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Big on taste and flavour – low on ABV
Five years isn’t a particularly long time in brewing but it’s an eternity when it comes to alcohol-free beer.
The quality and choice available now when compared to just a few year ago is astonishing and consumer attitudes towards it have, quite rightly, been transformed too.
At the forefront of this revolution is Big Drop Brewing Co.
Big Drop launched its first beer – an alcohol-free milk stout – in 2016 and then a pale ale the following year. Both beers scooped top prizes in beer awards, including ‘World’s Best’ at the World Beer Awards (the pale ale has won it twice) and even going on to beat their full-strength rivals in blind-tastings.
Low-calorie, 30% ABV botanical vodka, Trøve launches
Distil Plc, owner of premium drinks brands RedLeg Spiced Rum, Blackwoods Gin and Vodka, Blavod Black Vodka, Jago s Cream Liqueur and Diva Vodka, has announced the launch of Trøve, a new range of lower ABV (30%) botanical vodkas distilled with real fruit and botanicals.
Trøve’s three variants – Valencian Orange with Lime, Green Apple with Ginger, and Raspberry with Lemongrass and Mint – are made with 100% natural ingredients, zero sugar or carbohydrates and is just 41 calories per 25ml serving and have been created in partnership with master distiller Sion Edwards – the founder of Warner’s Gin.
Craft brewers are set to bring back 1970s favourite shandy post-pandemic to fuel the thirst for no or low alcohol beer as growing numbers of young people go teetotal.
Beer start-ups who are turning their hand to making so-called nolo beverages are now giving shandy a fresh spin as demand for craft versions of the drink rise.
Sainsbury s is set to begin selling craft brand Shandy Shack, based in Oxford, across its stores from next month, the Guardian reports.
It comes as sales of nolo beers rose by 30 per cent between 2016 and 2020 as nearly one in four 18-24-year-olds become teetotal to improve their health.
‘Unprecedented demand’ for new kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms
Brits who are planning to revamp their properties are facing long delays due to an industry-wide labour shortage.
The pandemic lockdowns sparked an increase in home improvement projects but a combination of Brexit worker shortfall and demand has seen lead times for new kitchens, bathrooms or wardrobes “spiral” from a pre-Covid norm of four to eight weeks to 12-18 weeks, The Guardian reports.
There has been an “unprecedented demand for kitchens, bedrooms and bathrooms, and home improvement in general”, said Damian Walters, chief executive of the British Institute of Kitchen, Bedroom and Bathroom Installation (BiKBBI).