Appearance - 7 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 7 | Overall - 7

Dok Brewing Company jumping on the bandwagon of non-alcoholic beers - like so many breweries these days, but they do it in their own Dok way: this is a sour IPA (soured with lactic acid bacteria) hopped with Nelson Sauvin, Citra and Amarillo, stripped of alcohol by the 'Proef'brouwerij in Lochristi which has the technical skills to do so in such a way that the flavours of the beer are kept intact. This is probably Dok's first pasteurised beer as well - any remains of living yeast in the can could spark refermentation and thus produce alcohol again. Medium sized, delicately 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, off-white, slowly breaking but generally stable head, crystal clear pale straw blonde robe (very pale in fact) with a steady column of sparkling in the middle, misty - in spite of the pasteurisation - with sediment and a bit greenish-tinged. Aroma of moldy lemons, white yoghurt, pomelo, cottage cheese, sour cream, withering lemongrass, armpit sweat, white grape juice, guava, lemon-scented hand soap, hints of dry powder sugar, rhubarb and stewed leek. Spritzy onset, quite fruity with strong guava and pomelo, lime-like edges and a touch of rhubarb, sweet and gently sour with this sourness stretching out over the rest of the palate in a yoghurty way - balanced by a soft, near-aspartame-ish sweetness and pale malt sweetness underneath; spelt (not actually wheat but close enough to classify it as a non-alcoholic wheat beer here) has a soapy, lightly sourish effect matching well with the lactic tartness, resulting in a Berliner Weisse-like effect. Rye is hardly detectable, but possibly accentuates the soapiness of the spelt in this case. Aromatic finish, perfumey tropical guava and exotic citrus with touches of white grape and green kiwi, but remaining very mild in actual hop bitterness, fading away into nothing. The lack of bitterness here is what I deplore most: if the hops would have had the chance to 'fill' the finish with alfa acid bitterness, then this would have felt like a true sour IPA (which is basically a hoppy Berliner Weisse in most cases) and would have qualified as one of the best non-alcoholic beers I had; in this form, however, it tastes more like a Berliner Weisse (granted, with even less alcohol than is traditionally the case) with a finish of lemonade instead of hops. I guess Dok's intention of creating something in between sour ale and lemonade in an alcohol-free form has more or less succeeded, but I would have preferred the 'IPA' part to be more present in the taste and not just in aroma. For me a bit of a missed opportunity in that sense, but that does not take away the fact that I still think this Dokkie is among the best non-alcoholic beers produced so far in Belgium so I still recommend it if you want a taste of Dok on a hot summer day and not want to drink any alcohol.