I can see why Beer Baroness Little Mighty won a trophy at the New Zealand Beer Awards in the low and no-alcohol class. It’s the single best 2.5% beer I’ve consumed. There have been various benchmarks for the “session IPA” — and for a long time that started an finished with Croucher Low Rider. This takes the idea of small IPA up a notch. And its quality makes it very hard for a non-alcoholic beer to ever win a trophy in this class in the future — we’re talking different leagues. It’s full-bodied, hoppy, thirst-quenching … it literally ticks all the boxes. This 2.5% market has been under threat recently from non-alcoholic options, and to an extent what’s happening in that sphere has informed the brewing process behind small beer: they are getting better because of non-alcs. When you get this much flavour with only a skirmish of alcohol, you’re on to a winner.
