beer do it for the taste of it. So if you can have something that's no ABV or 0.5 ABV, which is nothing, then like run wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, if it tastes good drink it, and I think, particularly nowadays, in the more in the younger drinking audience, people are choosing deliberately to maybe spend a little bit more money on a much better pint, but they're not fussed about what that pint is in terms of strength or color or style. You know, they want to try new things and as long as the quality of that product that comes over the bar is really good and it tastes great, they'll go back for more, even if it's something that up to that point they never otherwise would have ordered. And the same should be attributed. That same level of passion and introspection should be attributed to alcohol-free beers as well. There are some fantastic producers of alcohol-free coming out now where you drink it and go.
Speaker 2:I don't need to drink the 5% alternative of this. Whether I'm teetotal or not, you know this is a really nice tasting product. The same with, you know, a really good steak. We attribute so much less criticism on food. If it tastes fantastic, you go. Well, you know that steak's been hand reared for two years and it's had a very good life, and I don't mind paying the extra £10 from the butchers per kilo or, you know whatever. The same sort of thought process should be attributed to the drinks, to the beer industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really good point actually, because a lot of people, like there's still a level of people call it snobbery, like people are in, like you see the videos of people mocking craft beer nerds.
Speaker 2:I was going to. I wanted to talk about this. Go on, I wanted to sorry, I wanted to you cut out there for a moment. I wanted to talk. Obviously there was that. You've quite recently, in terms of times of this recording, you obviously had that discussion. We'll say, to be polite, politely, with that particular bar, lowlander Grand Cafe. Shame them, your platform, I'll um, but yes, and and that you know, even if it's it's tongue in cheek, you know you are that behavior, whether it was for alcohol free or for gluten free or vegan, it doesn't matter. That sort of behavior is going to alienate a, is going to alienate a larger and larger chunk of your potential audience as tastes diversify and expand. And that snobbery, as you so so well put it, that snobbery does and should cost people custom, because it's that sort of thinking or the the opposite correct way of thinking does matter I think with.
Speaker 1:So with like alcohol-free beer, it occupies a really strange place in the world because it's something for everybody to enjoy and it can be enjoyed by everybody, like people that are just moderating or driving or zebra striping or whatever, like people that want day drinks but don't want to be pissed. But there's also a section of people that is it's actually a tool for their sobriety. So it occupies the space of being a nice beverage in the beverage industry. But then it occupies another space where it's actually I'm not going to say it's a part of public health.
Speaker 2:But it is. It's a tool for people's you know enjoyment if, if, if that option didn't exist or was deliberately suppressed by I'd still be drinking booze. Yeah, hands down if it was suppressed before without it.
Speaker 1:I wouldn't be here without alcohol-free beer and it sounds so grand a statement, but for me, I loved beer. I didn't want to be without beer. The thought of like living the rest of my life without having a pint ever again was like, oh, if I can't do anything, but I enjoy, what's the point? Obviously I've got more in my life than just beer. That would be really awful it's up there.
Speaker 2:It's in the top three, though. Beer, as it should be in everyone's life.
Speaker 1:Beer should be in the top three yeah, for sure, and and, and. That is still the case now.
Speaker 2:I drink more now than I ever used to when I was a big but you drink from a totally different perspective in terms of you drink for an enjoyment and you appreciate the craft and the effort that's gone into producing that really fantastic product.
Speaker 1:My God, my respect for the liquid since has gone through the roof. Yeah, and the more I talk about it, the more I love it. And you know we talked earlier about the smell. When you go into a brewery, I smell that and it's like this is where I belong. Yes, even though I've, like I say I wouldn't know how to fucking brew a beer. Like I am, I am the biggest imposter in this industry. I am just some guy that drank too much fucking Red Stripe and then decided to get into an alcohol-free beer. But yeah, going back to Lowlander Grand Cafe when they put that video out, just the suggestion that if you drink alcohol-free beer, you are worth less to us than if you drink full-out beer. And in my brain it was do you think I wouldn't drink full out beer if I could? Like I can't drink that shit anymore? I would love to, but you can't make me feel like I'm any less valuable no, for the stuff that I drink, no one has we've discussed the process earlier.
