Sober Boozers Club

The Craft Revolution: How Alcohol-Free Beer Became Extraordinary

Ben Gibbs Season 2 Episode 10

The world of alcohol-free beer has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past year, evolving from niche curiosity to craft revolution. In this conversation with Martin Dixon (Alcohol-Free World), we explore the extraordinary developments redefining zero-alcohol brewing and drinking culture.

We dive deep into the UK craft beer scene, where pioneers like Mash Gang have revolutionized brewing techniques for alcohol-free IPAs. Their willingness to share knowledge rather than guard brewing secrets has accelerated innovation throughout the industry, creating a rising tide that lifts all brewers. The result? A market flooded with exceptional hazy IPAs that would have been unimaginable just three years ago.

Beyond the craft explosion, mainstream breakthroughs like St Austell's Proper Job alcohol-free ale represent pivotal moments for traditional bitter drinkers seeking authenticity without alcohol. Similarly, Guinness Zero has done more than perhaps any other product to legitimize alcohol-free beer in public consciousness, changing perceptions one perfect pour at a time.

The international scene offers equally impressive innovations, with Sweden's Omnipollo creating extraordinary fruit-forward experiences through their Bianca series. These technical marvels demonstrate how far alcohol-free brewing has advanced – delivering flavor profiles more intense than their fruity inspirations.

Most encouragingly, we're witnessing the normalization of alcohol-free choices. The stigma is rapidly fading, with more people comfortable ordering these options without explanation or justification. "Zebra drinking" – alternating between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages – is becoming common practice, with quality brews making the transition seamless.

Whether you're sober curious, cutting back, or simply appreciate great beer without the effects of alcohol, there's never been a more exciting time to explore the alcohol-free landscape. Join us as we celebrate how far the industry has come and speculate on its promising future.

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Speaker 1:

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. In today's episode, I am joined by the king of alcohol-free beer. That sounds dramatic, but this man is. I call him the oracle, because what he doesn't know about alcohol-free beer isn't worth knowing. Quite frankly, it is my friend, martin Dixon, aka Alcohol-Free World, and you can't run an alcohol-free beer podcast without having this man on. It's the law. The last time I had you on, martin, I was I'm gonna admit something now I was really quite nervous because to me, you were like the holy grail, the oracle of alcohol-free beer. Today, in this year's episode, I'm welcoming you on as a friend, and that is lovely to say.

Speaker 2:

So, martin, hello my good friend, how are you Very well and very happy to be speaking to you again. My good friend Ben and I was nervous before I spoke to you this time last year as well, because I wasn't sure if the person I was seeing on the socials was was as authentic as the person I was gonna gonna meet on the chat and go on to become a very good friend of. So, yeah, this doesn't feel so much as a podcast interview, just as a bit of a long overdue catch-up.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's, that's how I've kind of been seeing this all day. It's like obviously we've known that we've had the recording booked in, so to speak, for for this evening, as it is currently at time of recording, um, and I haven't been thinking, oh, I've got a podcast to do later. It's been, oh, I'm chatting to martin later, that'll be cool, um, and you run the risk then of when we, when we started this call before the recording started, I really had to rein myself in and be like, all right, don't just talk for an hour now, because you've got to record this as well, but it would have been an easy trap to fall into. The last 12 months have been wild in the world of alcohol-free beer. How have you navigated that? What's been exciting, you? And do you see it kind of slowing down, or do you think this is just the tip of the iceberg?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the last 12 months has been a crazy 12 months almost like no other, just in terms of both volume and quality of alcohol-free beer coming out. I think also for me. I've got a foot in several countries, several camps. I order beers from all over the world. I've actually got a lot more relaxed and chilled out in the last 12 months, because I cannot ever keep up even with one country, and a year ago I was still kind of pretending that I could, and now it's just really good because I know that I can't. I like that. So I'm just really excited that there are just so many exciting beers coming out of the UK, coming out of America, coming out of america, coming out of australia, all over europe. Great new things happening in sweden, where I live. It's great.

Speaker 1:

I don't have to try everything, I just try the good stuff, try and find some new stuff, and I'm just constantly wowed and surprised by the the great things that are coming out I need to take a leaf out of that book because I'm still, I think, in the kind of FOMO stage where a beer will get released that I'm really excited about and I think, right, I need to push that up the recording list, and then that keeps happening, and then I'll discover a beer at the back of my fridge that's like, oh, they're not even brewing that anymore and I haven't done anything about it. So no, you've got to throw that out. And then people want to buy it and it's like you can't. It's. It's a problem I didn't think I'd have.

Speaker 1:

When I started in the alcohol-free beer kind of scene, I was worried that I'd only have maybe like 20 30 beers a year to talk about. I was like, oh, there can't be that many, surely? But it's I mean for you more so than me. It's like a beer every day a different beer. It's just wild, like the quantity and, as you say, and the quality of them. Now, like being at the point that you can just pick the ones that sound good. You're not drinking it just because you have to produce content. That's quite a special place to be at it's a wonderful thing.

Speaker 2:

and the last there there are beers which I'm, which I'm drinking, and I'll give them a small plug, but I'm currently drinking a can of gold medal winning from me, mass Gang Pine Lime Death Shake, which is just a wonderful creamy, he-lime IPA that works on all kinds of levels. It's a brilliant beer and that's a beer that's come out in the last 12 months, but it seems like that was like that was from a, from an eternity ago yeah, yeah, like I still place that beer in in.

Speaker 1:

I mean, this isn't going to be relevant to anyone but me, but when I think of that beer I think of my old house and that that was a long time ago. It was like years ago when I first got sober. But yeah, in the last 12 months that beer was released. That's ridiculous, and you're right, it is a banger.

Speaker 2:

Everything about it works. I think it's Trent from Match Gang Australia's recipe, so shout out to Trent for that one.

Speaker 2:

Big love to Trent, absolutely. It's a beer that I've got one can left and I don't love you that much, ben. I'm drinking the last can with you now. This is my penultimate can, and the thought that having just one can of it left kind of makes me a bit sad. So I'll probably leave it too long and drink it when it's not at its best, which is what you should do with all your favorite beer, really. Just wait till it's boiled a bit yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

There's no point in in drinking it when it's good. Right, you've got to look at it for long enough to have got the full like enjoyment out of it. I've got a can of kitty pig beer in my fridge that jord from mashgang sent me and I haven't opened it because it's so out of date I'm like I don't want to um and I I spoke to um. I spoke to tyler, a reducerholic. I mentioned this beer and said, like you know, I've got it in my fridge, I'm scared to drink it said, oh, it's been pasteurized, it'll be fine, but the like, the, the hypochondriac in me is still like I don't really want to open that.

Speaker 1:

But it's one of those beers that if I'd have just opened it when George sent it to me, I'd have been able to drink it, because I don't see another route to me being able to get that other than paying hundreds of pounds for import from america. So that's a shame, that is a great shame. But back to the pine lime. It is just it's a beer. I mean the beers were trent, made over there are just incredible, like mash gang brews. You know we, we know them, we love them. But to have been lucky enough to have tried those ones from australia.

Speaker 1:

That's like next level to me, I think especially considering in australia they don't have that many really alcohol free sort of beers coming out to have had that just on their door. They don't know how lucky they were.

Speaker 2:

My supreme, my supreme champion beer of 2024 was my gang's beat goon, which is just. I still think alongside Guinness Zero, it's the greatest alcohol-free brewing achievement. It's just a genius of a brew and I've never met anyone who disagrees. The only thing is that there are so few people who got to try it. I know that you did. A few people we know in the States even managed to get hold of it, and it's just.

