It’s not often I bother trying alcohol free beer, normally if I am in a cafe or bar and not drinking alcohol it is most likely early morning and a tea or coffee will do fine. However, last week I had the occassion to try Paulaner Alcohol Free or “Paulaner Hefeweissbier Alkoholfrei” to give it its native German title. It originates from Munich with Heineken Ireland, who now own the old Murphy’s Brewery in Cork, doing the importing. I was given a bottle and asked to try it so I dutifully put it in my fridge and tucked it away at the back where it remained for four to five weeks just to make sure it was properly chilled.

It was sunny yesterday and my thoughts, as they do, turned to Alcoholfrei Hefeweissbier. I remembered I had a bottle in the fridge so I cracked it open and poured it. It looked pretty nice, a rich tan colour but not cloudy, it looked malty with a nice frothy head. Looks like real beer I thought. Smelled of real beer too, hops and stuff. You can tell I’m no Oz Clarke, I could flower the language up a bit and say that it smelled of hazelnuts and oatmeal but that’s a step too far.

The taste was malty but had a sweet edge to it, I am not sure if the sweetness, which I didn’t particularly like, was due to the fact it was nonalcoholic or is it just a feature of the beer. Regardless I happily drank the 0.5L and may have had another had there been one.

After some truly horrific non-alcoholic beers in the eighties and nineties maybe the technique has progressed? It may also be the fact that I only ever tried the products that were foisted upon the immature Irish market at the time, things are different these days, you can buy beer from anywhere in the world and Amen to that.

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Beer, Rating=4, Review