Speaker 1:It's the. The actions, if you're brewing it to strength, are the same. You've got to brew it it it's science, man. I mean, if anything, the effort take you know that's taken to produce an alcohol-free beer is greater than the effort taken to produce the alcoholic variant, and so the respect as a full elk also brewer, because I get a lot of people on here that don't drink alcohol or don't make alcohol saying, oh, it's probably more difficult, and the cynic in me goes do we just want it to be more difficult?
Speaker 2:To produce a good quality one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I can only speak from my own personal experience, but I've done hundreds of alcoholic brews here now at Barsham in my near two years that I've been here and I can do some of them almost on autopilot, and a brew day is a total switch off For the alcohol-free.
Speaker 2:There's so many more variables involved. There's so much more data that you need to take and compress and you know, keep an eye on during the process. You know the margins are so much more fine, is a lot more stressful. It is a lot more responsibility to in order to produce it because ultimately the end margin you have to work in, either it being 0.5 or below, is a lot stricter and you need to apply that determination and discipline all the way through the process to hit that every time because you have to be consistent do you think that the the increase in popularity with alcohol-free beer is going to be one of those movements, like the craft beer movement was, or do you think that it will be a little bit of a flash in the pan and then we'll kind of go backwards a little bit?
Speaker 2:I think you touched on it really nicely earlier.
Speaker 2:We are running the risk of the macro boys taking almost total ownership and because of that the passion for it, both from a producer but also from a consumer, will diminish, and particularly on the consumer side will diminish.
Speaker 2:And particularly on the consumer side. If the passion for it diminishes, the demand for better, more varied alcohol free will will diminish and we may well see it fade into not necessarily obscurity, because I do think. I do think alcohol free variants of all drinks are here to stay, but they will become the like back shelf label that you'd recognize. You'd be able to spot it, you know, from the big brands a million miles away, but it will never enter your mind as something you go out to the shops to deliberately buy. So I think we run the risk of that a little bit. I really I do think alcohol free is here to stay and it's up to us as smaller, arrogantly use the word better producers than the macro guys. It's up to us to keep producing exciting, new, varied products, including the alcohol-free variants, to keep the consumer engaged and enthused, as to what we're doing.
Speaker 1:What do you think is next to come for for that to happen? Do you think that the transition to obviously cask is never going to happen, but certainly on tap?
Speaker 2:do you think that that has to be the way forward, like pints in hand, yeah, I mean, you know, certainly one of the biggest selling points we'll call it that our stacked AF has for us is we are able to keg it and we get it to a pub or in our own tap room that we have here on site and someone can have a quote, unquote, you know, draft pint or a poured pint of alcohol-free beer, and you sit it down and two people are sat at the bar and you'd never know which one was drinking alcohol-free and which one wasn't, if they were at all. That's a big, big selling point and that needs to. You know, the emphasis on that cannot be overstated. The canning, obviously, you know, small pack drinking at home exploded in popularity post-covid and that's kept on. So I don't think that will, that will go anywhere.
Speaker 2:I would love science to allow us to do a cask version. You know, and I'm sure if you really applied yourself there could be some way. You could maybe, maybe, or at least you could maybe produce a product that was cask adjacent. But at you know, a commercial level there is a financial risk in trying all of that and if it doesn't take off, you chalk it up to a failed attempt and you move on of cask ale and to have an alcohol-free badge on that banner that we should be so proud to fly would be a massive feather in our cap.
Speaker 2:That would be wild. Yeah, it'd be amazing. It'd be amazing, I mean I would. I would go a considerable number of miles to go and have a alcohol-free cask beer variant.
Speaker 1:You know, I think that would be really interesting to be able to have onefree cask beer variant. You know, I think I'd kill a man to be able to have one A cask beer variant. Yeah, absolutely, because I'm with you, like, I mean, I love beer as a whole and I love cask beer and I love that it exists, and even as someone that doesn't drink it anymore, I still love to see it in a pub. I love to go to pubs that serve it. To be able to have an alcohol-free hand in hand with that would be incredible. Yeah, yeah, that's. But yeah, we've got to stay in our lane a little bit. I think we're already getting like fantastic beers coming out and it's gonna it's gonna be exciting to see where it goes over the next three years.
