FREE

Low and no alcohol beers
or anyone who did decide to participate in ‘Dry January’,
FBrentwood Brewery’s beer of the month was BBC1 at
1.5% ABV.
On the subject of methods of production, regular
correspondent Richard Larkin says, “There are two ways of
producing very low or zero alcohol beers: using a particular
strain of yeast, with close temperature control or removal of
the alcohol after brewing. This removal is usually by reverse
osmosis. I would guess that the latter is more expensive
than the former but might deliver a product more closely
resembling beer in taste”.
He goes on to say that in Germany and the Netherlands,
you can find ‘radler’, literally, ‘cyclist’, which is a
lager/lemonade shandy at 0% ABV. Several companies
produce these, including Amstel, Bavaria and various types
by Heineken. None of these have been spotted in the UK
however.
Another regular, Ben Nunn, says, “I received some
samples of St Peters Without a couple of months ago. My
view is that while the name is very clever, the ‘beer’, if indeed
one can call it a beer, is deeply unpleasant unless you like
the taste of unfermented wort. It’s more of a ‘supermalt’
type drink, sickly, malty and unbalanced, and completely
lacking in body. I would however strongly recommend
Brewdog Nanny State which, whatever we think of the
brewery, is by far the most drinkable non-alcoholic beer I’ve
ever tasted. Without alcohol, beer will always be on the thin
side, but Nanny State makes up for that with large quantities
of spicy, resinous hops. It smells and tastes like a beer and
Fancy sampling Belgian beer in its home country?
Guided tours of Belgium by coach picking up in
Ipswich, Colchester, Chelmsford and elsewhere in
Essex and Kent by arrangement
TOUR 86 Belgian Beer from the Wood
Wed 3 May – Mon 8 May 2017
TOUR 87 Trappist & Abbey Pilgrimage
Thurs 17 August – Tues 22 August 2017
TOUR 88 The Hop Harvest Tour
Thurs 14 September – Mon 18 September 2017
TOUR 89 Passchendale 1917
Battlefield & Beer Tour
Sun 29 October – Fri 3 November 2017
www.podgebeer.co.uk
e podgehome@blueyonder.co.uk
ring 01245 354677 for details
you don’t feel cheated drinking it, which is possibly the most
important quality”.
Meanwhile, the DePrael brewery in Amsterdam have come
up with what they claim is a hangover-free beer. Amsterdams
Heider, a 4.5% ABV Pilsner style beer, includes vitamin B12,
ginger and sea salt in its recipe.
Thanks to all for their contributions. Although they are not
the same thing, this might also be a good point at which to
give some consideration to gluten-free beers.
Tony Hedger
ANTWERP ARMS TASTES GLUTEN-FREE BEERS
ith more people falling prey to celiac disease or
Wavoiding gluten for other reasons, it seemed time to
find some gluten-free beers to stock at North London’s first
community-owned pub, the Antwerp Arms in Tottenham. A
new process has been discovered (apparently by accident) by
Westerham Brewery in Kent that uses an enzyme to break
down the protein chain and thus avoid the allergic effect of
gluten. The brewery claims that the beer tastes identical to
their normal production (they brew several beers both with
and without gluten). Several other breweries are using this
technique, so on 12 December one of our shareholders,
Martin Burrows, put together a set of eleven bottled beers
for us to taste, including nine samples from Westerham, to
which he added two beers bought at the local Tesco (some
branches also stock Daura and St Peter’s gluten free).
We started by comparing two pilsners: Westerham
Bohemian Rhapsody (5.0% ABV) and a gluten-free version of
Peroni (5.1% ABV). The Westerham had a solid Czech taste
while the Peroni was lighter and appealed generally. Neither
showed any sign that they were different from standard lagers
in taste.
The next set of comparisons were between Westerham
pale beers (4.0% to 5.5% ABV) and Brewdog Vagabond (4.5%
ABV). To me, the Westerham beers all had a delicate
character and showed English hop aromas (Westerham only
use Kent hops). My favourite was the Viceroy IPA (5.0% ABV).
The Brewdog had a fuller, American IPA style with citric
hopping. Again, we had no reason to distinguish any of these
beers from normal ones.
We ended with two darker beers from Westerham: Audit
Ale (6.2% ABV amber), a lightly hopped, slightly sweet ale
and Double Stout (5.1% ABV), full of chocolate.
As the technique spreads, we are likely to see more
experimentation and a wider range of beers that can be
enjoyed by everybody.
By the way, we have opened our share offer again, to pay
for some rebuilding work in the summer. Please see our
website www.antwerparms.co.uk for details.
Ian McLaren
Secretary, Antwerp Arms Association Ltd
Check the Beer Festival
Calendar and visit the London
Events Calendar at
www.london.camra.org.uk
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