Of all the places around the country that I’ve visited to report on health news, a pub is perhaps the most unexpected.
Here I am sipping my pint at the Britannia Inn just outside Leicester. It isn’t just any pint.
It is, in fact, Heineken 0.0, the UK’s first alcohol-free lager pulled from a tap – and I am the first British journalist to try it.
Heineken, the world’s second-largest brewer, has launched its booze-free pints in just five pubs but plans to roll them out nationwide in the New Year, in time for the healthy resolutions we love to make, and inevitably break.
More Britons plan to give up alcohol than ever before this January – as part of the Dry January charity campaign – according to research by the charity Alcohol Change. Next month will see a new record of 7.9 million people adopt the health-related lifestyle change, 22% more than in 2021.
This is indicative of a larger trend that’s being observed across the UK. The Office for National Statistics reports that the percentage of Britons not drinking alcohol has increased by at least five percent over the last decade, currently standing at one fifth.
The most alcohol-resistant young Britons are those aged 16-24, where 25% of them describe themselves as non-drinkers.
People in their 50s or 60s are the most frequent drinkers, while those who drink more than once a week drink less now than they did 10 years ago.
Manufacturers have been creating a variety of spirits and wines that are not intoxicating to cater for the growing number of customers who don’t drink alcohol over the years.
But until now the majority of low-alcohol or alcohol-free beers, from giants such as Peroni, Beck’s and Stella Artois, have been served in bottles, because kegs, the barrels in which draught beer is stored, attract yeast, which finds its way into the beer pipes and ferments, eventually turning non-alcoholic beer alcoholic.
Heineken, the world’s second-largest brewer, has launched its booze-free pints in just five pubs but plans to roll them out nationwide in the New Year, in time for the healthy resolutions we love to make, and inevitably break
Heineken is now the answer. Willem van Waesberghe, Heineken’s global master brewer, says: ‘We use specially designed cooling technology to keep the equipment and pipes that transport the beer to the tap at freezing temperatures. At these extreme temperatures yeast cannot grow, which means alcohol is not produced as a by-product.’
But while light drinkers drank less in the past year, amid the restrictions of the pandemic, those who drink larger amounts drank more – in many cases taking consumption to dangerous levels.
The number of people who died from an alcohol-related liver disease increased by 20% between 2019 and 2020. Drinking too much alcohol can also increase your risk for heart disease, stroke and obesity, as well as other cancers.
However, does drinking less alcohol result in a better pint?
Importantly, removing the alcohol also removes a significant number of calories – roughly 100 in a pint of beer. Distillation is the process that makes this possible.
First, the booze free beer is, just like other alcohol-free products in its beginnings, with alcohol.
Alcohol is created during fermentation, when sugar or starch are mixed with water (and yeast).
For beer, barley grains are mixed with water and yeast before being added. The liquid is heated gently to remove alcohol.
Heineken and other manufacturers may then use flavourings to make up for the lost taste.
When I asked exactly what these flavourings are, or how they are made, Heineken couldn’t, or wouldn’t, provide an answer. However, sugar must at least be one of the additions.
The brand says its booze-free drink is ‘low’ in sugar, which it is if you drink a quarter of a pint. A full pint has a teaspoon and a half, about the same as in three McVitie’s Rich Tea biscuits. There is no sugar in the alcoholic variant.
Yet, these calorie savings are still impressive. 115 is compared to 227 in traditional pints.
But compared with other alcohol-free spirits, it’s not the best.
A double measure of Gordon’s alcohol-free gin contains just six calories, compared with 104 in the alcoholic version.
When I asked exactly what these flavourings are, or how they are made, Heineken couldn’t, or wouldn’t, provide an answer. However, at least one must be sugar. Photo by Ethan Ennals
A glass of Eisberg alcohol-free sauvignon blanc contains just 22 calories – compared with 99 calories in an alcoholic equivalent – and the same amount of sugar as you’ll find in a Heineken 0.0 pint.
Although there are fewer calories in beer pints than in a regular alcoholic one, it adds up, especially if the drink is as popular in Britain. We rarely stop at just one.
Two pints of Heineken 0.0 has roughly the same amount of calories as a McDonald’s Big Mac.
What could I bear to have two pints of this stuff?
Initial, I was skeptical. I’d had a brief brush with alcohol-free beer in 2019 when I attempted Dry January.
I managed three weeks before the unsatisfying taste of bottled booze-free beer such as Beck’s Blue drove me back to the real deal.
Heineken0.0 was pleasant surprise to me. There’s no doubting it lacks the strong aftertaste that all alcoholic drinks have, and I found myself expecting – and then missing – that punchy kick.
But it has none of the tepid, watery flavour of previous alcohol-free beers I’ve tasted. The beer-like aroma is evident.
It was the right serving vessel that made the difference. Every British beer drinker knows that pint glasses make any beverage taste better.
‘The biggest sell is that it looks exactly like a regular pint,’ says publican Phil Jones who, along with his wife Kate, has run the Britannia Inn for 18 years.
‘Just because people don’t drink doesn’t mean they don’t want to go to the pub.
‘But if they’re holding a bottle, while all the other lads have pint glasses, they’ll stand out from the crowd.’
Despite polishing off a full pint, I wasn’t exactly craving another in the way I would usually.
However, on the way home from Leicester, I stopped by another pub for a real pint.
And I’d have to say, while I struggled to tell this pint apart from the Heineken 0.0 I’d drunk several hours before at the Britannia, this time I was struck by a familiar temptation and I had to talk myself out of ordering another.
So it turns out that self-control is the key to healthy beer-drinking – booze or no booze.