Speaker 2:A little bit of patience you know I think will be rewarded um from the from the alcohol-free crowd. You know there's a will be rewarded um from the from the alcohol free crowd. You know there's a huge movement still existing around it and it's still got so much energy and buzz behind it that I don't think is going anywhere fast at all. If anything, I think it's growing, which is which is great. You know which is which is fantastic, because you know it's. It's not only coming from uh, you know a necessity side. It's coming also from there's a health conscious side to it. People are now deliberately seeking out better quality and better for you versions of the food and drink they like to consume, and alcohol free can fall into that category. So having a product that can be be accessed, you know, through different, you know multi is multifaceted is only a benefit to it itself as a product do you see any more alcohol free coming from you guys in the future, or is it something that with with the stacked af?
Speaker 1:are you kind of happy with that as a part of your range, where I mean it's fine if you are, because it's a fantastic beer. Thank you. There's no need to have multiples if it doesn't fit in with the repertoire. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:There's been two things that I wanted to produce here at barsham when I came on board. The first was an alcohol free and the second was a lager. We need different bits of kit and more investment in order to produce the lager, but I do really want us to produce one. Can we apply the same science and understanding then to uh, to a lager that we apply to the alcohol free and make an alcohol free variant? Yes, the science is possible. Yes, we could do it.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, be open and honest and say that whilst the uptake of our stacked af has been really positive and the reviews have been great and people are loving it, it still is dwarfed in terms of overall number of sales compared to the cask alcoholic beers and our other alcoholic keg range, as is the way with everyone that produces an alcohol-free beer. Um, so, you know, were I able to mave, wave, you know a magic wand, or shake a magic money tree and produce an alcoholic and a non-alcoholic version of every beer we produce? I would love to do that with absolute surety. That we could produce all of them to the same quality every time, that everyone would drink them, high and low. That would be brilliant. Do I have to base myself a little bit in the real world.
Speaker 2:Yes, I would like to produce, yeah, the, the, the lager, and then to produce an alcohol-free lager would would be a really. I think that would be almost like a really nice full circle, at least for me personally to go. I came here with two core objectives and I've produced both of them to really good quality, and I've even taken one of them a step further and produced an alcohol-free variant and that's gone down really well. I have achieved what I set out to achieve. I think you've got to be realistic, haven't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do.
Speaker 1:Within hospitality and beer. As a whole, the industry has taken some real shit over the last few years. So, these establishments aren't going to be around if people aren't careful and if we don't look after them. So I think the fact that you've got a alcohol-free beer in your repertoire, like that's, that's good enough for me. If the lager comes, I'll be very, very, very curious to try it.
Speaker 2:That would be very interesting ben, I promise if, if we produce an alcohol-free lager, you will be one of the first to know split it be definitely.
Speaker 1:Thank you, hamish for coming to talk to me. It's been it's been really nice. It's been really really nice. Thank you for having me over this um medium yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's obviously a little bit different for me. I've seen, I've what, I watch your videos and I see you in front of a camera. So this doesn't feel alien to me at all, because alien.
Speaker 1:This is like the same space that, like all the reels, are filmed, except that I recognize normally pointing this way, I recognize like the orientation for it.
Speaker 2:I was like, oh, I bet that's the same room. I know exactly where he films.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, it's the same. The same damn wall. Um, thank you you for your work in making this alcohol-free beer happen. It's been to be honest with you. I think it's probably my beer of the year so far. Wow. I know we're only in February.
Speaker 2:We are only in February, but bear in mind in.
Speaker 1:January I probably drank more beers than I'll drink for the rest of the year combined, so like that's already something right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely of the year combined. So like that's already something right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean just just you saying that you like it is more than good enough for me to be a potential beer of the year for someone like you. I'll take that and run take that alcoholic like me.
Speaker 1:You take care, brother.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, ben I bloody love beer and I love talking to people that make beer. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Sober Boozers Club podcast. My name is Ben Gibbs. You can find me on all the socials at Sober Boozers Club To check out what Hamish is doing. Go and find some Barsham Breweries beers, because it's just so good. Until then, you take care.