The lifestyle beverages flowed through late December and the month of January, and two new entries into the non-alcoholic beer space from Partake Brewing were sent to me to review: Peach Gose and Radler, both styles of which I hadn’t yet seen in the NA segment.

You might recall I reviewed Partake’s primary lineup a bit over a year ago. That consists of a fairly standard selection of styles, from Blonde through Stout (now called Dark), and I found then that most of them, while drinkable, had that underattenuated, wort-like character with “hop tea” notes (i.e., an “unfinished” hop character) that many non-alcoholic beers exhibit.

But in the intervening year I expect the brewery has refined its processes and I’d point to the release of these two new brews to be an example of that. Let’s see how they do—

Peach Gose

Like all of Partake’s NA beers, this has less than 0.5% alcohol by volume. Additionally, Peach Gose boasts only 15 calories and 2g of carbs. The can has a “Best by” date of 8/26/22. The company’s description says:

The Peach Gose is a delightfully sweet (but not too sweet) beer with a hint of tartness. Brewed with coriander, sea salt, and natural peach flavoring, this brew adds an enjoyable twist to the popular sour style.

It’s a seasonal style for the brewery, and you can read a bit about its history on this blog post.

Appearance: Pale gold color, decently clear, good carbonation—white head to start that fell relatively quickly.

Smell: Bright and spicy coriander is the defining aroma—so much so that it goes a bity celery-like, though I’m enjoying it.

Taste: Very mildly tart at the back , with big celery-herbal coriander spice. Doesn’t taste NA at all. Light peach notes that brighten things up, like a splash of peach juice. Light and slightly wheaty, not really finding any sour notes.

Mouthfeel: Light, crisp, effervescent, and a fairly clean finish.

Overall: Not enough sour and there’s a bit too much coriander, but it’s not bad—and it’s not really NA-ish.

Radler

So it turns out the Radler is a blend of Partake’s Blonde with “cold-pressed” fruit juice (from grapefruits, oranges, and lemons). The juice bumps up the calories on this one, to 35, with 6g of carbs. It also has a “Best by” date, of 10/12/22. The description:

Part cold-pressed juice. Part non-alcoholic Blonde Lager. All thirst quencher. Get stuff done deliciously with the Radler our community helped write the recipe for.

Appearance: Translucent orange-gold, a bit like fruit juice. Rough, choppy head that broke quickly.

Smell: Citrusy, with bright notes of orange and grapefruit, then it falls off at the back.

Taste: Tastes rather radler-ish, with a pop of juicy tang over a slightly bready body that’s fairly crisp. I don’t get any NA character here either. It’s pretty tasty overall, there’s not much more I can say. It’s mild and light.

Mouthfeel: Light with a lingering juice tartness (not really tart, just lightly citric).

Overall: Hits most of the marks and is a passable radler—would I be able to tell it was non-alcoholic if I were doing a blind tasting? I don’t know—possibly not.

Bottom line: Neither of these particularly felt “non-alcoholic” and there was little to no “unfermented wort” character that I would attribute for either; I do think the Radler could seriously pass for a “regular” light radler if you didn’t know any different. I think if you’re looking for NA beers and ones that are a bit different from the usual styles in particular, you should be checking both of these out from Partake.