Speaker 1:

It was incredible, it was. It's going to sound so ridiculous. It may be a bit emotional, because I'd done an episode with Trent and I've got to know him quite well since and his kind of journey into it. It was all just kind of by accident and it was all it was for so many struggles for him, and then to have released that it was, it was amazing, um, and I just I really hope that these beers continue to, to exist in some form, because, my god, the world is a better place for them existing.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. But I also know that because all of the Math Gang guys were so generous with their time and so generous with their knowledge. And I remember when they did the collabs with the Brewers' Garden in Croatia and then the beers reappeared without the collab branding and they were very, very, very similar, albeit different enough to be to be different beers. And I remember thinking like these guys are sharing the ip, everything's unique about their beer and they're just going to other places and sharing it. And george said to me that well, if we were to go in armed with like rings of paper and sign contracts and do it with every person we were trying to work with, he said we wouldn't have got anywhere and done hard work, attend to the collapse we wanted to do. And he said also, when we were starting, nobody treated us and forced us to sign all sorts of NDAs. When we were talking to a brewer, he just said look, we're just paying it back, we're just sharing this knowledge around. Look, we're just paying it back, we're just sharing this knowledge around.

Speaker 2:

And that has been such a boon for the alcohol-free brewing industry globally because this new technology that was emerging and I say technology because it was it was techniques, it was science. It was a bunch of people doing stuff that they shouldn't be doing, because people who know how to brew know that that's not how you do that and that could be at that temperature and don't put those in there yet and wait for that. It wasn't like that. It was people who hadn't learned all of that side and we're just trying to make the alcohol-free stuff taste great by trial and error and they learned some.

Speaker 1:

They learned stuff yeah, well, you look like hazy IPAs that exist now. I don't think I've had a bad one in like six months from UK breweries and that's JORD. Like let's not beat around the bush. That is JORD, that is MASHGANG. They are responsible for that. Look at what they did with Verdant and then.

Speaker 2:

Ayer subsequently. Yeah, and you could do do like a six degrees of separation or you could do like a serial killer, like spring mat type thing I'm sure jordan liked the idea of that. But yeah, like spring going off to all sorts of like, like different brewers in the uk, and you'd be like, okay, well, there was a collab with this one and this one, and then left-handed giant work with them, and then work with them, and then that's that, and then they, and it all leads back to road lead back to jordan.

Speaker 1:

I said I've been saying this for a year, though, but mash gang are gonna gonna go down as one of the most important companies to exist in uk drinking culture and at the time I was saying they'll they'll never get the credit for this. Obviously, now they're in a very different position, what with the acquisition and them going on to, hopefully, global heights, so they probably will get the credit for it, which is which is well and truly deserved. But the styles of beer that are coming out of the uk right now like january this year, which we will, we will touch upon because it was nearly ruined me financially but these styles of beers, they're just. As I say, I haven't had a bad one in about six months. It's just, it's just all really good, which is difficult for me because it's kind of what do I say about this one? It's good. Next, oh yeah, that's good as well. Shit, when are we going to get one that I can be a bit controversial with?

Speaker 2:

it was a real thing that there was. I felt that there was almost like a bit of an arm break going on in alcohol-free beer where, particularly in the uk, where in the craft thing there was a lot of pride, that kind of crafted, where the real flavor is. And that's where you know we don't like these macro lagers. You know this is double IPA, this is triple IPA, this is imperial stout territory, this is the place where you know strong stuff is made and this is 7%, 8%, 9%, and there is that in the world of craft brewing. We both recognize that and almost when it first and grudging respect in that space felt to me that the alcohol-free side of things was trying to get itself noticed in that space and trying to really have as much flavor in it as possible. And we saw some incredible beers. I remember Pixie by Tatara. I couldn't believe it. When I like poured that one, it was like almost the colour of caramel milk was loopy, it had an incredible nose on it. It was just it was all of those just hot flavours, just concentrated, and it was just like wow, okay, this is a beer that is going to end once and for all people saying like wow, okay, this is a beer that is going to end once and for all People saying that, well, you know, it's a bit thin, it hasn't got much flavor, it's like no, like, have a can of that, have a can of Pixie, and tell me that you think alcohol-free beer hasn't got enough flavor, because I guarantee that's got too much flavor for most people who want to drink that sort of thing. Yeah, I was about to say it's. It goes almost too far. That one. It's like yeah, and it felt, it's felt to me, that it's felt to me since that there's been a lot more and, to link it to the theme of the last 12 months, that there's a lot more kind of connect.

Speaker 2:

I feel coming through now and a lot more people saying you know what we've got the tools to to crank up every aspect of this to crazy levels. You know what We've got the tools to crank up every aspect of this to crazy levels. But you know what? That's really not what this is about. You don't need that. That's not where the best beer isn't just turning everything up to 11. The best beer is finessing it, using the taste that I actually making the beer.

Speaker 2:

That yeah, wow, oh, oh, I like that nice transition, length to it, depth to it, interesting things there, things that you maybe haven't tried, things that work differently, but things that go together and make you go, oh, yeah, yeah, that's, that's a great bit and that's what you mentioned.

Speaker 2:

You know, the great pale ale, the great hazy stuff coming out the uk. It's just yeah, it's fantastic and's going to be interesting to see if that kind of plateaus now and do we just kind of set that there's just going to be an endless supply of great limited edition beer in that category, or are we going to see some beers emerging that aren't limited editions, that are then just kind of picked up and brewed solidly, that aren't limited editions, that are then just kind of picked up and brewed solidly? One of the beers I can get in my state-owned liquor shop in Sweden is the Cloudwater Fresh and that for me that's a really good example of just a really solid hazy IPA that I now know. I can go to the Sipienbelaget near me in Stockholm and I can get a few cans of that, and that's a hell of a lot easier than transporting beer in suitcases and all the other things that I have to do to make sure that I get my craft fix of good alcohol-free stuff here in Sweden.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that Cloudwater Fresh and like beers like that. They're just everyday smashable beers. It's like, okay, this is much nicer than where the industry was at three years ago, even two years ago, where it was like, okay, I've got my nice beers. I mean, I've got my supermarket beers, where I buy the best that I can find, because that's how I was living.

Speaker 1:

My life for a long time was kind of I had a supply of like lucky saint, etc. Which is fine, it's good, but it's not that exciting anymore, whereas now I can go onto websites or go into bottle shops and think, okay, I'll have these ones that I've drank before but that I know are really solid and really really good. I do hope that breweries start to release more like lasting brews rather than these, these limited editions. That's one thing, but I noticed in january was the amount of limited edition brews and it's like, okay, are we? The cynic in me says that it was just for January, but if I was to be optimistic, I'm hoping that maybe it was just to test for waters and then go back, revisit them, change the recipe a little bit before putting them out as maybe a core range beer, because I'd love to see it.

Speaker 2:

I'd love to know more about one of these mines. I always want to unpick stuff and try and work out what's going on behind the scenes, and I imagine a brewery meeting with people thinking, right, we this alcohol-free beer stuff, we could really release one, or release an extra one this year. Yeah, let's release one in dry january. Yeah, good idea everyone. Yeah, we'll do one for dry january, so we'll get it going in november and then we'll get it.

Speaker 2:

Like I do think to myself is there not somebody in that meeting, somewhere going like aren't there going to be a lot of other places having this conversation at the same time and aren't we then just going to be releasing our beer at a time when literally everyone else is doing it? So, yeah, it's going to be busy, but we're releasing it at a time that everybody else and it's just going to be there were amazing, busy, but we're releasing it at the time that everybody are and it's going to be that there were amazing beers released in in january in the uk which I I did not hear about. Yeah, because that they, they, they were there but you didn't review them, I didn't see them, I didn't read about them, but they, they existed for a while and they could be the greatest beer that that ever existed and I didn't get to try it.

