Brumore “Weizen” review – non-alcoholic (0%) wheat beer

“Weizen” is a German-style wheat beer from Heineken-owned Brumore brewery. Get tasting notes, plus info on stockists, calories, carbs and sugar, in this review.

Although there are still a few people out there who think non-alcoholic beer is “full of chemicals”, many simply consist of beer’s four basic ingredients – water, grain, hops and yeast.

How do we know? Because unlike makers of drinks over 1.2%, non-alcoholic beer producers must list the ingredients on the packaging. Although you do occasionally come across a few eye-opening ingredients, from malt vinegar to quillaia bark extract.

Brumore’s 0% ABV “Weizen” has an uncommon ingredient that I haven’t (knowingly) come across in a beer before – gum arabic (listed in the ingredients as acacia gom).

This natural product is the hardened sap of two types of tree. In food products, its uses include preventing food and drink from spoiling and binding agent. It’s a common ingredient in lots of sweets.

Here, the label highlights it as a cloudifier in what is meant to be a German-style Weizen beer, which are often hazy or cloudy.

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Not that the Reinheitsgebot (so-called German beer purity law) would allow this ingredient in a German beer.

Handy then that Brumore (which has also gone by the brand name of Brewlyn) seems to be a Heineken-owned experimental brewery based in Belgium not Germany. But there’s very little info about the brand available, apart from listings for an IPA and a lager.

Other ingredients and calories, carbs and sugar

The other ingredients in this weizen are more commonplace. There’s malted wheat, malted barley, sugar, hop extract and our old friend, those vague “natural flavourings”.

As with many what beers, the calorie and carb count is fairly high. There’s 24 calories, 5.7g of carbohydrate and 1.5g of sugars in every 100ml. 

Flavours, appearance and mouthfeel

Weizen pours a dense and thick tangerine colour. It has a hefty head of foam. It looks pretty impressive to be fair, that cloudifier doing its job.

It has a distinctive white beer aroma but it’s a bit drab, with only faint whiffs of banana, wheat and coriander seed. In time, this is joined by a bubblegum aroma, which soon overpowers the others. There’s no sign of any clove phenols.

The body is thick and heavy. There’s soft carbonation with tight bubbles that feel smooth mixed in with that body. 

Big banana and bubblegum flavours feature in taste. But with only a touch of bitterness sweet flavours, and minimal grainy maltiness, this feels unbalanced.

As with the aroma, there’s no clove-flavoured phenols either.

A sour lactic flavour emerges as you get used to the sweeter flavours. This grows to overpower what little malt character there is and leaves a tang in the finish.

Verdict

Brumore’s Weizen certainly has the characteristics of a German wheat beer. It’s just that everything melds together haphazardly.

Don’t fret if you get this in a mixed box of beers. But it’s probably not worth seeking out if you’re a wheat beer aficionado.

'Weizen" (0%) by Brumore

6.2

Aroma

5.9/10

Mouthfeel

7.2/10

Flavour

5.6/10

Pros

• Good mouthfeel

Cons

• Overpowering flavours