Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife: How to Drink Less, On Your Terms
**A Spotify 'Rising Star' show** Practical moderation for the way you want to live.
Why can't I drink like I used to? How do I drink less without quitting completely? Should I go for low, no or light alcohol drinks? Why do alcohol-free drinks cost so much?
If you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s or beyond and asking these questions, this is your podcast.
Welcome to the essential show for midlife adults who want to drink less, on their own terms—without the pressure to quit completely, follow rigid rules, or label themselves as sober.
I'm Denise Hamilton-Mace, your mindful drinking mentor, writer and public speaker on all things low, no and light. Each week, I help stressed parents and busy midlife adults navigate their relationship with alcohol through practical approaches grounded in real-world experience and behaviour change strategy, not willpower or wellness culture
What you'll get:
Mindful Moderation Solo Episodes – Deep-dives answering the questions that matter to sophisticated drinkers who want to moderate smartly:
- How do I cut back when my partner still drinks at home?
- What really works: willpower vs. strategy?
- Why do premium alcohol-free drinks cost the same as full-strength versions?
- How do I navigate social situations when I'm the only one moderating?
This podcast is for you if:
- You're looking for practical advice that fits your demanding life, not another wellness overhaul
- You recognise that coasting with mid-strength drinks, zebra-striping, or bookending your evening with something non-alcoholic are all valid strategies
- You want better mornings without giving up celebrating life's special moments
This isn't about going completely dry or reinventing yourself. It's about keeping energy for what matters most: family, health, career, and living life on your own terms.
Join the moderation revolution happening in midlife – because while Gen Z gets the headlines, you're the one actually doing it.
Mindful Drinking and Moderation in Midlife: How to Drink Less, On Your Terms
#28. 1,500 AF Beers & Counting, with Martin Dixon
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Meet Martin Dixon, our resident beer reviewer at Low No Drinker Magazine, who has meticulously tasted and reviewed over 1,500 alcohol-free beers and ciders on his Instagram page!
His expertise has not only fuelled the magazine's success but also mirrors that of the burgeoning alcohol-free beer market. Join us as Martin shares his journey through alcohol-free beer from the UK to Germany, France and Sweden, with a little stopover in the US for good measure.
That’s right, when Martin says Alcohol-Free World, he really means it!
It started with the last Dry January that Martin participated in and we start the discussion there with an earnest look at how we don’t need to have a sad story to want to reduce the amount of alcohol in our lives.
We touch on a lot of topics in this hour-long conversation, including, of course, ‘big alcohol’s’ grip on the low/no market and how some AF brands can and must do better!
And, of course, I can’t let Martin go without finding out his own BBQ-Q favourites.
It was an honour to have Martin on the show. His beer reviews inside each and every issue of Low No Drinker are as quintessential a part of the magazine as beer at a BBQ.
Settle in and get ready to learn a whole lot more about the world of AF beer.
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Find Martin on Instagram at @alcohol_free_world/
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🎄 Join the daily advent for free to have your best Christmas & New Year yet! https://lownodrinker.com/christmaspod/ 🤶🏾
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✅ Get the Beginner's Guide to Mindful Drinking - https://lownodrinker.com/mindful-drinking-beginners-guide/
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❓ Take the Midlife Drinking Triggers Quiz - https://quiz.tryinteract.com/#/68dd33385bb4a20015996a13
And literally I would go to the bar with them and like watch a beer being poured and then stare at the pump thing and I'd be like , ok , that does say 0.5 . I've watched it go into that glass . I've escorted it back from the bar with my colleague who's gone up to order it and I'm now a bit Wow and it was an absolute wow moment for me hi , hi , low no nation , and welcome to this week's conversation on the low no drinker podcast .
Speaker 2Today I am talking to one of my favorite people that I have never met in real life , and that is the one and only mr martin dixon . Why am I so honoured to have him here ? Well , regular readers of the magazine will recognise Martin's name as our resident alcohol-free beer reviewer . When I first started L&D a year ago over a year ago now I had no idea how the magazine would pan out . I was literally just pulling things out of thin air . I put out a very nervous post on my very tiny Instagram and as soon as I saw a little bit of engagement from Martin , I went and checked his page and jumped straight into his DMs , and the rest , as they say , is history . At the time , martin had a very impressive 800 alcohol-free beer and cider reviews on his page . That number is now up to a whopping 1,500 , plus reviews , and I'm guessing that he's going to correct me in a moment and say it might even be a few more . He's recently been inducted into the British Guild of Beer Writers and has launched his own website so you can go and access his expertise at any time .
Speaker 2I am really excited to get to know Martin a bit more . This is a very selfish interview , because I want to know a bit more about the man behind these wonderful reviews , which are immensely enjoyable and helpful to readers and members of Lono Nation and helpful to readers and members of Lono Nation . So without Martin , I don't think Lono Drinker would be where it is today . So I'm so excited to see him and to chat to him . So , martin , welcome to the Lono Drinker podcast . Thank you very much . How are you doing ?
Speaker 1Thank you , Denise . Wow , what an introduction . I'm sure I'm blushing a little bit under all of that phrase . To answer your question , I'm doing very , very well . I'm absolutely delighted to be meeting you again through the medium of this podcast and to have a chance to chat alcohol-free beer , because that is one of my passions to chat alcohol-free beer because that is one of my passions .
Speaker 2It is indeed , and it is quite clear to see how much of a passion it is . So ,
1,500 alcohol-free beer reviews
Speaker 2as I mentioned , you know you were one of the very first people that I interacted with when it came to putting this magazine together , and I went to your Instagram page and I saw all of these beer reviews and , as I said , there were 800 at the time . I know this because I went page and I saw all of these beer reviews and , as I said , there were 800 at the time . I know this because I went back and I checked our emails and our correspondence and I remember just being blown away by not only your amazing reviews and your really accessible ways that you put the beers across to people , but the fact that there was just so many . Even I didn't realise how many there were , and now you're up to 1,500 , is that right , or are there even more ?
