January already?

For some time now I've been of the opinion that stout is the ideal style for alcohol-free beer. For a start there's all those lovely non-beer dark malt drinks, plus the excellent Švyturys GO Juodas, and then the couple of experiments from the Guinness Open Gate Brewery which turned out well. Diageo has now gone all-in with a full-production Guinness 0.0. It differs from the experimental ones, and their Pure Brew NA lager, by starting out as normal Guinness from the bright tank and is then de-alcoholised and re-flavoured with fructose and other non-specified additives. They sent me a couple of cans to try out.

As expected, it's fairly convincing. The texture is spot on, so it certainly feels like drinking a Guinness, and there's the tangy sour bite at the top which is the Guinness signature move. The seams are more visible when you look closer: that sweet and worty effect which plagues non-alcoholic beers is present, but neatly muted by bitterness and roast. There's also a lingering metallic edge which I don't think you get in clean-to-the-point-of-bland Guinness. So it's not flawless, but simply by being a stout it's streets ahead of the other dealcoholised options out there.

This is very much an idea whose time has come and I can see it doing well.

Edit on 11/11/2020: Diageo have just announced a total product recall due to microbiological contamination. I haven't suffered any ill effects but you can't be too careful.