Speaker 1:

No, I'm in the same boat and I'm not trying to blow smoke up our asses here, but like if we've missed them, you know I mean it's all we do like if they basically don't exist, but no, but if we have missed them and you know I spend my entire life looking at beer and looking at alcohol-free beer and like it's, like, it's almost to the point of addiction, you know, like it is my entire identity, and if I've missed a beer being released in january, something's gone very wrong. Not necessarily with with a marketing strategy of an individual brewery, but, like you say, with just the over-saturization of the liquids being released. I've still got january beers in my fridge now that I haven't drank and I would, I would, I would.

Speaker 2:

I would hate a brewery to try to row back a little bit on alcohol-free beer because they decided that january 2025 was where they were going to make the big push and put a bit more budget behind it and and a bit of bigger brew budget and brew time on it. And then they're reporting back in march and going like, oh, you know what, we didn't ship so much of that and maybe the bubble kind of not what it was, and yeah, okay, well, we're not going to give up on it completely, but, uh, you know, maybe not the the thing that we thought it was, and there are going to give up on it completely.

Speaker 2:

But, you know, maybe not the thing that we thought it was, and there are going to be breweries. They had the evidence for that in that they created a really good beer and it maybe didn't sell in the way that they expected it to, but I do hope that that doesn't dampen their enthusiasm for it and that they realised that, particularly compared to all other dry January that I've ever known, 025 was just insanity in terms of just volume of new releases.

Speaker 1:

It was insane. Yeah, I've never had so many boxes, like two boxes a day for the first two weeks of beer. It was ridiculous. And then, obviously that's not counting for the, for the duplicates, because when you can only order a crate of six from certain breweries, it's like right, okay, thanks guys, I'm gonna have six of these, I'm gonna send. Well, we had our little chat where it's like right, what ones have you, what ones do you need, what ones do you need?

Speaker 2:

and we'll swap a couple around.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's like football stickers, that one exactly but I mean, such is the collectability of these things. You know, it's just, it's lovely, it's really lovely to be able to have this with alcohol free beer, because I didn't think I ever would. It's becoming a choice now, because it's something that I want to drink and that people around the world want to drink, not something that they have to settle for, which is really exciting, and january definitely showed that breweries can do it. You know the volume of releases it's achievable. Even if it was half of what we got in january in a month, it would have still been ridiculous well, I was gonna mention.

Speaker 2:

For me, one of the greatest ones was, uh, when I saw white for and throughs output yes, I was going to get on to that because they did it right why release one beer when you can, when you can all?

Speaker 1:

collab. That was madness, and they were all so different. It wasn't just like oh, here's four hazies, but we've kind of got four different breweries in to kind of put their name on. It was like no, we're going to do like, was it stout? Uh, pale. A cali, no new england and a goza. Have I got that right?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think so because I know White Print True, because they're Bristol, so that's my one time home. Even though they're from the wrong end of Bristol, they're from the end who support the other lot that I don't like. They the collab with people all over the, all over the uk. You know I'd have kind of expected them to have done something with you know something more west country or wales or maybe not wales yeah, yeah, I'm with you.

Speaker 2:

but the stout they made with five points in london with with, I know five points because I love their pizza in a pub more than they do, which as a pub owner here in Sweden, that's a concept that I love and I love what they've done with that and we actually serve their full-strength beer in my pubs in Sweden sometimes, because Five Points is known as being a really good brewery, but I'd never run into them on the alcohol-free side because they'd not done anything. And then all of a sudden I'm staring at a can of wipering through. It was the number two collab, wasn't it with five points, and that was just a really good right doubt in a world where we've been a bit boiled with fancier, could we say, doubt that, frankly, have been so many amazing ones out there, but you've had everything from Black Forest Gato to Cinnamon Donut to Malat, to you name it. It's been added to the alcohol-free route.

Speaker 1:

Did you have the biscotti one with Meshgang Australia and One Drop? Yeah, I did. That might be my favourite beer of all time's incredible. But yeah, you're right, we had all of these big like these big flavor stouts, but to get just a nice dry stout, but just is what. It is middle of the road and isn't called guinness. I say middle of the road, you know what I'm on about.

Speaker 2:

But isn't called guinness your bog standard.

Speaker 1:

Here's a stout, but it's a but it's good.

Speaker 2:

It was really hard to come by I love, I, I, I, I, I really I really rated it as you say it would have been. It would have been easy for them to to make a yeah, more middle of the road, call on that and make something like a um, yeah, they could have made a coffee spout. They could have made, uh, they could have made some. Yeah, they could they, they, they couldn't, they could have made choices. We've seen other places do, when we are, when people think limited edition, quite often they kind of think, okay, we need to grab the attention here and that whole range. I like the fact that they didn't. I mean even the, the northern monk grapefruit one. They did.

Speaker 2:

It was wild, yeah, I mean it was like a quite a dry beer that that was kind of hot with, with dusty pink grapefruit almost instead of the that was kind of doing the bittering as much as the hops were. It was just a really unusual beer and I I'd be much more used when I see pink grapefruit on a can. My brain kind of goes, okay, that's going to be like. I've had a lot of German Radler that are kind of, yeah, german pink grapefruit Radler thing and you're like, okay, this is going to be grapefruit lemonade beer. Okay, that's nice. I could probably drink 10 of them on a hot day, but yeah, it's a bit youthy drink, adjacent and not really kind of. I could make that myself with a supermarket lager and pour some grapefruit juice into it and that's going to make something similar.

Speaker 2:

But they went down a different, drier, dexterous route with it. I was like, wow, I like this, this is fun and I hope that maybe you could get the guys from Wipe Intrude on here. They'd be great guests if they're listening. Um, you know, to actually find out from the, from from the other side of the, of the industry, the side we fit to actually like hear from them and go okay, you, you brought out four collab at the same time, launched them into the dry january market and you know how did that, how'd that work for them? I guess we'll see. Are they going to do it again next year? Are they going to keep any of those on the on the market?

Speaker 1:

I'd love to see that yeah, I feel like that there's a place for that stout. I think the stout and the first one with track were my two favorites, but the stout if there's a beer to be made a core beer, I think that one is head and shoulders. That has to be the the winner for me, which says a lot about that beer, because they were all very solid, decent offerings. But yeah, wiper and true would be interesting, because I think I can't remember who told me that they'd invested in a reverse osmosis system, or if I've just made that up, but I I seem to recall I dream about conversations I have with people about reverse osmosis.

Speaker 1:

It's a common that's how you know that you are in too deep with alcohol-free beer when you're having dreams about reverse osmosis. It's outrageous. I'm sure someone has told me this, and I've asked pretty much everybody that I've had on on this season. Was it you that told me about the reverse osmosis at wiper? And true, everyone's gone. No, no, I haven't thought to actually ask them to just come and do an episode, so that would it would make a lot of sense, wouldn't it really? Um, it'd be interesting, though, to see if they, if they do, take up the mantle of, like dry january beer. It's time for wiper and true's collab series to return. That would be really cool would be really cool.

Speaker 2:

I don't like. I mean how many. I'm so out of touch with the, with the craft beer world that isn't alcohol-free craft beer other than, as I say, the two guest hats that I have at one of my pubs here in sweden so I get the output coming through that, but I I'm not. I'm not an expert in the uk craft market, but how many? I feel there's still a big chunk of the, the industry, that's not made an alcohol-free beer yet yeah, who's that brewery that we?

Speaker 1:

um? Well, you primarily pester, and subsequently you've got me now checking every time. They seem to upload a new beer every day.

Speaker 2:

They're as bad as the motor island yep, yep, those are the bastards.

Speaker 1:

And every time it's like because the titles are so long that you have to click on like read more, to see the abv, and it's like they'll, they'll put a title out that is vaguely maybe like oh, this suggests like it could be a little bit like alcohol free, nope no, it's not the other way.