Speaker 1I think there's probably about yeah , there's just north of 1,500 on Instagram . I use a spreadsheet at home to keep track and I also use the Untappd app and I think both of them are just north of 1500 , and my wife would be the first to say that I I have far too many beers which I have not yet reviewed hidden away in various places around the house . So , yeah , I I gave up trying to keep up , uh , with all the alcohol-free beers . A while ago , I think there was a moment where I thought somehow I could keep track of all of the ones coming out all in the world , and it , thankfully , is never going to happen , because the alcohol-free world is just bigger and bigger . I like it that way .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's a mammoth job . Um , before we go too far down that path , because there's so much about beer that I want to to talk to you about and and gain your , your insight on , let's share a little bit about your own journey . So I'm aware of some of your background and we were talking before we pressed record about your , your international experiences and and how they've contributed to where you are now . But
Martin's story
Speaker 2what's the journey that led you to explore this world of alcohol-free beer and has made it such a passion for you ?
Speaker 1My journey . I think the first thing I have to say is that my journey is a very personal one , and I've been aware of being a advocate for alcohol free beer in a in a space where there is large and considerable overlap with people who have different sobriety journeys or near sobriety journeys . So I am very mindful of the fact that that not every person who is in this space is in it for the same reason and has similar experiences . But I can only tell my story from from my perspective . So , uh , from my side , my alcohol-free journey goes back to 2009 . Uh , the last alcoholic drink I had was a white russian . I remember that very well . I had it at about three o'clock in the morning on new year's eve , 2008 , 2009 . I then walked home , uh , from where I was living in to where I was living in paris . The walk took about an hour and I was chatting with a friend of mine who'd come over to spend new year with me and I said to him at the time I said , oh , I'm going to do dry January again this year . And I remember having that conversation as we strolled through the streets of Paris at four o'clock in the morning and I remember saying , yeah , I've done dry January before . I'll do it again this year . I don't do it because it's something particularly tough , it's not some sort of weird personal Everest , I just yeah , I just like doing it . So that was dry january 2009 , which is probably the third or fourth time I've done it . And then in previous years there'd always been a reason in February to to just go back into old habits , um so familiar routines , familiar places , whether it be watching rugby matches or going to gigs or something . There would always be something that just said routine and just kind of slipped back into it . So in 2009 I really enjoyed the , the dry january part of the start of the year , and then I think , almost subconsciously , was enjoying it so much that I kind of shied away from having that first drink again . And then we got to the stage and I kind of remember it was late February and I'd not been counting days . But then all of a sudden I was thinking , wow , I haven't actually . No , I haven't had an alcohol-containing drink for two whole months now . I feel pretty damn good on it . It hasn't had a negative impact I can think of . So you know what let's actually now ? Let's run with this for a while and let's see where we go with it . So , yeah , I think it's probably early March 2009 that I was like , okay , I'm going to try this and see how far it goes . And that was that .
Speaker 1Really , I started to tick off events that I thought might be a little bit difficult , events that I thought might be a little bit difficult . So first gig without grabbing a beer to enjoy during the show . First rugby match I attended in person . First football game I attended in person , and then it just it just rolled from there . And yeah , I think there was certainly occasions in that first six months where I would just kind of it would get to eight o'clock in an evening and I'd be like , okay , I'm not enjoying this anymore , I'm done , I'm just gonna , I'm just gonna go home , uh .
Speaker 1So I think I did recognize that , yeah , there were lots of circumstances where ordinarily I'd have just gone , okay , cool , well , I'll have a beer , I'll have a glass of wine or whatever . Um , but then once I'd worked out in my own mind that actually it's kind of just like a habit , like anything else , and once I'd broken that , I was like , okay , I , I like this . And for me it was always a case around I like this , and for me it was always a case around . I like this so much . Why would I not keep this going ? Because I'm a great believer that in my case , I'm not very good at denying myself things that I like doing .
Speaker 1Okay , and if I set myself up in kind of competition with myself as like a test of wills , and go , okay , I want to do this , but I'm going to do this instead , you know , my subconscious , lizard brain will always win eventually and just be like haha , caught you . So I , for as long as I can remember , really just thought of not drinking as something that I enjoy so much that if I drink alcohol , then I no longer get to enjoy my not drinking status , which I enjoy so much . So , therefore , the argument becomes a very simple one to win , and I know that if that was something that I could just write down , say to people and just share it with them , life would be very simple . And life isn't so simple . That's not how it works for a large number of people , but in my case it was really just that , you know , flipped it around . Am I doing something I like doing ?
Speaker 2yes , um , so I carried on doing it
Not everyone needs a story
Speaker 2and I think that it's perfectly okay to not have a elaborate not drinking story . I was mentioning to you beforehand that I used to apologize a lot . I remember one of the first few times I was invited on a podcast and I'd be asked you know what's the journey that led you to stop drinking ? And I'd say quite sheepishly well , you know , I don't really have a stop drinking story . I just realized that it wasn't serving me and I say in such an apologetic way , say it in such an apologetic way .
Speaker 2But what I've realized over time and speaking to a lot of other people , is that there are a lot of people who just want to make a decision that's better for their self , be it for their . They're doing it for their health , their mental health , their family , whatever the reasons they're making that choice . Not everybody who's looking at these amazing drinks that we'll come on to talk about is doing it out of a physical necessity , and that's okay . It's okay to be coming at this world from whatever angle best serves you and to have the chance to appreciate these drinks without having to justify yourself to anybody else .
Speaker 1The the low no world , or low no nation as I refer to us , is not made up of one type of person no , I agree , I I agree in your experience of feeling slightly uncomfortable , you know , when asked questions about your own , your own journey . I vividly remember a friend of mine in Paris where I was living when I stopped drinking , and he I'd become aware of through friends of friends , was someone who'd had real issues with with alcohol and kind of disappeared for a year . I spent a lot of time back in the states and then and then came back to France , um , and I remember having a chat with him and he'd heard that I wasn't drinking anymore , uh , and he'd been through this whole journey himself and was attending AA meetings , still in Paris , and was still very much kind of the word would be evangelical about the help that it brought him . And he was very insistent on three or four occasions that I'd run into him in the bar . He was saying you know , you really should come along to one of our meetings . I'm not trying to sign you up , but it would just be really motivational for other people to you know , to hear how you've been through this and what you've been through and everything . And I found it really difficult to kind of push back on his request because he was so impressed by what I'd done . Um , and he wanted to kind of unlock some of the secrets behind it and it made me feel just a little bit uncomfortable , because he wasn't trying to make me feel uncomfortable , but he was making , he was praising me and making me feel that I'd unlocked some secret that could be really useful to other people .
