All hail the Nanny State

Those annoyingly industrious chaps at BrewDog have been busy again and have created this 1.1% beer to wind up the prohibitionists and others who seem to believe that brewers are responsible for how much alcohol other people deliberately pour down their own necks.

It pours beautifully, creating a fine, foamy head. It looks and smells very much like the earlier How To Disappear Completely. It's a beautiful autumn-leaves brown. The scent is of hops. Tons of them. I can't tell the variety and I don't want to embarrass myself by speculating.

It's surprisingly un-bitter considering the alleged theoretical bitterness units of 225 (ten times as much as standard mass market beer). Or it's just way past the limit of what I can actually taste.

Barely any body, but what do you expect at 1.1% abv? Just a ghost of caramelly malt with the slight metallic tinge you sometimes get in very weak beer. Then again, it's tastier than many beers five times its strength. People call the dry hop flavour "grassy", but it isn't really like grass, it's more herbal than that.

Would make a tremendous appetiser, possibly, if you don't think it would wreck your palate. It's a beer brewed as a gimmick and I think it works for that. Yet ultimately, it's fascinating but unsatisfying, like listening to a rock band with no bass player. It's the best low-alcohol beer I've ever had, though. But I'd rather they brewed How To Disappear Completely again because that was fantastic in its own right, not just as a one-dimensional joke.