Speaker 2:

We only made this beer. Like ben would have to read right through the end until he could click on it oh, it's ninja tip, eight percent dipper.

Speaker 1:

but yeah, like there are beers that I see in not so much in the supermarkets anymore, I feel like again I might have this wrong, but there seems to be less craft beer in supermarkets than there was when I was a drinker of full elk. That might just be my kind of perception has changed, but when I go into bottle shops for beers that I look at and I'm like, oh, I wish I could have had that. That looks really cool, but I can't.

Speaker 2:

Because for us still a lot of breweries not doing it yet. As you say, it would be nice if wiper and truth a multi-collab for jan becomes a big thing that enables three or four new brewers okay, track and northern monk weren't new to alcohol-free beer but if that enables a couple of new brewers to use wiper and truth famous reversal but almost missing the one they're known for throughout the classic one, that's been all over.

Speaker 1:

It's been all over the news. There's a bbc article about it. It's absolutely. It's not been fact-checked. In fact, it's on x. Yeah, it's on x. That's how I can get away with it.

Speaker 2:

It's been on x and facebook and nobody fact-checked it means that that means that we get some more, some more brewers dipping their their tones into the alcohol-free market and realising that it is a different science. There's a lot of very skilled people. Brewing regular beer is not something that you don't suddenly do one day. These are people who have done apprenticeships or they've studied at harriet, what, or they, they, you know, they they put in the hard yard to actually learn it and then they then like worked up in different levels of position. It's a career's worth of knowledge for a lot of people. Um, and that knowledge up until almost now has not included the rules which need to be changed, broken, bent, ignored for alcohol-free brewing to work hopefully, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

That's the thing that I fully appreciate that it requires an open mindset. It also requires exposure to people who kind of see how it works and what is possible and actually what might seem a bit counterintuitive, but it actually works. And this is a good trick, for if you want a bit more depth of flavor, then all the things that that, literally by trial and error, people have been finding, that's the stuff that you want to have shared with, with other breweries, because you don't want a. A brewery who've got a brew team who've all been in their job for five years or more, haven't worked somewhere else at the time when they've been brewing alcohol-free beer and all of a sudden they're told right, we're going to make alcohol-free beer this year. Chances are they'll make something that's pretty disappointing yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 1:

On the subject of uk craft beer, we can't talk about uk craft beer and not talk about we can be friends, because, my god, what a beer. That is the overtone cola on cue it was.

Speaker 2:

I almost sensed that you were ready for another can this is uh, this is a very wonderful collab they did with overtone, and yet that is also in the same glove as my Pineline Death's Egg. So this is the ultimate double gold medal winning beer. There you go. It's got a trace of Pineline Death's Egg mixed in with we Can Be Friends and Overtones gold medal winning particles. So this is a stunning moment in the history of alcohol-free beer.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, one to never be repeated potentially, or at least not while it's still good, because the pine line will be at least six years out of date by the time it gets opened.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, it did bring us onto the subject of we Can Be Friends and, as you say, it seems almost impossible that the first we Can Be Friends beer dropped it was just before Christmas 2023.

Speaker 1:

And here we are, 15 months, 2023, and here we are, 15 months later, and there's at least half a dozen absolute world-beating beers yeah, world-beating is the word I can remember when they launched and they had like 80-odd followers on Facebook and their bio. I'll always remember this. It was leaders of alcohol-free brewing or it was. It was all about being leaders in in the alcohol-free beer kind of scene, and leaders of the alcohol-free world.

Speaker 2:

Trust me, I know, there we go. I noticed, but I didn't. I didn't mention it to my lawyers, mainly because I don't don't have lawyers but I remember seeing that and I've been so open to Sam about this.

Speaker 1:

I said I thought your first beer was going to be shit because I had no idea who you were and you asked if you could send me some and I was like all right, ben, brace yourself. Who is this guy? I'd never spoken to him in person, I didn't know how much of a fucking legend he was. But here we are, as as you say, 15 months later, and I mean I wouldn't for legal reasons call them leaders of the alcohol-free world, but leaders of the alcohol-free beer industry, I think, if you're talking about the liquid alone, I don't think you can get much better it's funny you talked about their, their first beer, because I do.

Speaker 2:

I do remember. I do remember getting the first beer. I thought a similar thing to to you who is who? Is this? What is this? Is this to me what? Yeah, yeah, we've both had it, other people have had it. You get a new beer, you find yourself someone sends it to you, but it's fine, it's perfectly okay, and then you, there's not really a follow-up, that one disappears after about six months or anything. You kind of think that another beer is going to be another one of them.

Speaker 2:

I liked the first beer but I wasn't blown away by it. But it certainly had enough to make me okay. Yeah, this is really for a first beer, this is really competent. And I do remember reading quite a lot of bigger praise for it elsewhere and I thought to myself I being a bit bit harsh here. Um, actually I'm really happy that I was a bit harsh at the start because it's subconsciously, it left me then plenty of room to go up, because then the next beer was better and then the next beer was ultraviolet and that was just like like wow, and that hit in like summertime and the weather was better, and I remember cracking cans of it in the garden and just being like, like, like, like. This is June and this beer is amazing.

Speaker 1:

And life is perfect.

Speaker 2:

It was, it was, and then it was like it. Just there's been no drop off since then.

Speaker 2:

It's been one fabulous beer from from another and it is just so linking back into what I said earlier about like a beer like pixie from tatara that was that was. It was so full, it was so full bore it was, it was a, it was a mighty beer that I really really enjoyed. But it feels like with with with that knowledge out there, with the raw materials out there, with the techniques out there, with the raw materials out there, with the techniques out there, it's not enough to just kind of create that crazy sort of uber-flavoured, point-to-prove alcohol-free beer anymore. And where Sam really excels is that I can taste the restraint there.

Speaker 2:

It's like it's being driven by airton senna. Sorry, I was just wobbling my hands and I was thinking of there's an amazing youtube video of just airton senna's feet and I know, and I know you knew, that this, this chat tonight, was going to get on to the subject of airton senna's feet, because it always does. But there's this youtube video of airton senna basically heel towing while like driving uh, not in the foot, he's while driving a regular car and he's in a pair of Banes loafers. It's quite insane the way that he's just. It's almost like he's playing the bongo with his feet.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that is the best analogy for a we Can Be Friends bit, and.

Speaker 2:

Sam's probably bored of hearing how his brewing technique is just essentially like a heel-toe driving technique whilst wearing Mockatoon. But that's what I get when I taste I like it's like it's, yeah, ayrton Senna's feet. That's what I get, because you can taste the fact that you can taste the transition. You can taste where he's like he's come off the power a little bit, he's, then he's back and then more comes through and it's just like wow. And I don't know if he always realizes how well that comes across in the beer, because it is quite, I mean, it is difficult to get those to get right. And it's that which makes a great beer for me, the one that that it allows room between the different elements for them to to one bit kick in and then ease back a little bit and come. Because if it all kind of just like comes driving through in one go, then it can be a bit noisy, a bit messy and you're like okay, that's a bit, yeah, okay, yeah, it's like it's there and then it's gone.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and then where do you go from there? What do you do with that? Whereas with one of sam's beers it's like you can sit and enjoy every single mouthful and it's like it just stays with you and I I feel like every beer has gotten better. I think every beer he's released has been better than the previous one, which is just wild to have gone a full 15 months without any real disasters.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean. To me it's just between, honestly, between particles as being insanely good and the beak?

Speaker 1:

yeah, I want to get they've. They've just done a re-brew um the beacon and apparently they've refined the recipe a little bit, and if they've improved that beer, that could be the best alcohol-free beer of all time.

