Non-alcoholic beer you can actually drink

It’s hardly outrageous to damn non-alcoholic beer. Not only is it pointless but it has never tasted any good – despite numerous attempts by a variety of brewers who should have just given up on it years ago.

Well, the first truly tasty zero-alcohol ale may have finally appeared. Actually it is probably not really a beer as it is made with no malt or hops but has instead chocolate as the core ingredient. Or rather the whole cocoa plant.

The cocoa fruit is fermented before the beans are removed (which take on a beery flavour). The next step is to take the nibs and steep them for 24 hours. This liquid can then be drawn off from a keg with nitrogen added to give it a gloriously smooth mouth-feel.

It definitely tastes more like a beer than a chocolate drink and looks nothing like what you’d expect from a chocolate-based beverage. Not only does it taste great but it is very healthy too.

Unfortunately it is unlikely to be spotted down your local boozer anytime soon. For now a drop can only be had in the buy sole UK store of Brooklyn-based Mast Brother chocolate shop and factory on London’s Redchurch Street.

Glynn Davis, editor, Beer Insider