St Austell

Walter Hicks, a Cornish wine merchant and maltster, founded the brewery in the town of St Austell in 1851. The business has remained independent and family-owned ever since, an unusual record for a regional brewer of its scale. St Austell now operates over 180 pubs, inns, and hotels across the West Country, and in 2016 extended its portfolio by acquiring Bath Ales. The brewery's identity is rooted firmly in Cornwall, a regional character that runs through its branding and distinguishes it from urban craft breweries positioned more directly at the sober-curious market.

The 0.5% IPA was the brewery's first permanent low-alcohol product, launched after more than two years of development by the in-house brewing team. Rather than removing alcohol from a finished beer (a process called dealcoholisation, where beer is brewed at full strength and the alcohol extracted afterwards), St Austell brewed the 0.5% version using a specialist yeast strain. The brewery chose this approach to preserve the hop character of the original IPA recipe. The result sits at 0.5% ABV, which qualifies as low-alcohol rather than strictly alcohol-free, a distinction worth noting for consumers who require a 0.0% product.

Distribution is broad: the 0.5% IPA is widely stocked across mainstream supermarkets and available through specialist alcohol-free retailers, giving it one of the wider retail footprints among low-alcohol and AF beers from independent regional breweries. St Austell's move into this category represents the brewery's first permanent nationally distributed product outside its full-strength range, a relatively recent step for a brewery with 170 years of history behind it.