Challenge Dan: Dan visits Dry, a non alcoholic drink shop based in Shrewsbury to taste test the different beverages on offer.
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00:39 Happy New Year, everybody.
00:41 Well, with 2024 here, a lot of us
00:43 might be trying out a bit of dry January,
00:45 give ourselves a little bit of a health kick.
00:47 With that, we want to have a look
00:49 at some of the best low alcohol and non-alcohol beverage
00:51 options on the market.
00:53 So today, we've come out to a special emporium
00:55 in the town of Shrewsbury.
00:56 It's going to help us do just that.
00:57 Let's go and take a look.
00:59 OK, folks, well, we're here at Dry in Shrewsbury
01:02 with the owner, Mike Dalton.
01:04 Mike, it's a fantastic place you've got here.
01:06 Tell us a bit about your business.
01:07 Hi, Dan.
01:08 Yeah, so we opened in October of 2022.
01:12 I've been here about 14 months.
01:14 Got the idea because I had to stop drinking about four years
01:18 ago due to a medical issue.
01:20 So starting getting into craft beers, non-alcoholic craft
01:24 beers, and realized just how many there were available.
01:27 So originally started looking at what was in supermarkets,
01:31 but realized very quickly there was a lot more going on,
01:33 in terms of the scene, around the types of drinks.
01:36 So I got into them and then expanded the business
01:40 into non-alcoholic wines, non-alcoholic herbal
01:43 apparatis.
01:44 Smashing.
01:44 You've got a fantastic selection.
01:47 It's like an Aladdin's cave in here, isn't it?
01:50 So we're looking to find some of the best beverages
01:54 that we can to keep us all happy during dry January.
01:57 What would you recommend to us?
01:59 Right.
01:59 So if we start maybe with the beers,
02:01 if you want to help yourself, we'll go--
02:03 That sounds good to me.
02:04 We'll go with the first one, which is a pale ale
02:07 from the Birmingham Brewing Company called Sober Brummy.
02:10 Sober Brummy.
02:11 Excellent.
02:12 So great beer, really refreshing, real light taste.
02:17 Birmingham Brewing Company are an old style traditional brewer,
02:20 so they do alcoholic drinks as well.
02:22 But they also do this, which is ironically
02:24 one of their best sellers.
02:25 So please pour yourself some and see what you think.
02:28 [SILENCE]
02:32 It's a lovely impression.
02:44 [LAUGHTER]
02:44 It is, isn't it?
02:45 Yeah.
02:46 No.
02:47 The other thing worth pointing out
02:48 is they also, like a lot of the small independent brewers,
02:51 they actually donate part of their profits
02:53 to the Midlands Air Ambulance.
02:54 Oh, fantastic.
02:55 So you know that you're helping out,
02:58 if I drink it.
02:59 Well, all the more reason to get stuck in.
03:01 Yeah.
03:01 Excellent.
03:02 OK.
03:02 And then maybe try the next one up.
03:05 Fantastic.
03:06 And who's this by?
03:06 So this is Hobson's, which is a Shropshire brewery, obviously.
03:09 Very local, yes.
03:10 So this is, at the moment at least,
03:12 this is the only Shropshire brewer who
03:14 are doing a non-alcoholic beer.
03:16 I mean, I've no doubt whatsoever that in time,
03:18 more of the Shropshire brewers will be doing it.
03:20 I certainly hope so.
03:21 This is proving a very, very popular drink.
03:25 And certainly tourists like buying it,
03:28 because obviously it's a memento of their visit to the town.
03:32 So I've tried their full fat beer before, if you will.
03:35 But--
03:38 So this is an IPA, so slightly more hoppy than the pale ale.
03:43 It's got a lovely flavor to it.
03:45 Yeah.
03:45 Nice and fruity.
03:47 Yeah.
03:47 Yeah.
03:48 Very nice.
03:49 Yeah.
03:49 We sell a lot of it.
03:50 And it's a really nice beer.
03:53 Nice.
03:54 Have you still got room for--
03:57 I should say so.
03:58 Should we move on to red wine?
04:00 Why not?
04:01 So this is Zeno Wines, which are probably our best-selling
04:05 non-alcoholic wines.
04:06 They've also won several awards.
04:09 They're all over the media at the moment,
04:10 in national magazines.
04:11 They've been on Saturday Morning Kitchen, et cetera.
04:14 Really, really nice wines.
04:16 They're all Spanish wines, ironically.
04:18 Oh, look at it.
04:19 They are what they call de-alcoholized wines.
04:22 So rather than the kind of cheap stuff
04:24 you often see in supermarkets, these
04:26 are wines that have been made in exactly the same way
04:28 as ordinary wines, the only difference
04:30 being the alcohol is extracted at the end of the process.
04:33 OK, right.
04:34 So hopefully you'll joke that by the taste.
04:37 You'll see the difference.
04:39 That's delicious, isn't it?
04:48 I'm really taken aback.
04:49 I would have thought that the flavor without the alcohol
04:51 in would have been quite a lot different.
