Big Drop Galactic Milk Stout has taken out the Gold/Australian Country award at the World Beer Awards 2022. While it’s a 0.5% ABV beer, it won in the Flavoured Stout category, against full-strength opposition.

‘Galactic’ is a milk stout that was Big Drop’s launch product when the company started in 2016 as the world’s first brewer dedicated to non-alc beer. Having pioneered a cutting-edge brewing process called Reduced Amylase Brewing, Galactic was the first non-alc beer to be fully fermented without the need to extract alcohol once it had been brewed.

That first batch was just 700 litres and, this year, Big Drop will make over 50,000 litres of Galactic, brewing it in three locations (US, Australia and the UK) and selling it in over 20 countries worldwide.

Big Drop’s alcohol-free Galactic Milk Stout has won over 25 international beer awards – more than any other beer, non-alc or otherwise.

Drinks Digest beer editor Saint Barbara describes it as having “rich, strong coffee and chocolate notes at the start, followed by a surprising sweetness, and then a gorgeously creamy lingering taste. It’s full bodied and delicious to the last (big) drop. An absolute pleasure to try.⁠”

This is the first time Australia has had an non-alc beer as a country winner in a full-strength category. And it’s only happened once before – in the UK – when we broke that record too with our Paradiso winning the Speciality IPA category in 2020.