Speaker 2:

I only had my last can of it on Friday.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, in fact, I'm going to order some more after this episode Because, yeah, it's reminded me. Yeah, they've done a re-brew and tweaked things. So, like I say, if they have improved that beer, I don't know how they could really, Because it was flawless it absolutely was but flawless.

Speaker 2:

But also it was tried any. I've not tried any. I've not tried any beak beers because that's not what I drink. But I know people who've described beak to me once again. We've had beak in my pub a couple of times and people look very excited and they said, oh yeah, they're from puffix and their stuff is kind of very modern, airy kind of vibe to it. It's definitely got like they're a young brewer but it's got. It's got like a style to it. And I do know people who tried the alcohol free one and went like, yeah, absolutely that cat. Ok, the brewery style a bit as well, in a way that the day of one yes, I was going to gonna say I'd never tried.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know what the whole day of thing was about, but everyone got very excited by what circus of the sun was it? And?

Speaker 1:

yes, circus of the sun. That was the one they did with left-handed giant and verdant, wasn't it? And then they did the we could be friends albino pasta. And then they've just done one of their own, which, um, was I I couldn't place that one there spoken into existence, that's the name of it. I didn't know where to place it. It was like, really, I just got white grape, like so much white grape that it was almost a bit boozy. Um, and I know that is like a gnarly load of nelson's drove out.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, um, and it was that, weirdly, it was a very similar, very similar, like hop content, to the, to the collab beer that me and sam did. But such a different result from daya to what, let's be honest, what sam did with with that beer. But yeah, it was just like. This is just daya, through and through's gnarly, and it's potent and it's like it's craft beer, just alcohol free. So yeah, that was pretty wild. But yeah, the Beak one was delicious. I'm in the same boat. I didn't get to drink Beak. It's one of my greatest regrets of my time as an alcoholic was not drinking that. On that front, there's a different brewery. It's a different brewery, it's a different vein, but it's also a brewery that came into my world this year really, and that's omnipolo. Um, we couldn't be going further away from hazy craft beer in the uk when we talk about, in particular, the bianca series from omnipolo. That, like, I didn't think beer could look like that ever until I saw it, and it was you that put me onto them. It's just wild right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, omnipolo. For anyone who doesn't know, omnipolo are craft beer royalty. Even I understood that Omnipolo are a huge brand in Sweden, not just in Sweden but in Stockholm, where I live, because we have Omnipolo bars in Stockholm, ones that pop up in the summer, but there's Omnipolo's church, which is their brew pub and bar. And Omnipolo are incredibly innovative craft brewers and, for as long as I remember, have been knocking out some fairly inventive alcohol free beers. I remember having their Lingonberry Cheesecake alcohol free.

Speaker 2:

What During Covid, which included like digestive biscuit crumbs. What, no? Lingonberry Ostpaka, which is a cheesecake in Sweden, and it was all kinds of bonkers because you're, you're literally you're shaking and then you're pouring out chunks of digestive into your uh, and it did actually because of the biscuit it really did taste like. I mean, it literally just tasted like like lingonberry cheesecake. Um, and that was one of the things that, that that made me fall in love with omnipolo, because I was like, okay, these people have got clearly a very big sense of humor because, yeah, it's ridiculous, you don't really take authenticity to the point of of including biscuit, actual biscuit. If you'd had that that mass gang australia biscotti belt and poured it out and there had actually been a biscotti biscuit that crumbled and fell into the top of your pint. You'd have been like yeah, Be like dude.

Speaker 1:

What are you doing?

Speaker 2:

Like, come on, that's the only one I did that and their stuff is is pretty widely available here and I was aware that they they made uh bianca series in in full out and I don't know which one was the first one. I think was it the pineapple one was the first bianca that I tried.

Speaker 1:

Pineapple was the first, for I um, I sent that.

Speaker 2:

I remember I sent you to you because I said you, do you like pineapple? Because I've had pineapple juice tasted less of pineapple than this stuff.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I went into that being like, oh, it's going to be really sharp, and that's it. And then I drank it and it was like, yeah, this is like pineapple on acid. I'll never taste pineapple the same again on acid.

Speaker 2:

I'll never taste pineapple the same again. It's just the right. It's a they the recipe that they've hit on with the bianca series. It's really. For me it's the unique properties of a sour beer which kind of opens up your taste buds in a way that then when you have the sweeter, more sugary, rich fruit elements to it, it's almost like directly to your taste buds and then they feel the fruit and experience the fruit in like a, in just a bigger way and it just makes these. I know people who sneer a bit about the fruited end of cross and there is a bit of sneering and there is a bit of much, much rather. Oh, give me a, you know, give me a Belgian triple.

Speaker 1:

Well, fine, or maybe a treat at a push, but I'm not going to drink one of these ridiculous fruity, especially when you throw the alcohol free element there, because then there's even more to latch on to in terms of it just being a fruit juice and it's like exactly and and and I have said I'm doing anything with mango on it.

Speaker 2:

I'm an easy mark for a big mango. I have had a lot of mango and a lot of maracuja beers, which, to be honest, I have loved, but they are so soft drink adjacent that it's a bit cold glass of slightly watery mango juice, which I love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm totally okay with that. But on Lip Hollow, because of the fact that they brew them Lachrymphia in Belgium with the fruit, it's a sour, it's a wild yeast they use. So they're playing with some very distinctive techniques and then when they hang the fruit on it, it a it's what is it? It just all works so well and it's not. They don't rely on the the weakness of the fruit, because they've then got they've got the marshmallow side of stuff as well, but then you've got the good. It's not all just like regular sour, it's the gozer like, with the light salinity to it as well. It's just, it's just all worked so well. So you get this beer which is it's like willy wonka.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's the way I put. It is like when they lick the wallpaper in willy wonka, um, and there's the. There's the line where it's like, oh, it's blueberries. I can feel it running down my throat. It's like, yep. That is when I try to talk about these beers other than just going like look at this, like I've got no other words. It's just that, because it, unless you've tasted it, you'll never really be able to understand just how complex it is and what an experience it is. It's ridiculous. And then how they do whatever they do with that head.

Speaker 1:

The base jam the blueberry one, which, yeah, yeah, I tried to replicate that with Just yesterday. Actually the um, the new one, the blackberry one yeah, and the head isn't. I mean, I still got a little bit of a little bit of an overhang, but the previous one was like two inches above the glass. It's insane. And like, again, alcohol free beer. Who could? Who would have seen that coming like it's just wild and, as you say, it's, it's science. It is science and it's art the beer that they make and the other the other.

Speaker 2:

For me, big thing about omnipolo is always their, their christmas beer, which I know you're a fan of this year and and I think was their their best one with their. They came up with the, the oak winter Wintermuss Sour this year and the last two years have been previously varying on the classic Swedish Jorma soft drink that is drunk in.

Speaker 1:

Sweden. That is delicious. You sent me the most gorgeous bottle of that for Christmas and it was like this is my Christmas drink.

Speaker 2:

It was so darn delicious it's a lovely drink and yet Omnipolo this year it was lightly oaked and they had that sour edge to it. I think you described it tasting like kind of the best grown-up Coca-Cola you've ever tried, and it really did. It had that haramely kind of if you had to describe Coca-Cola to someone who didn't know Coca-ola out of a glass bottle and you weren't allowed to use the words, it tastes like coca-cola yeah, that's where you'd go yeah.

Speaker 2:

How do you go about describing what coca-cola tastes like without using the word coca-cola?

