Lowtide Atomic Blonde

ABV: 0%
Calories per 100 ml: 10

This is a guest review by Phil McClelland, who can be found at his alcohol-free drinks blog Opening the Bottle.

Based in beautiful Bath, Lowtide aim to “combine stellar can artwork, a sense of crafty defiance, and deliciously different alcohol-free beers”. The artwork on this particular can instantly makes you pick it up for a look: a big apricot hooked up to a machine to extract the flavour from it. The beer itself is a pleasing golden colour, not too light: a bit like an apricot colour, I suppose. There was a pretty impressive head which lasted longer than most non-alcoholic beers.

There is a definite sweet fruit aroma but it’s not overpowering, and not the syrupy smell you can sometimes get in a sweet lager. It looks and smells like it should be a cracking beer you can’t wait to drink. That brings us on to the taste, which was just how I wanted it to be: lovely, rounded and smooth. The hops and bitterness are in balance and the sweetness isn’t overpowering; and then you start to appreciate the apricot. It is definitely there but it isn’t the dominant flavour, and it doesn’t take over the whole beer. It does seem to get a touch sweeter as you’re drinking it, and I don’t think you’d want more than two or three of these beers in a single session.