Speaker 1And I just didn't feel . I never followed through with his invitation . I never felt I could go and sit in that sober space and talk about how I'd unlocked the key to sobriety , almost as he was presenting it , because from my point of view I was not seeing it at all in those terms . I was just seeing it in terms of I used to do something , I stopped doing something . I really like the not doing the thing that I used to think I enjoyed doing , and guess what , not a lot has changed .
Speaker 1So I can completely see , denise , where you're coming from and I
Periods of sobriety
Speaker 1I agree 100 that you know not drinking is a space that people come to for different reasons and for different durations and you know , a period , a period of sobriety , for me can be a lifetime , it can be a holiday , it can be a mini break or it can be a mindful moment where you just have an evening where you don't drink , or literally you have an alcohol-free drink on that next visit to the bar , because that's just what you want to do and how you want to remain in control of what's happening around you .
Speaker 2So I think that's that's something where I agree with you 100 percent that the , the low , no nation , the low , no nation are here for for many different reasons and it's worth noting as well , isn't it that the majority of people who are drinking these beers or wines or spirits that are alcohol-free or low alcohol are still drinking full-strength drinks . So it's not even a case that these drinks are just for sober people . These drinks are for people who aren't drinking whilst they're having that drink , and it doesn't have to be that we're looking any further than that or justifying any more than that is , while I'm having this particular drink in my hand , I don't want it to have any alcohol in it , and what are the options that I have for that ?
Speaker 1yeah , I agree , I think there's . I have a number somewhere between 70 and 80 percent in terms of the uk , number somewhere between 70 and 80 percent in terms of the uk buyers of alcohol-free beer who , um , still consume alcohol at some point . It it really is something that you know . The vast majority of the market as it stands are people who , uh , you know , drink at some moments and don't drink at other moments , and you know that's . That's something which I'm very happy to promote , because I'm not promoting the sobriety side of what I
Not a crafty beer man
Speaker 1am . I'm promoting the joy of alcohol-free beers and ciders , and then people can take that however they wish and hopefully discover something which is a means to getting something more enjoyable out of something that they like doing or don't like doing anymore .
Speaker 2Absolutely , and let's talk about these beers then . So what ? Were you a big beer fan when you were drinking full strength drinks ? Were you a crafty into all of the nuances of micro brewing ? What was it that led you to develop such a passion for alcohol , free beers and ciders ?
Speaker 1such a passion for alcohol-free beers and ciders . I'm smiling here because I've done quite a lot of thinking around this subject and kind of who and what I was a fan of in the past , even though it seems it's 15 years ago . It seems like such a long time ago . Even though it seems it's 15 years ago , it seems like such a such a long time ago . Uh , I would say that when I was first drinking in the uk so early 90s onwards uh , the craft beer thing , yeah , that hadn't happened yet . Um , so it was really . Uh , yeah , there were real ales and there were lagers and I suppose I would probably drink . I would be more on the drinking of , you know , whatever lager was on tap in whichever pub I went to , but I wouldn't describe myself as being especially kind of loyal to to one type .
Speaker 1When I moved to france in 2001 , I continued to drink beer , but in french bar culture you don't tend to have a big choice of beers . There tends to be kind of one or two lagers on tap somewhere , and it's more that you know you order a size of beer rather than one specific type . So that encourages you to make it less about the beer and more about the occasion , and I would tend to be . If I was in an Irish bar or a British bar , I would tend to drink kind of the same drink for certain periods of the year and another drink at other times of the year . So my go-to a lot of the time would be I drink Guinness in winter and I drink Corona
Corona Cero: Beery fizzy pop?
Speaker 1in the summer so there you go , for someone who's now something of a craft beer expert .
Speaker 1The shock I can share with you today is that my go-to beer for many , many years was a bottle of Corona .
Speaker 2You and many others .
Speaker 1I will die on the hill that Corona is a nice beer for those moments where it's not all about the beer , is a nice beer for those moments where it's not all about the beer . It's about just being with people on an occasion and having something in a bottle , and it doesn't have to be . I don't think anyone ever took a swig of Corona and then spent five minutes trying to work out . You know what grain have they used here ? Has this been dry-hoppedped ? Where's this part coming ? It said nobody ever about the corona . So I say the same thing about corona the the , the low alcohol one . It's just kind of it's nice beery fizzy pop . Um , I I don't really get the hatred for it that . That that has come from from some angles . So me and me and craft beer is a journey that started , um , purely through the medium of alcohol-free beer . Because I remember seeing .
Speaker 1I remember seeing some cans of craft beer arrive in my local in Paris , probably about 2013 , 2014 . And I remember seeing these brightly colored beer cans turning up in the fridge and people started drinking them and I remember looking at it . What that's ? That weird stuff with the aliens on the side of the can . That's , that's , that's beer , right , you know why is it in a small can , what ? And people are drinking this like okay , and I it was a .
Speaker 1It was a world that I didn't know and it was a world that at that time was the with alcohol world . So other than seeing it going well , that looks a bit different I didn't have any exposure to that world . So it was only . It was only when I discovered British alcohol-free craft beer that I became aware of that whole movement and all of the of that whole movement and all of the wonderful world of hot varieties and different grains and all of those things . And that's a completely new world to me . But I will still sometimes talk to people who are real crafties and they'll mention a brewer or they'll mention something that's kind of like super famous and I'll just blank completely , I'll just be like no , never heard of them . And that's because if they haven't got something in the alcohol-free space , chances are I've not heard of them because I just wasn't in that space at all before .
