A new one arisen from the minds of marketeers rather than brewers (or even people passionate about actual beer): the renewed alcohol-free beer hype connected with another thing many Belgians - not including myself - are passionate about, namely sports. I hear from young amateur cyclists that beverages exist with added proteins and amino acids (as is the case here), intended to bring these elements back into balance after heavy exercise, and this one transplants this idea to what is apparently intended as an alcohol-free IPA. Remains the question of where it is brewed: the website mentions that the site where it is brewed is located in Sint-Denijs-Westrem (municipality of Ghent and not far from where I live), and that the guy behind it collaborated with the Leuven university to develop it; apart from that, I have seen this Thrive pop up in almost every drinks store I visited lately, vans drive around in the region with the logo and name of the product depicted all over them, it is available in both cans and bottles, the distribution network seems huge for a 'newby' and so on. No way am I going to believe that this guy brews all of it himself in the Adelaarsstraat where he lives - despite what he claims, and I eagerly await the day when this kind of consumer deception will be severely punished; for the time being and based on vague circumstantial indications, I am going to assume that - like so many other new beers in the larger region - BeerSelect must be behind it again. Please do correct this if I am wrong. Now on to this product, everything about which fills me with suspicion as I have now stated clear enough: very thick and foamy, snow white, very rocky, intricately 'Brugse kant'-like lacing, highly stable head on a crystal clear, pale yellow blonde beer with vague greenish tinge and visible sparkling. Aroma of vegetable stock cubes, old dry hay, plaster, spoiled celery, dried field flowers, paper glue, freshly ironed synthetic fabric, dusty old allspice powder, apple peel, unsugared bubblegum. Slick, clean onset, no true fruitiness, sweetish but not outspokenly sweet, more softly carbonated than expected but I suspect the added proteins create an additional creaminess compensating for this; indeed quite a glueish, 'gummy', slick mouthfeel ensues, with thin graininess underneath, soon bittered by a grassy, somewhat dull hoppiness which for an IPA (even a non-alcoholic one) should have been much more aromatic. Meanwhile that spoiled celery, vegetable stock cube and old allspice effect returns retronasally in full force - making that end bitterness even less elegant and reminding me a bit of De Brabandere's non-alcoholic version of Kwaremont, which departs from a very similar commercial premise. Plaster- and glue-like effects linger, and in the very last drop, I swear I can taste the proteins, in a powdery, almost dry starch-like way, a suspicion proven by the looks of the lacing in the glass that remains after emptying it (partially in the sink): the foam layer sticking to the side of the glass is veined by a branched pattern clearly caused by the proteins, as with a glass of milk. I have ingested many bizarre beers throughout the years but I have no idea how my body will respond to this extra dosage of proteins and BCAA - I can only say that my taste buds at least are not happy. Sheer marketing, intended to make money without respect for beer culture - and on top of that, remaining annoyingly secretive of where it is actually brewed: this beverage has everything against it. I do not like its image, I do not like the idea, I do not like the approach and I do not like what I just swallowed, but I am certainly not part of the intended audience here.