Speaker 1:

it's. Yeah, it's really hard. Yeah, that's a really good point actually, but it was. It was like that and I'd never, never tried a you must before. I didn't know of it. I didn't. It's not something that I'd ever sampled, so when I drank it I didn't know what to expect in terms of a flavor profile and first sip it was you said so rightly like coca-cola out of a glass bottle in in sepia glasses. You know how you think you're going to feel when you drink a coca-cola, how coca-cola want you to think you're going to feel when you drink a coca-cola. That beer is and it's perfect. It was so good and with omnipolo as well, something that I certainly don't give them enough credit for. But they exist. They make some incredible ipas and more standard beer that is just really good as well, because it'll be so easy for them to just have. You know, we do these wild sours and these, these things like this, but they've got some incredible, just classic brews.

Speaker 2:

They just brewed their second alcohol-free ipa at their own brew facility in stockholm. Um, I could remember the name of it, but it was. It was I. The review went up on my page this morning I've got a can of that in my fridge.

Speaker 1:

Oh, what's it blooming called?

Speaker 2:

got a keyhole on it and it, yeah, it does have a keyhole. I'm gonna look at my orders like pine out of base or something yeah, I've got a can of that um my fridge ready to go.

Speaker 1:

It's one of those beers that I'm not going to drink today because I'm tired and I can't be bothered to film, which is really bad of me. Oh, it's not in my blooming air, it's not on the receipt, but yeah, it's one that I'm looking forward to.

Speaker 2:

It's a goodie and it's brewed at their. It's brewed at their Sundibarii Pattern of Play. It's called Pattern of Play and it's their second in-house brewed alcohol free nice and they have, as you say, it's not just all about the salad. They've got a really good coffee spout. They've got they have got a range of really good IPAs. The only thing I will say about the IPAs, the only thing I will say about the IPAs, is I pick up sometimes a bit of the house style from De Proof in Belgium because they make damn good alcohol-free beer and they're one of the best places in the world at making it and it's coming out the same place and you ask them to make something and you can't ask them to forget everything that they know about beer that they make using the same equipment and the same technique for other people. So there is a touch of a house style in the less esoteric beers that they brew.

Speaker 1:

And that's not a bad thing, because if I would get someone in Europe to make an alcohol-free beer for me under contract, I'd go to Dupreux and I'd know it would be an 80 to 85 out of 100 on my scale every time and that's a fantastic score for a beer speaking of european beers because, like it's a world that again in the last 12 months I've probably started to submerge myself into maybe a little bit longer, thanks to the um, the wonderful people at omp5, when you, when you kind of get into that water and you start looking beyond, you know your, your own country, you go. My god, it's not just here. There's beer everywhere, like trappist beers, belgian beers, like you name it.

Speaker 2:

It exists, it's just incredible it made me forget the fact that I'm very angry with the world that I can't find places in Germany that will send me the 700 German alcohol-free beers I haven't tried yet and I've tried about 200 and something. There are so many amazing alcohol-free beers that are not available more than 10 kilometers outside of a medium-sized city in Germany. It's incredible. Medium-sized city in Germany, it's incredible. And I spent so much time begging small regional websites to like ship me a carton to the UK or to Sweden and they're just like yeah, they're just like we're not sorry, we're not going to do it, it's too expensive, we can't be bothered. It's just like no, it's not great, it's not great for the planet. You know we, we sell our stuff locally. We know where the bottles go. They come back to us, they get recycled. We don't actually really like the idea of sending you like like loads of it overseas.

Speaker 1:

You can't even be cross at that one.

Speaker 2:

No, I'm kind of like damn you people are, fuck's sake. You're really good people, making good arguments and speaking in a very reasonable way. I want my beer. Yeah, I'm not going to be mad at you, but I am less mad at people because Raoul and his team are on the neutral Apologies to any duck people offended by my pronunciation. They just do an amazing job and I haven't ordered any beer direct from Poland in about a year and I always used to order beer directly from Poland and Raoul sometimes would message me and be like oh wow, I haven't even seen that one and I don't even need to do that anymore because I haven't got time to, because every time I click on Raoul's pages I'm like, oh God, there's another 25 beers that I haven't seen.

Speaker 1:

I know it's ridiculous. I have to treat myself every. I kind of have to. I have to demonstrate a level of restraint because there are so many beers, because you've got like the whole of europe on on that website pretty much, um, it's all right, okay. No, I need to just like, every now and again I'll treat myself to some beers, and every time I do it I think I'm gonna do this again like far sooner, because with beers that I would never have known about without O&P 5, that are just incredible.

Speaker 2:

The thing that the times that I then go back and buy multiples of the same beer which sometimes takes a bit of discipline on my part because I need to go back and go actually I love that beer and won't necessarily be my absolute high scoring beer all the time, but it's a beer that I've been like you know what. There was something different and really, and yeah, that was a great example. And when I do then remember to kind of get four of those when I make another order and you kind of live with a beer for a little while and there's no pressure because you only got one or two of them and you had three or four of them and you really kind of you live with it for a bit and you have four in the fridge and then you're just like that's even better. And that makes me like how many of these beers would be in that category if I would?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a good point.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, if I sat and lived with a 12-pack of some of these beers and I know in Sweden there are several beers which are like my creek beers and I had an Easy Rider IPA from Gotland Brewery this evening which you've got a can of somewhere, ben A small red can with a bulldog on a motorbike.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that was almost the video that I edited today, but I didn't. I think it will be during this week.

Speaker 2:

Well, I had one of those with supper at my in-laws' evening and whilst I was just about following the conversation in Sweden, I was also a bit distracted by thinking to myself you know what? This is just a really, really good beer. I am really lucky that I can just go to any supermarket and grab some cans of this, because it's a really nice strong-flavoured IPA. It's nicely hazy, got enough wheat in it, got a good body to it and it really just works with the hop. And this is just a. Well, I'm lucky to be able to just go to a supermarket and buy that one. And yet I remember probably when I first here it is Sorry.

Speaker 1:

The what Easy Rider Bulldog? Yeah, the video on my phone what's the audio and that's the beer which. Brian Gagari, brian Gary Brigary.

Speaker 2:

Oh, brigary, the last one Very good.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, Thank you. Anyway, that's enough of me. That's weird. Like me on a video, on a video Like inception, but yeah, to have a beer that existed, like that exists, that you can have readily available. You were saying before I interrupted.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you become a lot Once you. Yeah, there are beers like that one which probably when I first had it, I was kind of like, oh, that's perfectly nice. But because it's a beer I've lived with now for several years and it's always one that I know I can get, it is absolutely one of my favorite beers and there are probably hundreds of beers like that in in europe, hundreds of beers like that available on rail site where, where you know, if you lived in the country, if you could get them really easily, if they weren't a limited edition, then you could live with those beers for a while. You'd be like, wow, you know, this is an amazing beer and that's definitely been one of the big leaps forward in the sheer number of beers which are, you know, they're as good as that. They really are.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they're just damn good regular drinking beer that you know, which leads us on to proper job, because that falls into that category for me. I can go to my local morrison's, which is like a two minute drive or a 40 minute walk. Make that make sense. I can go there and pick up a bottle of proper job whenever I fancy it, and it has changed the way that I drink beer at home, because it's so good and we got to try that together like in real life, which was it's possibly one of the reasons I love the beer so much, because I just attribute it to when we tried it at the um, at the guild awards, and that was unexpected, I think it was.

Speaker 2:

It was and I it's funny you say mention the british guild of beer writers award. They were. They it's an all-star brewery were one of the authors of the evening of the great and good of the British beer writing industry and you and I, representing the alcohol-free beer writing Flowing that little flag in my corner.