Speaker 2Okay . So your real love for the artistry of beer making really came to the fore when it came to
Martin meets AF beers
Speaker 2the alcohol-free beers and ciders and just investigating that world . So you learned it all really as you were going along and started sharing those learnings .
Speaker 1I think very much so . If I didn't pick up an alcohol-free beer until probably about 2012 so I'd been not drinking for three years and I'd just been on the the coffees in the sample of greener um alcohol-free beer in bars in france was just like it wasn't there . You didn't ask for it . You could get it in supermarkets , but it was . You know , it was whatever version of zero , zero cronenberg was out at the time and that was pretty damn bad . And it was only when I started socializing with colleagues in germ in 2012 , I think they said to me like you know , we're having some beers after work . Come along , they have alcohol free . And literally I would go to the bar with them and like , watch a beer being poured and then stare at the pump thing and I'd be like , okay , that does say 0.5 . I've watched it go into that glass . I've , I've , I've escorted it back from the bar with my colleague who's gone up to order it , and I'm now I'm at wow and and it was an absolute wow moment for me and it then made me realize that the stuff that I was getting in a french supermarket or , occasionally , a french football match was , these were not the same things . These are just just wildly different products .
Speaker 1So I had a phase where I would bring alcohol-free beer from Germany back from the UK to France , because in the middle part of the 2010s there were starting to be a couple of dedicated alcohol-free retailers in the UK online . You know they were shipping it across from Germany and then I would fill my car up in the UK and I would take seven or eight boxes of it and take it back to to Paris with me . But they would be kind of real special occasion beers for me , because I would know that it was probably only twice a year . I could restock , so when I had , you know , a bottle of Meisels Weiss or something , it was always just like this big treat for me . So that was , yeah , it was German . It was all about the German beer for me to begin with .
Speaker 2I love that story . It's kind of it's like the reverse of the the duty-free , uh car dash that people used to do going to France and filling up the boot of the the duty-free , uh car dash that people used to do going to france and filling up the boot of the car with loads of cheap booze to bring back to the uk . You're doing it in reverse and so I did have .
Speaker 1I did have customs at dover uh , asked me to flip the boot on the car once and literally they're like what , what's in all the ? Because it was a , it was a mini , so it was quite weighed down by having seven or eight cases in it and they got me to flip the back of the car and the guy was literally like what's that ? And I was like , well , it's alcohol free German beer . And he was quite incredulous and was like , well , it's alcohol-free German beer . And he was quite incredulous and was like , right , and you're taking that to France .
Speaker 1And I was just like I said , yeah , it sounds weird , I can't get this stuff in France and it's really good . And he's like , but there's no alcohol in it . I was like no , there's no alcohol in it . I was like no , there's no alcohol in it . And he was like , okay , well , yeah , you're not . Yeah , if it was alcohol it wouldn't be a problem because you know the it's kind of an unlimited quantity . But he just found it very strange that my car would be full up with cases and cases of of alcoholfree beer .
Speaker 2I guess it's not something that he saw very much of then , but perhaps now he might be more open to the next person who's doing that . But of course we've got a lot more routes to market for alcohol-free drinks now in the UK .
Sweden
Speaker 2We were saying , before you're currently in Sweden , you've been in france and in germany . What's the accessibility like for alcohol-free drinks in those places ? Because , as you would have seen from the last issue , I did a sort of low-no around the world feature and I'm really interested to see what it's like for people in in other , because the UK is often touted as one of the driving forces for creativity and innovation in alcohol-free , but that's always cited next to the fact that Germany is just the biggest producer of alcohol-free . And then I sweden um have very strict rules about what you can buy in terms of alcohol and where you can get it , and does that apply to their , their af ? What's it like accessing those drinks now versus when you had to ? Um legitimately smuggle them across the border ?
Speaker 1lots of questions about lots of places I know well , so I'll try and tackle them one by one and we'll start with . We'll start with sweden first . Uh , you were absolutely right in saying that sweden has some of the strictest alcohol laws in the world , and alcohol above three and a half percent is only available in state-owned liquor stores , which are open limited hours , close on a saturday afternoon , not open on sundays , public holidays and there's such like . So they're the only place that you can buy wine , spirits and beer of over 3.5% . Other than those shops , you have to be on licensed pubs and restaurants and they would not be licensed to sell for takeaway . It's all for consumption on the premises , for alcohol-free beer . Alcohol-free beer can be freely sold in supermarkets alongside kind of weak , regular strength beer , and in Sweden alcohol-free beer has just been part of the landscape for such a long time that your average Swedish fridge at home is likely to have a few bottles of alcohol free , a few bottles of with alcohol beer , and it just , it just really isn't a thing . It's just not a , it's not a a . It's not a subject for conversation really . If you have an alcohol-free beer , people don't immediately start asking you about your . You know what was your lowest moment ? What was it ? Yeah , there's , there's , no , there never really has been a stigma attached .
Speaker 1I , I'm the owner of a , of a bar in stockholm and I remember , shortly after we opened the , uh , the road worker who was , you know , fixing the the street or , uh , laying telephone cable or something you know , came in boots , the fluorescent vest and stuff . And he came in about midday , um , just walked into the bar and said , uh , you know , what's in swedish was like what's your ? Which alcohol-free beers do you have ? Um , we had three different ones . He was like I'll have a nils oscar , you know , with a glass , and he poured it out to himself , uh , and he drank it pretty damn quickly and then was just like , ah , that tasted so good , that's just what I wanted . I really just had the taste that I wanted a beer , um , but obviously I'm at work , uh , but , yeah , wow , really good to be able to have like a , you know , as he said , yeah , just , really , just , really good to be able to have a beer and then go back to my job . And then he just , you know , waved and said goodbye and then went back to working outside , and he wasn't trying to be edgy or part of some new scene or movement or make a point about anything . He was just a geezer who was working on the road and wanted a beer at lunchtime and he just walked in and had a beer and walked out it . Just he respected that it had to be an alcohol-free beer in that moment , but that was what he had and that's very much the .
