Brinkhoff

The brewery's origin story begins with a fortuitous delivery error: when Fritz Brinkhoff founded the operation in 1873, pale malt arrived instead of the dark malt he had ordered, and the resulting batch became the first Dortmunder Helle, a light-coloured bottom-fermented lager style. That accidental beginning shaped the brand's identity for over 150 years. Brinkhoff's positions itself as the beer of the Ruhr region, a self-description the brand refers to in German as 'Das Bier des Reviers', and has maintained a long-standing partnership with Borussia Dortmund football club that reinforces that regional identity.

The brand is now part of the Radeberger Gruppe, Germany's largest brewing group, which is itself a division of the family-owned Dr. August Oetker KG conglomerate. Brinkhoff's maintains a small core range built around traditional German styles: pilsener, Radler, and the 0.0% alcohol-free variant.

The AF pilsner is produced by brewing the beer to its full recipe and then removing the alcohol through a gentle dealcoholisation process, meaning the beer is made at full strength and has the alcohol extracted afterwards rather than being brewed to avoid it from the start. The brewery markets the result as explicitly 0.0% rather than the sub-0.5% threshold common in German brewing, giving drinkers who want certainty about alcohol content a clear-cut choice.

Outside Germany, the AF pilsner is available through specialist alcohol-free retailers. Distribution sits in specialist rather than mainstream retail channels. For sober-curious drinkers seeking a well-established German AF pilsner from a brand with more than 150 years of Ruhr brewing history behind it, Brinkhoff's occupies a distinctive position in the category.