Früh Kölsch Alkoholfrei
Brauerei Früh am Dom

330 ml bottle, Cardinal Pub & Bar, Stavanger. ABV is 0.0%. The alcohol has been extracted after fermentation. Crystal clear pale golden colour, moderate white head. Some malt sugar, syrup and grainy notes in the aroma, also hints of hay. The flavour is fairly dry, with grain and moderate hops. Light bodied of course, but not too bad for a n/a beer.

It's alcohol free of course, therefore the taste is still above average.

 

Medium pale gold with very little head. Grassy, cereal, malt aroma with a slight fruity hint, perhaps pears. Taste partly follows the nose with a very pronounced maltiness but not much else. That maltiness has an element of damp vegetation to it.

A kind gift from a friend, who apparently assumes that I can't drink... or, more likely, the word "Alkoholfrei" on the label doesn't ring a bell to him in English. Well, it's my first time to try any alcohol free/low alcohol beer, so let's look to the bright side (I say this to myself), it's a brand new chapter in my beer experience!!

Coming in exactly the same packaging as the normal Früh Kölsch, 500ml brown glass bottle, BB 22/08/06, served chilled in a classic, 20cl Kölsch-Stange glass (of Gaffel).
A: pours a dark yellow straw colour, the beer head comes loosely-formed and disappears very fast, not like a normal Kölsch should be; HUGE bubbles compose of the lively carbonation, looking really abnormal for a Kölsch but common to a artificially-carbonated fizzy soft drink like Sprite...
S: honeyish malts, with rich grainy touches of corn-cake, and a restrained fruitiness of banana and some herbal hops. Overall, simplistic, and slightly too sweet for a Kölsch.
T: worse than the nose... a thin, corn-ish and grainy theme upfront with touches of watered-down sugar cane juice, underneath there's a restrained flow of hop-bitterness and some biscuity malty aftertaste gradually prevailing, trying to make up for the lack of flavour throughout. Thin finish with a flavour like chewing paper in the mouth...
M&D: overly light-bodied, if there's any body at all--watery, fizzy, utterly bland and tasting unnatural. I just can't help wondering why people would bother to produce such things as Alcohol-Free beer... Those who can't take alc. for whatever reasons could as well choose much better and decent soft drinks to enjoy, can't they? I hate to slam a beer, but this is simply gonna be my first, and very last, sample of this "beer style".