Speaker 1The swedish approach to alcohol-free beer is that it's never really been like a huge movement . So yeah , it's there , but there's never been like so much excitement behind it that that that causes everyone to suddenly get excited about it all of a sudden . That's Sweden . I would contrast that with let's talk about Germany . Germany has more than 850
Germany
Speaker 1brewers currently making alcohol-free beer . That's an awful lot , that's a big number .
Speaker 1It's a big number because in Germany there are so many traditional brewers that have been brewing beer for a long time , brewing beer successfully . Often they're the regional brewery , or one of two regional breweries that's attached to a town or city locally , and they deliver their beer in bottles uh to bars , restaurants within their town and then , almost like milk delivery was back in the day in the uk , they're collecting the the bottles back in crates and bringing them back and then sterilizing and re-bottling the beer , and they would also supply mineral water , they would supply fizzy drinks , and yet , because that's how their local distribution is set up , that's how their local distribution is set up , that's how they operate . If you go to Nuremberg and you have an amazing alcohol-free beer , if it was made locally by the brewery in Nuremberg there's a very good chance that you will never find that beer anywhere else in Germany .
Speaker 1Okay , and there's more than 800 of those examples of just really good breweries which make a really good alcohol-free beer . And don't shout about it , because in the next town , 20 kilometers away , there's another brewery that sells most of the beer in that town and they happen to make an alcohol-free beer as well , and it's that's . That's kind of the german reality of things . So you do get some modern like craft world beers hamburg , berlin they have some , uh , something of a more modern craft beer scene where they rebel a little bit against the the the conventions of german brewing , but it's still , you know , that's still kind of a minority . And germany has been just one of the countries that just adopted alcohol free as part of beer drinking life very quickly . And those same colleagues who introduced me to alcohol-free beer in 2012 in Germany you know they were already saying , yeah , the alcohol-free beer is great .
Speaker 1I go out sometimes on a Wednesday night , I'll have three of those . I drive home . I've got a big meeting the next day . You know it's perfect . You know I don got a big meeting the next day , it's perfect . I don't give it a second thought . None of my friends give it a second thought . If someone's with us and drinks two litres of alcohol-free beer instead of two litres of beer with alcohol , they're just like it's not a thing .
Speaker 1So Germany is really in a place where there's been this early tolerance and acceptance and just really a culture where you know it really alcohol was never that big a deal in many respects . So there not being alcohol is not as big a deal , so it's just different . Alcohol is not as big a deal , so it's just different . So the final place of that I've lived and have a big experience of is is France , and France is .
France
Speaker 1France is very different , but that's because France has always had kind of a very tolerant reaction to alcohol .
Speaker 1I remember when I first set up a company in france in 2001 and we hired probably a dozen or so local french staff who who worked with us and I remember very early on one of them went out to buy lunch and we just introduced the idea that you know we ate , we ate lunch at our desks , because that's kind of how we were british and productive and this guy came back at lunchtime , um , with a sandwich from the boulangerie and you know he sat at his desk and was just , uh , getting on with a few things at lunchtime and he had a can of heineken next to him and we were watching him . We're like , we're like , what is that ? And he was just like um , I don't know , um , it's just a can of beer , we're like a can of beer which you are drinking at your desk at lunchtime . And he was like , yes , we're like it's something you don't do . And he's just like but . But he's like , look , it's not , it's not a drink . You know it what ? He's like ? It's one can of beer , it's , it's , it's it's , and . And literally in his mind he was just like well , this isn't a drink , this is , I'm not drinking , it's a hot day , I fancy the beer , this is one beer .
Speaker 1And , as he said , the boulangerie doesn't really sell alcohol , but it sells Orangina , it sells Coca-Cola and it has some cans of Heineken .
Speaker 1None of those are really , they're just different choices that you have one of at lunchtime .
Speaker 1So France has always had this kind of really , they're just different choices that you have one of at lunchtime .
Speaker 1So France has always had this kind of more tolerant relationship to alcohol and , in terms of alcohol-free beer , there is still a dominance of macro big brewery lager , where people are low expectation , and they have that low expectation met by by this product and for a lot of people that's kind of perfectly okay , because if you're not mad keen on the beer anyway , um , that's , that's how you're gonna , you're gonna have your expectations fulfilled .
Speaker 1Yeah , france doesn't have lots of brasseries where you go in and they've got seven different beers on tap and they're all not going crazy about the latest spanish beer that's being made in england and badged with a guy with a hat and a waistcoat on it this year . It's not , the country doesn't get behind beer in the same way . So trying to get people worked up about the idea of alcohol-free beer is is is a lot harder . There is a French craft beer movement and you can find , particularly in big French cities , you can always find , you know , a real craft shop that's stocking all sorts of weird and wonderful things and people who are crazy passionate about it .
Speaker 1Um , and you can now get british and american alcohol free beers okay in those craft beer shops , um , but in terms of the mainstream there just isn't really the same interest in in beer , for alcohol-free beer to be a thing , but alcohol-free wine and alcohol-free aperitifs and spirit substitutes . They are more of a driving factor in France . There's a lot more . There's a lot more interest in those options , I think , than there is in alcohol-free beer .
Big alcohol
Speaker 2You mentioned the big breweries and I wanted to get your thoughts often referred over here when people are talking impassionately about , uh , about the lono industry , to refer to big alcohol being . You know the , the likes of your , your peronies and your coronas . You know your , your diageos , your ab and bevs . What are your thoughts on big alcohols moved into the alcohol-free space ? Do you see it as ? Is it a positive thing ? Is it challenging to ? Is it too challenging to the smaller brands ? What thoughts do you have on how big alcohol's embrace of alcohol-free is impacting the industry ?
