homebrewandbeer.com

Birell
Birell has all the hallmarks of a great premium beer, rich colour, full malty flavour and the ability to quench a thirst, with one important difference - virtually no alcohol.

Brewed under license in Australia by Coopers, Birell is made using only the finest Australian malted barley, hops and yeast, with no artificial additives or preservatives.

0.5% Alc/Vol

Whoa! Just noticed this one on the Coopers site. Does anyone have any idea how to brew anything even remotely like this? I had enough trouble brewing a light beer with 2.5% alc/vol.

they must use some non fermentable

dunno

I've often wondered what Birrell tasted like, but never bothered trying it. Surely it wouldn't be that great. Anyone tried it?

Yeah I've tried it... Tastes more like Vegemite than Beer I reckon. If it's really cold, and your really thirsty, and there is no beer then it is slightly more tasty than drinking used car oil.

I have a mate who went off the piss a while back and started drinking those, he then switched to some wierd premium brand of no alc beer that costs as much as a case of Coopers.

I've made him some low alc Ginger beer for Chrissie...

I have been drinking a bit of Birrel lately, since the quack told me to cut back, I got onto Coopers to see if I could brew something similar, but it doesn't appear so. I believe it is the yeast that is the secret and I don't know why that can't be available to us, maybe to do with the licence from the mob who made it overseas. As for the tastse, I think Crowash is being a bit harsh with his description of the taste, the first one is a bit average, but when nice and cold it is quite drinkable, and in fact I reckon a bloody site better than a long line of heavy beers that I coild name!

Birell is certainly not the worst thing to pass my lips. I was pleasantly surprised, actually

My guess is that you couldn't actually brew one of these without having the facilities to extract the alcohol after fermentation.

I'm not sure that there's actually such thing as a yeast that doesn't produce alcohol ...

Oliver

In my view, the only thing worse than the taste of this stuff is the name!

Still, there's obviously a market for it and I dare say they move a bit of this faux beer.

It tastes pretty ordinary- like taking a swig out of primary. before the yeast goes in.

The colour is great though!

I have tasted a lot worse

*cough* VB *cough*

VB doesn't count as beer though.

are we talking about the silver cooper's beers you can buy from the supermarket? if so, i've tried one and it was awful! closer to water than beer.

Yep, that stuff.

I'd still take it over the green death.

It really does just taste like unfermented beer.

My father once asked me: "is this one of your homebrews? It tastes pretty good."

I've never let him drink another of my brews.

Haha.

9/10 people couldn't tell the difference between a few beers in a blind tasting.

I've given people a bottle of my HB with a pale ale label still on it, and they did not even notice. Rest assured the liquid inside was not even close.

That's sad.

Educate your palate people!