July 11, 2025

424: For Jordan Childs of Mash Gang, Extreme Balance Is the Key to Great Nonalcoholic Beer

1 hour 3 minutes

For Jordan Childs, cofounder and head brewer of the U.K.-based brand Mash Gang, you don’t hit the right balance in nonalcoholic beer by nudging a traditional beer recipe one way or another. “The best beers feel like a cohesive collection of a bunch of spiky parts pulling apart from each other,” he says. “The outlier flavors are what make craft beer interesting.”

If there’s a method for making nonalcoholic beer, he’s tried it, and in this episode he shares the ingredients and processes that don’t make great beer—as well as those that do.

Along the way, Childs discusses:

their iterative creative process of testing, learning, trashing, and brewing again

filling the gaps left by the absence of ethanol

deliberately choosing poorly attenuating ingredients

how ethanol removal is responsible for “a lot of bad beer”

taking a low-intervention approach to nonalcoholic beer

controlling sugar at a finite level and doing everything wrong, on purpose

using modern hop products and modern food products for greater control

hops that do and don’t work in nonalcoholic beer

avoiding the unfermented wort character

food safety in the nonalcoholic context

And more.

This episode is brought to you by:

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Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): As breweries expand beyond beer into other segments like mocktails and CBD beverages, Old Orchard is here to help. We can formulate custom blends featuring specialty ingredients. More information and free samples are waiting at oldorchard.com/brewer.

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