Speaker 1That is a subject for a whole podcast on its own and I'll try to throw out some thoughts on a subject which is which is so broad . But I'll start with by the positive , non-cynical me which likes the fact that you can now see a Heineken Zero on a bar top , available on draft . You can now see Heineken Zero advertised at the side of a Formula One Grand Prix , like we saw at the weekend . And the positive side of me who wants a world where there is an acceptance that it's okay to drink an alcohol-free beer forever for this round , for for whatever occasion it might be . The role of macro breweries in in shifting public opinion is very , very significant and I recognize and salute that . And I think that a world where it's just much more normal for people to be around alcohol-free drinks , to be around people who are drinking alcohol-free drinks , I think that's a good thing . So if that's being driven by Heineken zero , peroni zero , et cetera , then broadly I think that's a good thing . However , I am naturally a little bit cynical and there is a part of me that thinks this is a way of promoting alcohol through promoting the same brand , just with a bit of blue print after it . So yeah , there's a Grand Prix in Saudi Arabia and there's Heineken Zero written all the way around everywhere . That also seems to me to be a pretty big advert for Heineken , and if 98% of Heineken's sales are in the alcohol space , then it doesn't really seem to be an act of altruism on behalf of that brewer to be promoting alcohol-free , because arguably they're promoting the with alcohol version and the alcohol-free is just a way of doing that .
Speaker 1There is also , I have a strong feeling that if macro brewers wanted to make a much better-tasting alcohol-free beer , they could do . They really could do . And I have an imagined scenario in my mind of , you know , executives in white coats sat around in boardrooms testing beers and there's kind of you know , there's 10 on the table . Um , a number one tastes dreadful and number 10 is just so amazing . And in most macro breweries I think they kind of let it get to about as far as number three and then they're kind of like , okay , we'll stop there , we'll leave it at the not too terrible part and we won't make it any more ambitious than that , with the caveat that that that that's not what guinness did and okay guinness very clearly were like okay , on a scale of one to ten , ours has got to be a nine or a ten or it ain't .
Speaker 1It ain't being launched . Yeah , um , that product is . I'm not a shill for guinness , but that product is nothing short of of miraculous and I firmly believe that if AB InBev wanted to create a Bex Blue that tasted like beer , I think they could do , but they've chosen not to . And something which other people I know have said exactly the same thing is that where a lot of people who are exposed to alcohol-free beer for the first time come across the bad ones .
Speaker 1So not just picking on Beck's Blue , but it deserves it but if someone is going to come across one of those in a pub fridge , they're likely to always pigeonhole alcohol-free beer as being it's got a weird sweet kind of taste which shouldn't be there , and the bitterness seems to come at a slightly wrong moment .
Speaker 1And no , there's just something that's not really , that's just something that's not that good and that , I think , is doing a disservice , a massive disservice , to some wonderfully talented brewers all over the world who have kind of cracked the code and are continuing to crack the code of how to make this brilliant drink that doesn't contain alcohol but contains a lot of the flavors that people love about beer , and people are being denied access to those by the sharp marketing practice and the big marketing budget of those macro brewers who are just crowding out the better stuff from the , from the market , which they could make themselves but they choose not to because , for whatever reason they they , they don't want their alcohol free beer to be as good as it could be and I think they they also have the luxury of they .
Speaker 2They don't have to , because when people are first entering this , this world , the majority of people will pick a brand that they know . If they drink per Peroni , they'll go for a Peroni Zero . If they drink Heineken , they'll go for a Heineken Zero . Because it's comfort . We find comfort in that which we already know and they have the budgets and the marketing and the strength to be able to go . As long as it's drinkable , people will still choose this . And because it's on the side of formula one or the rugby world cup or wherever it is , or um , the olympics corona zeros is got the olympics , then people will continue to to purchase it .
Speaker 2I think the the biggest challenge I think that that big alcohol presents to our industry is that the sheer volume of shelf space that they take , of marketing spend that they take , makes it so difficult for the other brands to get a foot in the door .
Speaker 2And this is not to say that you know this . This is commerce , this is business . I understand that this is the world that we live in . I run a business , so I completely understand that it's about money at the end of the day for them , but what happens is they take all this space , some produce subpar liquids , they leave a bad taste in the mouth of people who are trying these things for the first time , and they leave no space for those producers who are going the extra mile , who are bringing out the nines and the tens to get themselves heard , which ultimately means that they're not able to continue . And so my worry is that there's this vicious cycle that's being um executed by big alcohol just being too big and and not allowing many of the wonderful brands that we feature in the magazine from your reviews to get their voices heard , and that's why , sadly , so many of them , even some that we've featured in such a short space of time , have have gone away , and that's that's really scary it's .
Speaker 1It's scary when you think of it that way , but it's also . Consumer behavior is such that so many people who consume beer on a regular basis , they're really they're not overthinking it , they're just exactly as you said , they bought into the brand already . There's a reason why three years ago they were drinking whatever it might have been , and for the last two years they've been drinking Madri , and next year it might , you know , it might move on to being something else . That's their main drink . They might move on to drinking Magnus with ice cubes in it drink . They might move on to drinking magnars with ice cubes in it it . A lot of . It is just people are not stopping and going like like wow , is this the best tasting version of this that I could find , or are they just it's , yeah , they've got other things on their mind . This is available , it fits into a box that they think it should fit into , and then they're kind of like you know what ? You could tell me that there's a better version of that . But there's something that and a lot of people are just you know , they don't want to hear that .
Speaker 1And we have an example of that in the alcohol-free beer world um ,
Athletic Brewing
Speaker 1with the behemoth of brewing from the US and alcohol-free is Athletic Brewing Company . Now , athletic Brewing Company have maybe two or three core beers that are available in Europe and have done a couple of limited releases . Their core beers are really dull . They're five or six out of tens . Um , and someone will look at review that I gave one of them 81 or something and go it's not a six out of ten , but , but , but let's go with this . Their core range are really dull , like real kind of wow , you should do better type of beers . Now the crazy thing is if you go to the usa and I pay to get beers sent over from the us , athletic brewing company have made just some of the most blow your socks off amazing alcohol-free beers that anyone has ever made . Multiple gold medal awards on my , on my site , numerous silvers , just beers where I just go like done it , they're smacked out of the park again . This one is incredible .
Speaker 1And yet the beers they are building their brand with are just really inoffensive .
