At The Blue Dolphin Store we make available to everyone the wonders you can’t find anywhere else. In this case, we offer you the pleasure of enjoying the most awarded alcohol-free beer in the world, brewed by The Big Drop Brewing Co. Their lagers, ales and craft beers, all of them alcohol-free, have won the most prestigious awards at the World Beer Awards.
Big Drop competes every year not only with other 0.0 beers, but also against “alcoholic” beers. This is proof that their products taste just as good as traditional beers. Or better, that’s why they have been awarded so many prizes, some of them in several editions. Thus, in 2020, their Paradiso Citra IPA won the award for the Best IPA in the UK, Galactic Milk Stout won the award for the Best Low Alcoholic Beer in the world and the best in the UK. Pine Trail Pale Ale, with its light citrus lime twist, won the award for World’s Best Low ABV Blonde Ale and the best in the country.
Big Drop has its roots in a strong friendship
The company was not born out of costly financial studies, nor taking advantage of a gap in the market. Not at all. Its origins are much more superficial: Big Drop was born out of the need of two first-time, beer-loving parents. They wanted to cut down on the booze and sought a good alcohol-free alternative to traditional beer.
Thus, in 2016, lawyer Rob Fink and his childhood friend, designer James Kindred, teamed up with the famous Johnny Clayton to brew alcohol-free craft beer. They made it without the artificial alcohol removal. The result does not compromise on flavour, yet is no more than 0.5% ABV.
“We sit in the craft beer scene – we’re unashamedly craft and about 80% of our consumers drink alcohol on a regular basis. So, really we seem to scratch an itch that drinkers of craft beer have – that sometimes you just want a great beer, but you don’t want the alcohol.”
Changing the rules of brewing
“Our beer is naturally brewed to 0.5% ABV, without the need to artificially extract alcohol like most alcohol-free offerings, but that means we’ve had to turn the rules of brewing upside down”, says Fink.
“Lazy yeast is used, which isn’t very good at converting sugar to alcohol, as well as brewing at slightly higher temperatures at various points to further inhibit alcohol production”, he adds. “We also use less grain which means there are less sugars available to convert to alcohol, but we use far more types of grain than normal beer. It helps amplify the flavour and brings complexity to our beers. Barley, rye, wheat and oats and a number of different varieties of each are used in the process.”
The pleasure of alcohol-free beer and lockdown
Whilst overall alcohol sales fell in 2020-21, the Pandemic appears to have led to an increase in consumption of low and alcohol-free beverages, with retail sales growing 50% year-on-year. On this basis and with sales growth of 150%, Big Drop has been outperforming an already fast-growing sector by a factor of three.
As you would expect in lockdown, its retail and direct-to-consumer sales channels went mad whilst the on-trade fell into a state of slumber. Interestingly though that demand has not been dented at all by pubs and restaurants opening-up again. That suggests that the thirst for alcohol-free beer is growing – and particularly for home consumption.
As unlikely as it sounds, Big Drop has landed all of the major international objectives it made at the start of 2020, before Coronavirus. It is now brewing beer in the United States, Canada and Australia. It is also present in more than 20 countries around the world, including Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States.
How to enjoy the pleasure of Big Drop in our country
The Blue Dolphin Store is the exclusive distributor of Big Drop in our country. Therefore, if you feel like enjoying the pleasure of the most awarded alcohol-free beer in the world, in addition to those mentioned above, be sure to try these: Big Drop Uptown Craft Lager, an alcohol-free lager; Big Drop Double Strike Sour, the craft beer with a bitter touch and Big Drop Woodcutter Brown Ale, its delicious Brown Ale brewed mainly with malt, with a toasted aroma. Or you can sample and compare with other British alcohol-free beers in the British Beer Pack.