Speaker 2:

I'm not sure they really knew that they had yet. But we were there as two kind of weirdly enthusiastic extraterrestrials and we were sat on the table right next to where the proper job at the Austin Brewery band was, and then the pair of us saw that we were aware that it was coming out alcohol free and we saw it and we were like, wow, they've got proper job alcohol free. So we have to have this first. And I remember we both poured it and then we just like, yeah, and I've got you on camera wearing about how damn good this stuff is. And then I remember saying to the, the guys from the brewery I was like do you guys, do you realize how good this is? They were like, yeah, our guys are like really happy with it. I'm like no, no, no, like like I'm not saying that. This is kind of like you know, well done guys, well done for doing an alcohol free beer. Pat on the head, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this isn't a token fan, but like, do you, do you really realize how, in the kind of this is in a zero level, important liquid you have made here, because it it's an ale, but that is not all the the things that that scare people about the the world of craft. And it's not going to be all flowery and it's not going to tote like soap and it. You know, it's just the really just perfectly made glass of bitter, almost. That's just a joy to drink and it's just the perfect alcohol-free beer.

Speaker 1:

It's a beer that's been missing from my life for three years, since I gave up alcohol. It's a beer that I've been we've come close to a few times, but we've never nailed it, and I expected it to be much the same, which is, I think, another reason I love it so much was when, when we were pouring them up, it was like all right, we're gonna probably be on this all evening and I'm not sure how it's gonna be thinking it going to disappoint a little bit, but it blew me away. It's incredible. It's the best supermarket alcohol free beer in the united kingdom. In my opinion, it is a considerable distance like I said earlier, I will.

Speaker 2:

I will routinely overthink and spoil things myself. I worry about proper job and I worry about their margins and I worry about their, their contract with Morrison's and I worry about £1.50 a bottle. I worry about, I worry about lots of things and I think, yeah, are they going to, yeah, are they going to keep making it?

Speaker 2:

god, I hope so are people going to stop buying it if they're to sell it at a price that enables anybody to make any money out of it? Yeah, are they going to suddenly stop selling it through Morrisons because they haven't hit the insane numbers they needed to even make it make sense? I don't understand enough about that side of their activity to know if it's going to work. But right now I am recommending to people in the UK, as you are, that this is a game-changing alcohol-free beer, because we've spoken at a great length on this call about the craft side and the fact there's been this incredible wave of powerful craft beer in its bed, which is wonderful because you love it and I love it, and neither is the club to the exclusion of other stuff.

Speaker 2:

But there are people who just that's just not their hate of beer. They're not as into you know the more sort of bitter end of the hops. It's not. You know the new world hops with a slightly bigger flavor. Probably. It's just a different product in many respects and I fully respect people who are like, well, that's just not my type of beer. Those people hadn't quite those people. I'm one of. Those people at times hadn't had that beer. Ghost Ship was probably about, as close.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I would say. I'd say that Nirvana's Best Bitter was good.

Speaker 2:

Actually I will give them credit.

Speaker 1:

That was another beer that surprised me Better than I thought it was going to be significantly, it's an awesome, proper job.

Speaker 2:

Just it just nails that. That base, that is just like yeah, that is a for somebody wants a regular english liquor yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it dang. And if I had a pub in the uk, I would want that in the fridges, I'd want it on par.

Speaker 1:

But you know, we can dream. We can dream One day. Maybe One day I don't see how it's scientifically possible, but one day maybe.

Speaker 2:

Someone's got. I mean, that's another thing I'd lie awake at night thinking about. It must be possible Cask alcohol free.

Speaker 1:

I mean to be honest. You look at how far it's come in three years which I'm only saying three years because that's how long I've been aware of it Nothing would shock me anymore. Looking at how the market is now and what beers exist and all of the progress, nothing would shock me.

Speaker 2:

I think certainly a beer, like an awful proper job takes us closer to the time when that's going to happen. Proper job takes us closer to the time when that's going to happen. In the same way that guinness zero has in cans has led the way to guinness zero on tap and this incredible experience that you now have. In in ireland I've got a friend of mine who was very get skill about alcohol-free beer and now he he is a convert. Particularly some of his friends are converts, because they go out and and drink in dublin and they'll have three pints of regular and two pints of alcohol free. Mix them up sometimes. They might do a whole night on the alcohol free sometimes.

Speaker 1:

So it's just, it's just interchangeable yeah, I think that's the world that I want to see. Um, when it is just so accessible and so available that there's no reason to justify it and there's no reason to feel like you're going out of your way to source it. I hope that we get there.

Speaker 1:

I had quite a scary chat on this platform actually with Andy Mee from Alcohol-Free Drinks Company and he was saying that he's actually worried that, with the growing availability of alcohol-free, actually you're seeing more people just go for macro because it's the easy option. So, as more people are becoming aware of it, actually what we could be seeing is more options but fewer choices, if that makes sense. That's something that I'm putting in the back of my brain and kind of ignoring and hoping that it doesn't become a thing, because it would be a real shame. But yeah, it's, uh, it's. The world I want to see is where there are just good options everywhere for people to just be able to go. Oh yeah, I'll have that and it doesn't feel like a burden for anybody I think that that's what I think the job is going to in.

Speaker 2:

Alcohol reform is going to do that in it's going to. I can imagine a stereotypical bitter drinker pint glass of that drinking a pub and anyone saying or saying that and he's just going like no, actually, this is really decent, let me try some of that. In the same way, that's exactly what I joke about Guinness winning a Nobel Prize for Guinness Zero. Things should happen.

Speaker 2:

But that has done more than any other drink for the reputation of alcohol-free beer, because you've heard it, I've heard it people going, oh, alcohol-free beer, it's all sick. And then someone else go like well, you tried Guinness though, mate. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right now, alright, granted, you know, apart from the road and the sanitation, you know, what have Guinness ever done for us? Yeah, well, yeah, and that's enough to just kind of stop that pub bore in their track, because then they have to kind of go. Yeah, okay, guinness is, yeah, granted that, yeah, that's damn good. But you get my point the most alcohol-free beer is not, and proper job is in that space, and I can see it creating space for people to get comfortable with the idea of that, and I'm sure there are pubs already where people are having a pint of regular proper job of the cask and then having a bottle or two of proper job alcohol free out of the free, yeah yeah, it's, it's a world that I am excited to be a part of at the moment.

Speaker 1:

Um, and it is beers like that that are. They're really important, like it's, like you say, for availability and for for education, really, because people will drink a beer like that and go, oh shit, okay, I didn't know that you could do this. It's like, yeah, yeah, and now welcome to this wonderful world of alcohol, free beer, and look at all of the amazing options that you can have to to to choose, like free of choice, free to choose from, even. Like there's so much. Where do you think we need to go from here? I asked you that at the end of the last episode, 12 months ago, but it almost seems like this past 12 months things have gone so far. I kind of struggle to see what, what has to happen next or what will happen next with it. It's just, it seems, very unpredictable at the moment I'm not very good at making prediction.

Speaker 2:

I think all I would say is that we will see more acceptance of alcohol-free beer, just as a. At the end of the day, it's a beer, and having an alcohol-free beer would increasingly mean nothing and will not need to be served with an excuse or a justification. It's been like a cocktail Do you want an olive and an umbrella with that? With alcohol-free beer to some extent. For a long time it's been like, yeah, that. Or with alcohol-free beer To some extent. For a long time, it's been like, yeah, there's your alcohol-free beer, sir, would you like the I'm on antibiotics line or would you like the I can't drink anymore line? Yeah, what expectations do you want with that? And we are moving more and more to the world now where it's just like I'm drinking an alcohol-free beer.