Speaker 1Let's avoid the . Let's avoid the strong flavors , let's avoid the . Let's avoid anything that will kind of upset too many people or excite too many people . And they're building a huge empire based around essentially three beers which , uh , they're just so middle of the road that the craft beer fan in me and the fan of flavor is just like , oh yeah , release one of the other ones , it's a thousand times better .
Speaker 1But they will have taste tested these on people who are just like , oh oh no , that one , that one tastes a bit funny . Oh well , that's what's that weird sharp aftertaste , and at the end of the day , it's the tyranny of the majority , and there's a lot of people out there who are just like you know what ? Just give me that six out of ten . Let me associate with the brand and you know what ? That's what I'm going to aspire to , and that's quite difficult for people who are passionate about something to want to aspire to create something that's inoffensive to large numbers of people , and it almost goes against the passion that that so many of us and that I personally have .
Speaker 1Um , and yet this is a company which gets major lineage in time magazine and in business week and people talking about you know it's the unicorn of american brewing and it's worth billions . And when's it going to get taken over by abm bet or dr pep or whoever it might be ? Yeah , and yet they're pursuing this strategy . They absolutely can make some of the best craft beer in the world , but at the same time as they are doing that , they make some terrible middle of the road craft beer in the world . But at the same time as they are doing that , they make some terrible middle-of-the-road , some perfectly acceptable but dull middle-of-the-road beers , and they are the ones that they're building their American domination on . So it's an interesting conundrum .
Speaker 2Indeed indeed . First of all , the tyranny of the majority . Love that phrase , I'm stealing that I'll give you credit . It's a great phrase Thank you steal away .
Speaker 2We're talking about the flavours , the sixes out of tens , the ten out of tens . I would love
Tasting notes
Speaker 2to get a few words of guidance for those watching or listening on tasting alcohol-free beers , because they taste different . Okay , they taste different , and people often struggle by committing what I'm now referring to as a cardinal sin of of comparing an alcohol-free drink to its alcohol-full counterpart . What tips or advice would you have for those who are venturing into the world of alcohol-free beer in terms of tasting them and finding those flavours that they can enjoy for whatever occasion ? That is a brilliant questionise why , thank you .
Speaker 1What I would say is , is that a couple of bits of advice . Firstly , get it to the right . Get it to the right temperature . So the right temperature might be the temperature that's indicated on the can or the bottle . Um , the right temperature might be the right temperature for for you .
Speaker 1There is a widely available alcohol-free beer in sweden which is in lots of restaurants , in lots of bars , and if I ever see it and it's one of the ones there on the menu I always ask them if they have a bottle that isn't really really chill , because it has a touch of some amber malt to it and it has just a touch of warmth . And if you chill that down too far , it's a bit like overchilling an English bitter . It just kind of it just kills it a little bit bitter . It just kind of it just kills it a little bit . So if you have a personal preference for what temperature you like a beer , then you know , respect that a little bit . I would also say pour the beer , pour the beer out and drink it from a , from a glass . I don't know any alcohol-free beers that are a satisfying experience if you drink them straight from the can . Perhaps another plug for Corona Steadle . If you have that straight from a bottle with a bit of lime stuck in the top , that's probably the best way of drinking it . But in the top that's probably the best way of drinking it . But that's because that's not really about the the beer , that's about the occasion . Um , so I would . I would also say , if you want to give yourself a chance of enjoying alcohol-free beer , um , then make it a bit of a , then make it a bit of an occasion and give it the chance in your own mind to to be something that you look forward to , because we look forward to things that we like as human beings . That's our pleasure centers in the brain , that's what we , that's what we do . So , in the same way that when I had a limited amount of German alcohol-free beer that I brought back in the car in Paris , having one of those beers was something that I would be like , wow , okay , marks and Spencer's curry , I'm gonna have that this evening and I'm gonna have a Meisels Weiss with this , and I pour it out and I'd look at it and be like , wow , look at that , oh , love this beer . And then , yeah , I associate that as being this , it's this treat . It's something which is all of this positiveness is attached to that .
Speaker 1So if you're someone who wants to drink alcohol-free beer during the week , or wants to have an alcohol-free weekend or something , then , yeah , come back after work on a friday evening , have that alcohol-free beer maybe a special one that you've you've bought have it chilled at the right temperature , have your favorite glass , pour it out , look at it , appreciate it , turn it into something . Turn it into something that you want to enjoy and you want to be part of that experience , and then it really will become part of something that is pleasurable . If you don't play with your mind a little bit and if you just kind of open a fridge and you just suddenly see that you've got a 12 pack of lucky saint and you've taken everything else out the fridge and then you're like , okay , got to have one of these . Then , and you know , you crack one open and then start swigging it from the can , you trudge back to the sofa and go this is my miserable life now . You're not really giving yourself a fair chance .
Speaker 1So , create a bit of spectacle around it , look forward to it , put it in a nice glass and then just take a moment to think you know what .
Speaker 1Yeah , I like this . And then if you want to take a bit more of a moment to actually kind of appreciate the flavors in it , if it is a craft beer that's been made with a bit of care and attention , then there's no great art to tasting beer . It's really just . It's so personal , it's just taking a moment and thinking about what the flavour is in your mouth and you can do that on the first sip . You can do that for a few sips and then you can get on with doing something more interesting if that's what you want . That for a few sips , and then you can get on with doing something more interesting if that's what you want . But you know you might find , if you do that , that there are some hidden depths to some of the alcohol-free beers that you're drinking , or you might find that you know you weren't that into doing that with regular beer anyway , so why do it with the alcohol-free stuff ?
Speaker 2excellent , some fabulous tips there , I think . Um , and , of course , to keep reading martin's reviews in lono drinker magazine and , uh , visiting his website and finding some more great advice for how to appreciate these drinks . Um , my last question to you , martin , is my barbecue question , which I ask everybody who comes on the show . Now , this is going to be
The BBQ-Question
Speaker 2a difficult one for you because you are obviously familiar with so many beverages , but I always ask imagine it's a nice I don't know what the weather is like over there at the moment if it's nice and sunny , if it's due season barbecue weather fantastic .
