HOW IT STARTED

Six years of drinking the good, the bad and the occasionally terrible

I started MyDryBar in 2020 because I was becoming increasingly interested in alcohol-free drinks, but working out what was actually worth buying wasn’t particularly easy.

The category was growing quickly, yet quality was all over the place. You could discover a genuinely excellent alcohol-free beer one day and something resembling fizzy malt water the next.

So MyDryBar began with a straightforward idea: try the drinks, score them honestly and help other people make better choices.

Since then I’ve worked my way through hundreds of alcohol-free beers, wines, spirits, ciders, cocktails and other drinks.

Some have been brilliant. Some have been distinctly average. And a few have demonstrated that removing the alcohol was probably the least of their problems.

A LOT HAS CHANGED

Alcohol-free drinking isn’t what it was in 2020

Thankfully, the drinks have changed enormously since MyDryBar began.

Six years ago, choosing alcohol-free could still feel like accepting second best. Today there are excellent lagers, IPAs and stouts alongside increasingly convincing wines, spirits and ready-to-drink cocktails.

Major drinks companies have entered the market, specialist alcohol-free producers have appeared and supermarkets, pubs and restaurants now give considerably more space to low-and-no drinks.

There’s also a much wider group of people drinking them.

MyDryBar isn’t based on the idea that everyone should stop drinking alcohol. Plenty of us still enjoy a glass of wine, a beer or a cocktail. What’s changed is that having alcohol doesn’t need to be the automatic choice every time.

INDEPENDENT REVIEWS

Being award-winning doesn’t mean we’re going soft on the drinks

The important bit isn’t really the award. It’s what MyDryBar does for people trying to choose a drink.

My reviews are independent and drinks are judged using the MyDryBar 100-point scoring system. A famous brand doesn’t automatically receive a high score and a small producer doesn’t automatically get bonus points for being interesting.

If something is excellent, I’ll say so. If it’s mediocre, I’ll say that too.

That’s particularly important now. Having hundreds more alcohol-free products to choose from is great, but it also makes finding the genuinely good ones considerably harder.