With most non-alcoholic beer reviews that I complete, I usually have some sort of idea what the ‘original’ drink tastes like. However, in this review for St Peter’s Without Original non-alcoholic beer, I am going into the taste testing with no idea what to expect.
Most non-alcoholic beers are either their own drink, or they are an alternative of the famous version. However, it is only since I kept seeing the non-alcoholic version everywhere, that I realised it had an alcoholic version.
So, with this review, I am ‘going in blind’ to see what it tastes like on it’s own merit.
Before we get into the review, I had to do some more research to learn about St Peter’s and the brewery behind it.
St Peter’s is a Suffolk-based brewery and one of the original craft breweries in the UK. It shouldn’t be a surprise to see they have so many beers on offer, but I was shocked by how many beers I am totally unaware of.
They produce a range of alcoholic keg and cask beers, including variants such as pale ales, pilsners, porters, stouts, ales, IPAs and bitters.
But in addition to the alcohol-free beer I am going to review shortly, they have a further three non-alcoholic beers that I should line up for a future review – shown below:
St Peter’s Without Original Non Alcoholic Beer Initial Review
Before even opening, the first thing that strikes me about this beer is the unique bottle shape, which is wide and thin, a bit like an old-style medical bottle.
Opening and pouring the beer into a glass, it is noticeably dark with almost no bubbles or fizz. It smells similar to a wheat beer, but more ‘bready’ with light citrusy notes.
Rather than being a wheat beer, St Peter’s without is a non-alcoholic bitter.
With the first sip, it is definitely bitter, with a strong wheat and malt taste. It is smooth to drink, with a slight carbonation to give the beer some depth.
Continuing through the drink, the bitterness remains and somewhat intensifies. The bitterness lingers in the mouth which makes it a struggle to drink. With other beers – and even no alcoholic beers – taste profiles tend to develop with drinking, but this remains flat and one-dimensional.
For this review, I trialled a 500mL bottle. But too be honest, even 250mL is enough for me to end the review and decide to leave the drink for the sake of this review.
Maybe I have given myself the tough task of not having tried the alcoholic version ahead of trialling this, but I remain somewhat disapointed, and will have to put this on the list of beers to avoid for the future.
With regards to the remainder of the line up, I will try to seek them out and hope this is the only bad one amongst the bunch!
Where Can You Buy St Peter’s Without Original?
For this review, I picked up a 500mL bottle from my local Tesco supermarket, priced at £1.60.
I have since seen it on the shelves of both Morrisons and Waitrose supermarkets, but you can also find it at Asda and Ocado.
If you are looking to purchase online, you have a lot more choice, including some of the following:
St Peter’s Without Original Ingredients, Nutritional Information and Calories
The ingredients list for St Peter’s Without Original contains the following:
Water, Malted Barley, Rye, Hops & Yeast
This beer contains both barley and rye (gluten)
| Nutritional Information | Per 100mL |
|---|---|
| Energy (KJ / KCal) | 111 / 26 |
| Fat (g) | 0.2 |
| Of Which Saturates (g) | 0.2 |
| Carbohydrate (g) | 6.2 |
| Of Which Sugars (g) | 2.6 |
| Protein (g) | 0.3 |
| Salt (g) | 0.02 |
The Overall Verdict?
I am not a fan of this St Peter’s Original Without.
Even though it is a bitter, the taste is far too bitter with no real flavour profile to enjoy. The taste of wheat and malt dominate here, and it doesn’t really feel like I’m drinking a beer.
For this beer, I’m going to have to avoid drinking it again, unless the recipe or manufacturing gets updated in the attempt to improve it.