Speaker 2So you're off to a barbecue . What , at the moment ? I'll say for this moment in time perhaps , rather than for all time what low-no beers would you be bringing with you and the missus to enjoy a nice afternoon in the sun with your favourite barbecue foods ?
Speaker 1I have prepared for this one , denise . I was sat outside last night and I was drinking one of these which is not going to show up , but it's a beer called Hypersonic by Kent Craft Brewer we Can Be Friends , who are a dedicated alcohol free brewer , and Hypersonic is their third or their fourth alcohol free beer and it's just . And Hypersonic is their third or their fourth alcohol-free beer and it's just , it's glorious . It's absolutely made for sitting in an English garden surrounded by freshly cut grass . It's just the joy of a beer . It's a bit of stone fruit . It's a bit of stone fruit . It's a bit of fluffy peach . It's got a nice kind of feel to it in the mouth . It's got a decent crispness to it , but it's nothing abrasive or too aggressive . It's just absolutely glorious . So that is Hypersonic by we Can Be Friends , which is delicious .
Speaker 1I would also shout out and this isn't a North-South bias , but I'd shout out another South of England beer . So any of the juicy AF range by Only With Love , buy only with love just because they're subtle . Pale ales that blend a little bit of fruit into the recipe , but not in a way that creates a fruity beer . It creates a regular pale ale with just a bit more of something a body of flavour or something to it , and it works really well . Only With Love . Have expanded their range to three or four different pale ales this year , and any of them would be an absolutely fabulous choice for a barbecue . So that would be my absolutely fabulous choice for a for a barbecue . So they'll be my choices .
Speaker 2Choose something from only with love , or choose uh , hypersonic by we can be friends and you can't go far wrong great choices , great choices , and I don't often do this , but I'm going to throw one back at you because it's a beer that you've mentioned a couple of times , which I only discovered a little while ago and I absolutely love , which is the Maisel Weiss . It's such a good full-bodied , but it's it's because I'm not . I'm not a big beer drinker , as a a lot of , um . You know , my time in in bars and restaurants was always about wines and spirits , but I tried that and I was like blimmin' heck , that's really nice . And then I heard you talk about it and I was like , yes , I picked a good one , martin likes it too .
Speaker 1Meiselsweiss is . It was the one that was in the back of my car most often when I brought beers back from the UK to Paris . Brought beers back from the UK to Paris . It's still the OG alcohol-free wheat beer . For me , Oft imitated , pretty much never bettered . I've had a few German wheat beers that have probably run it quite close , but in terms of a brilliant beer just becoming recognized all over the world because it's so damn good , there isn't a better example than Meiselsweiss . Because they're with alcohol beers . I don't think I've ever seen them for sale anywhere outside of Germany , but this alcohol-free version they have . I've seen it all over the world and there is a very good reason why it's available all over the world and that's because it is just so damn good .
Speaker 2It really is . It really is , martin . Tell us you've recently launched your website . Tell us , first of all , what it is , it is and and how people can go along and experience um some some of your great resources I'm happy to plug it .
Speaker 1My website is at alcoholfreeworld and there you can find out just a little bit more about uh , about me , a little bit more about uh , about what I do . Um , I still keep instagram as the main place that I have all of my uh reviews . So , as you kindly mentioned at the start , there are more than 1500 reviews on on instagram . The highlights uh are arranged by flag , so if you have a preferred country , you can look at the country and you can see various alcohol-free beers . There's probably about 45 countries um on there and the most well numbered , highest numbered countries , I think , are up to um . I think I've had more than 200 English ones , more than 100 Scottish ones and I'm well north of 100 Canadian ones , polish ones , german ones , so it really is a broad selection from everywhere .
Speaker 1People do ask me when will I build a website and make every review available with full search capability ? Oh , my goodness , it's something which I think of quite often . Um , it would be a massive undertaking to to do it and , yeah , I would do it one day maybe , uh , but I probably need , I probably need someone to offer me a pot load of money to build it and then , yeah , then we can talk , we can dream yeah , yeah , and there may be somebody listening now , who , who you know , shares your passion and and has those skills .
Speaker 2Perhaps you know this could be a chance to bring you together with somebody , and you never know what could come of it , because you know there there are so many and you've still got so many more to to do . I mean , I I dread to imagine how many boxes and crates of beer you've got around you right now that still need tasting there are lots , there are lots , and I have a storage locker and I have stuff in various places .
Speaker 1But equally , I'm relaxed now about the fact that I'm never going to try them all and I'll read about an amazing beer working out ways of getting it shipped . And now I'm kind of like , okay , I'll treat myself a few times a year and I'll pay for stuff to be moved from one continent to another . But , um , yeah , I'm . I'm just happy that there's a world where there's brilliant things happening in parallel in different places that I've been a small part in sharing around the place . That suddenly an alcohol-free beer from Australia is being talked about and shared in group chats that I'm a member of , with loads of people in the USA and they're getting hold of that beer and it's inspiring them to brew better beers and that's kind of the yeah , that's kind of the world I want to be part of .
Speaker 2It's almost as if we want this not almost we do . We want this world to be bigger than just our little piece of it , and if we can help that happen , if we can reach a few more people who didn't know that they had this plethora of choices , then our job is being done well , I think exactly , exactly martin , thank you so much for joining me today .
Speaker 2it has been a absolute pleasure bending your ear and and , and you know , getting into the nitty-gritty of AF beer with you , and there is so much more that we didn't even touch the surface of . So I'm thinking we're going to have to do another episode in a few more months and just share some more of that passion for the low-no world . We barely even touched on ciders , and then the different types of beers and ales and porters and stouts , and yeah , there's just so much , isn't there ?
Speaker 1There's so much to cover , and the great thing is that we're never going to have time to cover it all . So let's do this again sometime , but in the meantime , it was an absolute pleasure chatting with you and sharing some things with the Lono Nation .
Speaker 2Thanks , martin , take care , bye . Bye with you and sharing some things with the uh , with the low-nodation . Thanks , martin , take care , bye .