04:53 Yeah.
04:53 That's really, really lovely.
04:55 I always, when people ask, is it the same as wine,
04:58 I'll always use the phrase that it's not the same,
05:01 but it's similar.
05:02 Yeah.
05:03 Oh, it's-- and it's got a gorgeously fruity flavor.
05:07 Fruity, yeah.
05:08 It's really nice and rich, though, as well, isn't it?
05:10 That's-- if you don't mind me saying that,
05:12 I'm really surprised by that.
05:14 No, that's fine.
05:15 I think-- and wines in particular
05:17 have had a bit of a bad press over the last few years,
05:20 non-alcoholic wines.
05:21 And I think what's happening now within the marketplace
05:24 and by the producers is they're upping their game.
05:29 A lot more effort, a lot more money
05:30 going into producing these kind of wines.
05:32 How much alcohol-free wine is actually out there?
05:35 Because I'm sure a lot of people who are watching us now
05:38 will be familiar with the--
05:40 plenty of different alcohol-free beers.
05:42 But how many different brands have we--
05:45 Not as many as the non-alcoholic beers, obviously.
05:48 It's still a relatively young market.
05:50 But even in the 14 months that we've been open,
05:52 we've seen a big upsurge in the amount of producers there are.
05:57 I mean, probably in the UK, in terms of specifically
06:01 non-alcoholic wine producers, you're probably
06:03 talking about half a dozen.
06:05 We try and stock the best of those.
06:08 Hence why we've got Zeno here.
06:10 We've got Naughty.
06:11 We've got Oddbird.
06:12 But it's rapidly growing.
06:15 When we first opened, everybody was interested in the beers.
06:18 But increasingly, people are asking for the wines as well.
06:20 Well, it depends on the occasion, doesn't it?
06:22 Because I'm just thinking sitting down to dinner,
06:24 I could get happily stuck into a bit of that.
06:26 It's really, really nice.
06:29 So in terms of other options, then,
06:31 because we've looked at beer and wine,
06:33 I can see we've got something pretty special.
06:35 We have, yeah.
06:35 So this is called Mother Root.
06:37 And it's a ginger switchel.
06:39 Oh, OK.
06:39 Now, switchel is a drink that--
06:42 well, it's referred to as the hipster's new kombucha.
06:45 Right.
06:47 It's a drink, ironically, that dates back to the 1700s.
06:49 Right.
06:50 It's got an apple cider vinegar base to it,
06:52 so really good for your gut health.
06:53 Yeah.
06:54 As the name implies, because it's ginger,
06:56 packed full of ginger, really fiery kick to it.
06:59 Right.
07:00 You'll feel it going down.
07:01 You'll feel it on your chest.
07:02 I'm excited about this.
07:03 So it's something that, you know, it's good for you,
07:07 as well as tasting good.
07:09 The bottle almost reminds me of sort
07:10 of a traditional Victorian medicine type thing, yeah?
07:13 Hopefully it doesn't taste like that.
07:15 We're actually-- this one we're selling loads of at the moment.
07:18 It's really, really popular, almost to the point
07:20 that we're struggling to keep up with the demand.
07:22 It's got a very hypnotic look to it.
07:24 Yeah.
07:24 Let's give it a taste.
07:26 Wow.
07:31 That's got quite a kick, hasn't it?
07:32 It really has, yeah.
07:34 I mean, that's wonderful.
07:35 That's-- yeah, that's--
07:38 Stays with you.
07:39 It does.
07:39 It's powerful.
07:40 But I think that's kind of nice, because when you're
07:44 drinking a drink that's meant to be a full-fat alcohol
07:47 beverage, sometimes you like to feel a bit of a kick.
07:51 Yeah.
07:51 That's still got it, but without any of the--
07:53 And I think what tends to happen with these, particularly
07:56 the herbal aperitifs, is they'll often
07:58 introduce flavors to replace that kind of kick or burn
08:01 you get from the alcohol.
08:02 So ginger is one.
08:04 We do a Danish non-alcoholic gin where
08:06 they use a little bit of chili.
08:10 Right.
08:11 And also coriander to give that peppery flavor.
08:13 Yeah.
08:14 In the back of your throat.
08:15 Excellent.
08:15 So it's just about being more creative, really.
08:17 Yeah.
08:18 It's exciting.
08:20 It seems to me like the market is a lot bigger than probably
08:23 a lot of people realize.
08:25 Yeah, absolutely it is.
08:26 And growing all the time.
08:28 And ironically, the fastest growing sector within it
08:30 are younger people.
08:32 Younger people are drinking less and less,
08:34 and they're older than older people.
08:36 Yeah.
08:36 That's what I thought.
08:38 Cheers, folks.
08:40 Well, folks, thanks to Mike, I'm feeling nice and inspired
08:43 and ready for dry January.
08:44 Now, Mike's business Dry can be found on Wild Cop in Shrewsbury.
08:49 But if you are interested in buying anything online,
08:52 website is drybychoice.com.
08:55 Happy January, everyone.
08:56 Cheers again.