Coast Beer Co IPA

Coast Beer Co was founded in January 2019, not far from where I used to live in Edinburgh, by James Brown (as far as I can tell not the entertainer, otherwise they may have named their company ‘Ghost Beer Co’). Like many independent breweries their stated aims are to push boundaries and be experimental, something that smaller companies can get away with, but must also suffer the consequences should their products fail. Luckily Coast Beer have just now released another three beers, increasing their product tally to eight, and so it seems that the company is doing well and are here to stay.

Launched in the summer of 2020 their IPA is, in their own words, one of their boldest beers to date. A bold claim indeed, as an IPA is certainly not to every beer drinkers taste. A brew full of Citra, Mosaic and Simcoe sounds wonderful to hop-heads such as myself, but may be too much for Joe Lager. We’ve seen alcohol-free IPAs in the past veer sharply between ‘crammed so full of hops that your gums start receding’ strength and ‘the brewer has waved a small bundle of hops at the beer from afar’ weakness. Where will Coast Beer Co IPA appear on this spectrum?

Pouring the beer we get a pale yellow liquid with a slight haze, with a decent level of carbonation. A nice creamy white head fluffs up and sticks with us while we drink. On the nose citrus and tropical fruits thrive, with grapefruit and melon standing out. There is a whiff of malty sweetness there too.

On tasting the fruit flavours immediately make themselves known, with more citrus flooding in, as well as some gooseberry bitterness. In the background there is a malty, almost toffee sweetness which is much more pronounced than in a typical IPA. The body of the beer is amazing, a good thick mouthfeel with a touch of creaminess. We get a lemon bitter finish to the experience.

I was not expecting Coast Beer Co IPA to taste this good, it really is an exceptional non-alcoholic beer. The pour, head retention, aromas, flavours and mouth-feel are all spot on, with the only thing letting it down being the slightly excessive sweetness. Certainly not your traditional IPA, bordering on a New England IPA, the juice is most definitely loose in this hoose!

Nutritional Information (per 100ml)

0.0% alcohol by volume
33 calories energy
0g fat
7.9g carbohydrates
3.8g sugar
<1g protein

(taken from the side of the can)

Ingredients

Water, Barley, Hops, Yeast