ABV: 0.5%
Calories per bottle: 91 (28 per 100ml)
Picking a beer is a matter of taste, and we don’t all agree on what’s tasty. For some, stout is nasty stuff, like burnt toast in a glass. For others, it’s a taste-bud adventure on a highway of delicious roastiness. If you lean towards the second of these two positions, you should probably try this!
Back in 2015, Rob Fink decided to give up alcohol, and went on a scout for decent alcohol-free beers. Like most of us back then, he didn’t have much luck. So, he decided to make his own. Working in partnership with Johnny Clayton, formerly of Wild Beers in Somerset, the first fruit of their labours appeared in 2016. Originally described as Chocolate Milk Stout, it was revamped in 2020 as Galactic Milk Stout, promising drinkers a “rocket to the moon”.
For the unfamiliar, milk stout isn’t exactly made with milk; it’s made with lactose, the sugar you get in milk. As for the chocolate, that’s a type of dark roasted malt; although this beer also does have coco nibs (crushed cocao beans) in it, just to make it extra chocolaty.
Of all the alcohol-free beers we’ve tasted, this is one of the ones mostly likely to leave you wondering whether you’ve just knocked back a regular beer by mistake. Whatever depth of flavour beers normally get from alcohol, this one gets is from somewhere else. Maybe it’s the cocao nibs. Maybe it’s the fact that it hasn’t been brewed and de-alcoholised; it’s been made just like an ordinary beer but has only got to 0.5% ABV. However they do it, it’s a triumph.
You can order it online from Dry Drinker, and we’ve also found it in Sainsbury’s.
