Guinness 0 (less than 0.05%)

There continues to be a lot of chatter these days about non-alcoholic beer, and within that chatter I’m seeing a steady amount of praise for Guinness 0, the alcohol-free version of the famous Irish stout. So as a non-alk beer sceptic, I thought I should give it a try.

First, however, a few words about Guinness proper.

Having just recently celebrated my 60th birthday, I am old enough to remember when Guinness was a good beer. And by that I do not mean the nitro-tap draught stuff, which even back in the day was the third best stout in Ireland after Beamish and Murphy’s – and slipped further down the rankings after the opening of breweries like Carlow and the Porter House! – but rather the bottle-conditioned Guinness you could find stored at room temperature behind almost any pub in the country, and which the brewery discontinued in the late 1990s. How good was that Guinness? When the brewery announced its intent to stop production, I was reliably informed that it sparked a mini-mutiny among the company’s brewers, so popular was it among the brew crew.

I was also around when Guinness introduced its first widget can, which did a pretty decent job of replicating the nitro-tap pour. Having noted that, though, the Guinness in the can today seems to me to have lost a few steps from that of the past, with less of a roasty appeal and certainly a reduction in its appetizing dryness.

Basically, for me, Guinness today has become the Budweiser of stouts: technically sound and thoroughly reliable, and so successfully promoted internationally that it has become emblematic of its style, yet still a thoroughly uninspiring flavour experience. So, what happens to it when you retain all the above, but remove the alcohol?

Guinness 0 is black like regular Guinness, which is to say a very dark brown rather than a true black. When served cold, as required by the nitro pour widget in the can, it offers an appealingly chocolatey aroma that seems both sweeter and less roasty than 4.2% Guinness, sort of chocolate brownie-like in character.

The palate entry is…well, singularly unremarkable. In truth, while it presents a creamy texture, it doesn’t really taste like anything, save for, if you stretch your imagination, perhaps a bit of chocolate milkiness. On the mid-palate, it does provide some bitterness and a modicum of roasted malt flavour, although at the expense of the chocolate promise of the nose, but that soon fades to a dryish finish of vaguely metallic bitterness and a whisper of coffee.

I suspect those who are lauding this “non-alcoholic draught” are so doing because it puts them in the mind of Guinness while not really being at all like Guinness. If you find regular Guinness to be consistently disappointing, however, as do I, then this is disappointment squared. And to further the insult, it costs only pennies less than regular Guinness, despite not paying excise and other alcohol-related taxes!

68 (as a non-alcohol beer); 58 (if judged alongside alcohol-containing stouts)

($13-$15/4-pack of 440 ml cans)