Here are some more beers that have been sent to me by the brewers’ people for my comment. I’ve shot a video of my first beer in the drop of three different ones, and I’ll add my impressions of the other two as I go along.
Big Drop Brewing is a British brewer, started in 2017, specializing in non-alcoholic beverages. They were made in England at Hepworth Brewery in West Sussex. This year, they’ve expanded into the U.S. market, with distribution in the Chicago area, and expansion to Michigan and Minnesota. In the U.S., three Big Drop beers are made by Great Central Brewing.
They have opened on this side of the ocean with two pale ales and a milk stout style, each officially listed at 0.5% alcohol by volume.
Big Drop Pine Trail Pale Ale
This is a pale ale style brew, with 42 IBU of magnum, Mosaic and Amarillo hops.
It pours a bright gold color with a fizzy, soda pop head. The smell does have some unmistakable Mosaic hops to it. Taste has a soda pop mouthfeel to it, but the pale ale hops are very much there. Plenty of dry bitterness. But knocking out the alcohol and some of the calories (this one says 78 calories), they don’t have much of a malt backbone. That may be all right for an NA beer style. But taken for what it is, a pretty good iteration of the style. Yet again, the finish gives me an odd impression of lipstick that seems to haunt me with many NA beers.
[clear]
Big Drop Paradiso IPA
According to the can, this one is being brewed in Canada. It pours a big foamy head over a hazy yellow beer body. The smell is mostly hop citrus; any malt nose is too little to pick up. Its taste is hard to define… there’s some nice bitter hops, with a bit of citrus to it again. But the hops are sitting out there all by themselves. Light malts mean there’s not much sweetness to counteract the hop bitterness. It’s a literal “barley pop.” I know having no alcohol is the point, but without the alcohol to slow me down, it drinks pretty fast.
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Big Drop Galactic Extra Dark
This one is meant to be a non-alcohol stout. The current can is one of the ones being brewed at Great Central. I popped it while grilling, and as you can see, since I had a carcinoma snipped from the top of my ear, I need to keep a silly, big brimmed hat on if I so much as look out a window.
The brew kicks up a foamy, big head that dwindles away quickly like soda pop, leaving some straggling Brown bubbles. There’s a dark brown body, almost black, that does have a surprisingly nice English Stout smell. The taste is like a regular Stout at first, but then I get a lingering aftertaste of cigarette ash. Perhaps the malt was over smoked. Despite trying to capture the many flavor components of a stout beer, I still get a kind of watery mouth feel. Considering that many stouts are lower alcohol session beers in the first place, one might think that a non-alcohol version would preserve much of its flavor profile. But this one still needs some work. There’s also a slightly incongruent sweet aftertaste.
