Jever Fun

Friesisches Brauhaus zu Jever was founded in 1848 by an innkeeper, Diedrich König, in the Lower Saxony town of Jever, near Germany’s north coast. In a period where most beer was supplied in barrels, Jever Brewery were one of the first to use custom bottles with a dark green colour for their beers. This early form of branding for the company is a feature that continues to this day. The brewery has gone through several owners and head brewers over the years, with one having the idea to add more hops to their brews, creating the unique ‘Frisian’ flavour they’re known for. Since the 1950s their beer has been sold worldwide, for years under the moniker of ‘Jever Export’, which was a success for the brewery until it was discontinued in the 1990s.

By the 1960s the brewery was riding the wave of Pils-popularity, with their flagship Pilsener selling like, well, cold beer, which in turn fuelled expansion for the company. By the beginning of 2005 the brewery was acquired by German big boys the Radeberger Group, joining a slew of other veteran brewing brands.

Jever Fun was first produced in 1991 as an ‘alkoholfrei’ version of the brewery’s popular Jever Pilsener. It’s brewed as a full strength beer and then the alcohol is removed via cool vacuum distillation. I find the name of the beer to be rather cringeworthy. Drinking a beer from a bottle labelled ‘fun’ just looks silly in my eyes, like eating a meal named ‘yummy’. Watered-down and weak, the branding is not a good start. Let’s pop the top off this bottle and hope the beer is an improvement.

Pouring out the beer we get a nice standard clear golden liquid with great clarity and some visible bubbles. A nice white frothy head is produced, which does reduce in size pretty quickly but sticks around in one form or another as we drink. On the nose there’s a healthy amount of pilsner malt backed up with some spicy German hop aroma and a hint of lemon citrus. There are whiffs of sweetness in there, but nothing akin to unfermented wort. All the aromas I would associate with a good quality pilsner lager.

Pilsner malt greets us as we drink, providing a good base for some herbal and grassy Saaz hops notes to build on. What starts off as a soft bitterness ramps up slowly as we drink, resulting in a pleasing clean bitter taste as we round off the drink. There are hints of citrus in there too, and a slight honey sweetness. Carbonation is not too high and the body is quite light, not veering off too much into watery territory. We get a dry finish to the drink.

Jever Fun is a perfectly quaffable alcohol-free pilsner lager, not reinventing the wheel, but doing what it does with aplomb. Classic pilsner flavours and aromas abound, and if every bar served this I’d be a very happy non-drinker – though I’d probably pour it into a glass to hide the awful branding.

Buy Jever Fun

Not enough bars stock Jever Fun, but you can get hold of it in certain supermarkets, such as Ocado, but the easiest and quickest option is buying from one of these sites:

Nutritional Information (per 100ml, taken from the side of the bottle)
ABV	0.3%
Energy	15 kcal
Fat	0g
Carbohydrates	2.5g
Sugar	<0.5g
Protein	<0.5g
Ingredients
Water, Barley Malt, Hops, Fermentation Carbon Dioxide
Additional Information
Country of Production	Germany
Brewer	Friesisches Brauhaus zu Jever – https://jever-beer.com/
Gluten Free?	No
Vegan Friendly?	No