Nøgne Ø: Julefri (Norway: Low Alcohol: 0% ABV)
Visual: Very dark brown to black. Thin brown dash of a head.
Nose: Very gingerbread. Some greenery. Cinnamon.
Body: Light liquorice. Malt loaf. Ginger to gingerbread. Light chalk. Brown bread. Lightly bitter. Greenery. Cinnamon.
Finish: Gingerbread. White sugar. Light charring. Mild malt loaf and butter. Greenery. Light mint.
Conclusion: Holy poop, how gingerbready is this in the nose?! Asked and answered, it is super gingerbready. Initially that super strong character pushes away everything else, and it is still persistently a strong element even after other notes start coming out.
The body is still super gingerbread led but more balanced than that aroma. There are malt loaf like notes, which when mixed with the liquorice and light charring notes actually gives a very good impression of a dark ale hidden away under the massive Christmas spice, mulled drink imagery. It has surprising weight for a zero alcohol beer – not super dense but around what I would image for a 3.8% abv dark cask ale, which is an impressive job, especially to show around all that spice.
It does use the spice a lot, really leans into as as a showing of its Christmas nature, but doesn’t lose the base beer, which is often a failure in full abv beers, let alone alcohol free ones, so, good job.
It can occasionally be a bit chalky which is the weakest point, but not too often or too heavily. I’m never the biggest spice beer fan, but you know what? This works. So, it turns out an alcohol free spice beer is one of my preferred spice beer examples. Who would have thought it?
Not bad at all, an occasional beer for me rather than a frequent one to return to due to the style, but very well done for that.
Background: After the wealth of whisky tastings it was time for low alcohol fun, and just in time Independent Spirit got in three new zero alcohol Nøgne Ø beers. Not seen much Nøgne Ø for a while, generally have enjoyed their beers, so was interested to see how the handled the alcohol free side of things. This is their Christmas beer spiced with ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves and coriander seeds. Beers from Norway tend to be pretty expensive, but these were not too badly priced, I’m guessing due to their alcohol free status. For backing music went with the Disco Elysium OST as I darn love that game and it seemed good backing music.
