BrewDog Nanny State 0.5% Alcohol Free Vegan Beer - 24 x 330ml Cans

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Versus the 5.6% version of Punk IPA, there’s 68% fewer calories – 50 compared to 150 in a 330ml bottle. Taste, aroma and mouthfeel Thankfully, that is beginning to change now. As more and more people look to cut down on their alcohol intake, or cut it out completely, alcohol free beer has slowly started emerging from some of our breweries to make their way on to our supermarket shelves and even into our pubs and bars.

The aroma – and the hype – behind Punk AF promised so much. But, despite that gorgeous and varied aroma, it falls a bit flat. Nanny State is an ale with the flavour of an IPA. It probably started out as a ‘joke’ beer, but BrewDog have refined it into something that is drinkable, though I can think of at least a few people who would turn their noses up at it. I find it refreshing, and at about 20 calories per can I don’t feel guilty for downing a few of these in an evening. Buy BrewDog Nanny State Lemon Aspen Pilsner from @SobahBeverages . Citrus on the nose, orange marmalade, malts. Citrus when we taste too, but it's more earthy and floral than your traditional citrus fruit. Works well in the lager free-beer.co.uk/sobah-lemon-… @FreeBeer_UK - Nov 10The insane amount of hops and malts delivers in the flavour department too. There’s a rich, almost plummy, taste at first, which turns into a bitter and citrusy finish. It’s certainly very quaffable and another classic beer from Brewdog. Verdict Overall, the taste is nicely balanced yet feels like it’s missing a vital element and ends up a little flavourless and watery. Verdict While that bulleted list took 10 seconds to read, it took an age to pull together given the depth and complexity of flavours! It is a great advert for why I buy and drink 6-8 of each beer before writing things up and deciding on flavour profiles! For example, Nanny State is crammed full of North American hops, including Amarillo, Cascade, and Simcoe. These are famous for adding certain flavours to beer, including pine needles and citrus (but what you’re really tasting are the essential oils from the hops). Tasting the beer In 2007 James & Martin, begged borrowed and raised as much money as they could to start their mission:

There’s no denying it—Britain is a nation of beer lovers. The beverage has been brewed for centuries and shows no sign of losing its appeal, and with both multi-national corporations and smaller establishments offering a huge variety of British beers and ales you’re certainly not short of options.

Unsurprising, then, that they’ve repeatedly broken the record for the world’s strongest beer, topping out at 57.8% ABV with Strength in Numbers (a collaboration with German brewery Schorsbräu). Scottish brewery BrewDog started out as a two-man craft-beer operation in 2007. Now they have bars and breweries across the globe, but they’re still keen to hang on to their anarchic “bad boys of brewing” image. In your glass, you’re going to find an amber-brown coloured brew with a slightly red tinge to it. Colour is largely dictated by malt profile and in this case, the use of darker profiled malts like Dark Crystal, Chocolate and to an extent Amber and Rye all give a higher Lovibond and in turn darker profile. One of the problems with Scottish brewery Brewdog’s “punk” ethos is it keeps doing stuff that’s, well, just not really very punky.

And “hoppy” just means that BrewDog have added a generous amount of hops to the brew. Hops are the flowers of the Humulus lupulus plant. They’re the ingredient that gives beer its bitterness, but also affects its taste and smell in other ways. Svart/Hvit from @nogneo . Treacle, coffee, roasted malts and vanilla on the nose, restrained bitterness with more roasted grains, coffee and a slight caramel sweetness as we taste. Lovely hefty body. Could easily pass for a full-fat stout free-beer.co.uk/nogne-o-svar… #alcoholfree @FreeBeer_UK - Sep 5 In 2009 They launched Equity for Punks. In a ground-breaking first, they offered people the opportunity to buy shares in our company online. Over 1,300 invested and their famous anti-business business model was born.Elvis AF is simply the AF twist on the company’s year-round Elvis Juice, which is a grapefruit IPA. I’ve written before about how I’m not terribly fond of that particular style—it really flared into popularity and faded out faster than most—but I’m not sure I’ve ever sampled BrewDog’s take on it, so I’m not terribly sure what to expect here. I’m mostly just hoping that it doesn’t taste overwhelmingly artificial. We’ve officially hit the time of year when beer and spirits writers are now bombarded with samples and press releases about non-alcoholic and low-alcohol offerings, and for me it comes at a fortuitous time.

Ironically, it was Brewdog’s response to the furore created by these extra-strong beers that led it to brew another non-conformist beer, the 0.5% “ Nanny State” at a time when few breweries would even consider making a low or no alcohol beer. The term “ale” basically refers to any beer that’s been fermented at a warm temperature using top-fermenting yeast. (That’s yeast that likes to hang out higher up in the fermenting container.) Beers brewed in this way include US IPAs (India pale ales), Belgian strong ales, and British stouts. They now have breweries all over the world, bars in cities all over the world, 50,000 shareholders, a hotel, a collaboration with British Airways and have become the world’s first carbon negative brewery. They have a lot going on! This leads to Wake Up Call perhaps ultimately reading more like “iced coffee” than it does coffee stout, per se, which isn’t such a bad thing for a non-alcoholic beer. It might not specifically scratch the “stout” itch, if that’s what you’re craving, but it certainly delivers on the coffee. Unlike these other beers, this might be one I’d be reaching for not when I really wanted a stout, but when I wanted a twist on iced coffee. Brewdog is almost as famous for its controversial marketing stunts as its beer. It’s apt then that its alcohol free offering, “Nanny State”, began life as a response to the hysteria that surrounded the launch of its 18.2% ABV beer “Tokyo” in 2009.Britain produces a huge range of beer styles including stout, porter, bitter and IPA, but it’s perhaps most well-known for its real ale. This type of beer uses top-fermenting yeast with the process being carried out at much higher temperatures than mass-produced lagers, and it finishes fermenting in the cellar of the pub rather than at the brewery. It’s got an incredibly loyal following and is loved by so many that it’s led to the formation of CAMRA—the Campaign for Real Ale was established in 1971 in response to a lot of breweries favouring lower-quality styles, and aims to encourage the creation (and consumption) of traditional, flavoursome beers. Brewdog’s “Nanny State” is a low-alcohol (0.5%) pale ale with malty and plummy flavours and a tropical aroma. Read this review to find out what it’s like. There’s also info on calories and where to buy it. Nanny State pours like a standard ale with a good head. But it’s more ruby in colour than your classic pale ale.