Craft Lager

Brewery: Hill Street Beverage Company

Type: Lager

ABV: < 0.5% !

Thoughts:

It pours quite nicely, which I was surprised about… not sure why. For some reason I didn’t think there’d be a big fluffy head without the alcohol. The colour is an apple juice golden yellow and as clear as a glass of water. Very clean and crisp looking.

The head is a clean white with both big and small bubbles and great retention.

There’s a myriad of smells going on here. First I get a sweet flowery lavender. It’s like that hoppy floral smell, without the perfume sharpness that’s usually present. I’m also feeling like I can’t smell the alcohol, which makes sense. I didn’t realize how much it contributed to the aroma before this. Next, I get a pilsner tanginess, followed by a touch of plant-based cleaning product (earthy?). I should note that I don’t really get any grain in there, no matter how hard I try to find it. That’s a bit disappointing.

As with the appearance, the body is very clean and watery. Very light beer that doesn’t stick around. Goes down clean.

As for the taste, I have to say it’s not the best. It has a very slight presence of ‘sour beer’ there, perhaps like a mild vinegar. It’s not a skunk (can that happen with non-alcoholic?). There’s also another hint of that sanitizer note that I got from the smell.

Every so often I do actually get the grain base I was looking for but it’s faint and elusive. I get nothing back with the exhale, which is where I’d normally allow it to sit and linger, and if I’m honestly not thinking about it I could easily mistake this for a glass of carbonated soda.

As a closing statement, I’m having a difficult time rating this as it’s my first N/A beer and I have no comparables to use for reference. I can say that if I were rating this as a normal beer I would hav scored it much lower. I’m also taking into consideration that the beer can itself says it’s the most awarded N/A beer company in the world. What are these awards? Are they good awards? What if they have a thousand participation awards? They’d technically not be wrong… anyway.