Speaker 2:

No one makes a comment, because the next beer I might order might be with alcohol or it might not. No one really comments on it and there is nothing really to comment about because it's just. You know it's a choice of beverage. In the same way, you know if someone orders a prawn cocktail or a six-oic, they're both starters. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know they're both starters. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I didn't fancy actually I didn't fancy the six-ball, you know what I mean. I didn't fancy the odd-born prawn cocktail drink eater. I just fancied a prawn cocktail. You know you don't tend to attack people over their food choices. Yeah, I mean, that's the way I think the prediction is, that's the way it's going. And more people are just not more people are just not going to see the difference and not get the get the baggie that goes with with having to explain their choice. And people are. People are just going to not not feel the need to make the comments or put people in that position yeah, I couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1:

I couldn't agree more. I feel like that is the way that we're going and I think, as we touched on, I think, like Guinness and St Austell are in this country, in the UK, are significant players in that, you've also got Null Peculiar brands like that Bloody Brains was it Brains?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I did like that Brains. That was a very bold.

Speaker 1:

It was assertive, wasn't it?

Speaker 2:

Assertive in a kind of punch you in the face.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that level of assertive.

Speaker 2:

Grab your shirt in one hand and pin you against the wall and ask you in a very loud, cigarette-smelling voice if you're okay with the choice of beverages.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that was wild, but I think that we are getting to a level of acceptance. I mean, our was. That was wild, but I think that we are getting to a level of acceptance. I mean that inclusion at the at the guild awards, for me was so eye-opening because I I didn't know if there would be any kind of just like sideways glances. I I didn't know what to what to make of that world.

Speaker 2:

I'd never been in a room like that and they were they were, uh, they, we, together, because we are part of that world. It's a lovely community. It's a lovely community of people and there was no, you know, there were no naughty remarks and people were very welcoming to us both and a lot of people were drinking the stuff as well, like the alcohol free stuff.

Speaker 1:

It was just for me that was the moment where I, kind of it, solidified my belief in the liquid. It's like, right, okay, things are progressing here and the world is taking this into account, that these are genuine options, because I think people have always wanted them. I think the quality just hasn't been there, but now it really is, and I think that it's only going to get better in the next few years. I mean, I don't see how we can improve on these. On the, on the craft uk craft beer, I don't see how that can get much better. I might be proven wrong.

Speaker 2:

One thing I think that you and I are not well positioned to to talk about is the beers that people are going to drink in the zebra's right way. We already hear that. You know skin is just regular alcohol-free. Regular People say that it works seamlessly. That works really really well.

Speaker 2:

Neither you nor I, ben, are qualified to assess which alcohol-free beers really work and really stand up to being kind of those interval beers that can slot in alongside and that might be genuine skill from a bartender. Suddenly, go right, you've had three pints of Madry. I recommend that you go start drinking, have a couple of this one, because I think there are going to be some alcohol free that really that don't stand up to that. To be in those conditions they don't quite work. People are going to go oh no, I don't like it. But then I'd have mass gang brutalism in the preach just to scare people. If someone's got five pints of neck oil and they're getting a little bit leery and then saying, oh, I just want to slow down for a bit, he'd be like, right, I kind of pass me the heater or slow down a lot and then they'll they'll sip it for about an hour because it's too strong for them.

Speaker 2:

But I think that you know there is going to be yeah, there are going to be beers which really work and that the market will suddenly say actually there's loads of people drinking bottles of Madry Zero and drinking Madry because actually there's a lot of real similarities between the two beers and it really works. I'm raising my eyebrows at the same time because I don't rate Madry Zero, but maybe that as an idea is going to work. Or maybe there will be another macro-, macro alcohol-free that really cuts through. Corona Steddle could work in that respect, because I stand for Corona Steddle. I think it's damn good.

Speaker 2:

But that's because I used to drink regular Corona by the absolute gallon in the noughties, but I was never going to tell you it's the greatest beer I've ever had. Wow, I wasn't waxing lyrical about Pacifico. Much better Mexican beer. I used to really adore that stuff. There's nowhere near as good as that, but it didn't matter. Corona was a weak beer that I really enjoyed drinking in warm weather because I could drink it pretty much endlessly and still cycle back from the pub in Paris and it's all fine and it's nice. It's happy juice. I liked it. I could imagine that Corona Zero, because you drink Corona out of the bottle, so you have the thing that could be another example of the beer that bridges the gap a little in the way that Guinness Zero does, but I think there are going to be.

Speaker 2:

The prediction that I said I wasn't going to make is that there are going to be beers that become popular as those zebra-striped beers? Yeah, that's interesting and they're ones which perhaps you and I are not. You and I are not well positioned to suddenly go. You know what? That one is just really good, because after you've had two pints and you got a bit of a lick on and you're like, yeah, but I didn't go down a bit, that's a really good one to have.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that is, that's interesting. I can see that that happening and I think stellar is is a good example of one that could bridge that gap as well. Like for me, in terms of the macro, I think stellar is the closest, the closest I can put to the full stuff. From what I remember of it. I drank Stella and I was like, yeah, stella, that's just Stella. But again, it's been so long since I drank alcohol, god knows what Stella tastes like these days.

Speaker 1:

But it will be interesting to see where we stand in. I feel like in 12 months we'll probably be in pretty much the same boat. What interests me is where we are in five years from now. That's what I. I would love to have a crystal ball and see into the future, just out of intrigue, not for, you know, financial gain, although that would be nice as well but I'd just like to see where, where we stand with it all, and to see what the ceiling is. If there is a ceiling, how far it can continue to grow, because it's a. It's a wonderful world once you open the door and have a look into it it.

Speaker 2:

It's come so far in 10 years, five years, three years, one year. Are there? Are there problems in alcohol-free brewing that that ai is going to solve for us, because things that may have been lots of things which are considered today as being impossible, are going to be solved by by ai, just purely because it's are going to be solved by AI, just purely because it's just going to have the brute force to do stuff that we've not been worth doing before. So is that going to then lead to just completely re-engineered yeast formulations? And I know we've had like the incredible developments in yeast, but you know you've got gene editing going on and new strains of yeast being developed.

Speaker 2:

You know there could be an entirely new molecule that mirrors the impact of or the effect of alcohol in the very short term in a way that no current like nootropics do but create some sort of temporary physical effect without any ill effect. That could be created. Physical effect without any ill effect, that could be created. You could be seeing beers with with that in it that then have like zero negative impact on you but create something more of a, an alcohol type buzz. There's all sorts of things that that could happen. It could be radically reclaimed, radically changed. The whole nature of what drink we, we we drink could change. I don't want to stop drinking. We can be friends and overtones, particles, but it's not available. In a year's time I can't be drinking it and in five years time it might be something completely different entirely. But I I sincerely hope I can still drink great beer.

Speaker 1:

But the world may have made surprise this again I hope you're right and I hope you're wrong, which is a strange position to take, but I'm going to double down on that one. Martin, thank you for coming to do this episode. It was just lovely to bloody catch up with you. To be honest, I could have kept this going for like a lot longer than I have done, and I'll already pre-book you in for season three, if that's okay.

Speaker 2:

Perfect If people want a season three, I'm looking forward to drinking the beer called Ayrton Senna 2, which is going to be made at some point, I'm sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, 100%. By what have I bloody called the guys that won't release an alcohol-free beer?

Speaker 2:

That would actually be it. Yeah, Ayrton Senna's brown driving shoes by Pomona Island.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, watch this space. It's coming in 2025.

Speaker 2:

It can be kind of a mahogany brown colour and it could just be like some car pedals and then just like the tasseled loafers.

Speaker 1:

You've done it for them. What are they doing? Cowards, absolute cowards. Martin, thank you very much, I will catch you very soon, my friend.

Speaker 1:

Have a good evening, ben Cheers. To be honest, that was just nice to catch up with a friend, because Martin Dixon is one of my closest friends, not just in the world of alcohol-free beer but in the world as a whole. If you want to check out Martin's work, find Alcohol-Free World and let the man educate you. Quite frankly, thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Stubbo Boozers Club podcast. My name is Ben Gibbs and I will catch you very soon.