I first heard about IMPOSSIBREW on a forum. Someone said it was "AF beer that actually does something." My first thought was: that's marketing.

My second thought was: but what if it isn't.

The idea is simple. Take decent AF beer. Add L-theanine and ashwagandha - ingredients that have actual research behind them for calming and stress reduction. Sell it as a beer that replaces the feeling of drinking, not just the taste.

I ordered a 10-pack of their Triple Hopped IPA. Then another. Then another. This is what a month of "ashwagandha beer" actually looked like.

Week 1: Sceptical but curious

First can. Opened it on a Wednesday evening. Poured it into a glass because I'm not an animal.

The beer itself is good. Properly good. Hoppy, slightly bitter, the kind of IPA that would hold up even if there was alcohol in it. Not sweet. Not thin. Not that weird "almost beer" flavour you get from the cheaper AF options. This is a real beer that happens to be 0.0%.

Taste aside - did I feel anything? Hard to say after one can on one night. Maybe slightly more relaxed about 30 minutes in. Could easily be placebo. Could be the fact I was sitting down for the first time all day.

Had two more that week. Same thing. Good beer. Maybe something. Maybe nothing. Inconclusive.

Week 2: OK, something's happening

Friday night. Kids in bed. Long week. The exact moment where I used to crack open a proper beer and feel the world get slightly softer.

I had an IMPOSSIBREW IPA. Twenty minutes later, my wife said "you seem really chilled tonight." I hadn't mentioned the beer. Hadn't said anything about testing it. She just noticed.

That's when I started paying proper attention.

The feeling isn't like alcohol. It's not a buzz. It's not impairment. It's more like... the volume on everything turns down slightly. The work emails I was mentally composing stopped. My shoulders dropped. I was just sitting there, actually relaxed, without four pints of Peroni doing the heavy lifting.

I did a comparison the next Friday. Had a regular AF beer - a Heineken 0.0. Same ritual. Same sofa. Same time. Nothing happened. Tasted fine. Felt nothing. Just beer-flavoured water in a can.

Back to IMPOSSIBREW the Friday after. The settling feeling came back.

What's actually in it

I went down a rabbit hole on the ingredients because I wanted to know if this was real or if I was just having a good week.

IMPOSSIBREW calls their blend the Social Blend. The key ingredients:

L-theanine - this is the amino acid in green tea that makes it calming without making you sleepy. It promotes alpha brain waves, which is the relaxed-but-alert state. There's decent research on it. A 2019 study found it reduced stress and improved cognitive function. It's the reason green tea chills you out differently from coffee even though both have caffeine.

Ashwagandha - an adaptogen that's been used in Indian traditional medicine for literally thousands of years. Modern research shows it reduces cortisol (the stress hormone). A 2012 study found it reduced cortisol by 28% over 60 days. It's one of the most studied adaptogens out there.

They also include soluble plant fibres and Vitamin B1, but the L-theanine and ashwagandha are doing the heavy lifting.

The science checks out. These aren't made-up ingredients. They're well-studied compounds with real effects. The question was always whether the doses in a beer are enough to actually notice. After four weeks, my answer is yes.

Week 3: Building a routine

By week three I was reordering. IMPOSSIBREW do a 10-pack for £18.90 - works out about £1.89 a can. That link saves you a tenner off your first order.

I settled into a pattern. Two or three IMPOSSIBREW IPAs across the week - usually Wednesday and Friday evenings, sometimes Saturday if we had people round. Not every night. Not replacing water with it. Just the evenings where I used to drink.

Three things I noticed by week three:

1. Better sleep on drinking nights. Not dramatically. But the nights I had an IMPOSSIBREW, I fell asleep faster. No racing thoughts. Just... out. This makes sense with the ashwagandha - cortisol reduction means less stress-brain at bedtime.

2. The ritual matters as much as the ingredients. Part of why alcohol "works" for relaxation is the ritual. The crack of the can. The pour. The first sip. The permission to stop doing things. IMPOSSIBREW gives you all of that plus something that actually helps you relax. Regular AF beer gives you the ritual but nothing behind it.

3. Other people notice. My wife mentioned it twice more. A friend who came over on Saturday said I seemed "really chilled" (I'd had an IMPOSSIBREW about an hour earlier). Nobody noticed anything on the evenings I had regular AF beer or nothing at all.

Week 4: The control test

I'm not a scientist. But I wanted to be at least slightly rigorous about this. So week four, I alternated.

Monday: regular AF lager (Beck's Blue). Tuesday: nothing. Wednesday: IMPOSSIBREW IPA. Thursday: nothing. Friday: regular AF beer (Lucky Saint). Saturday: IMPOSSIBREW IPA.

Results (purely subjective, sample of one, etc.):

Evening	Beer	Relaxation level (1-10)	Sleep quality
Monday	Beck's Blue	4	Normal
Tuesday	Nothing	3	Normal
Wednesday	IMPOSSIBREW IPA	7	Good
Thursday	Nothing	4	Normal
Friday	Lucky Saint	5	Normal
Saturday	IMPOSSIBREW IPA	8	Very good

Completely unscientific. I know. But the pattern was consistent with what I'd felt all month. IMPOSSIBREW evenings were noticeably more relaxed than everything else. Not subtle. Noticeable.

What I tried beyond the IPA

The Triple Hopped IPA is the one that got me hooked but I tried the rest of their range too.

Brut IPA: Lighter and drier than the Triple Hopped. Good for warmer evenings. Less in-your-face hoppy, more crisp. My second favourite.

Enhanced Pale Ale: Middle ground. Not as bold as the IPA, not as light as the Brut. Solid everyday beer. Good with food.

Enhanced Lager: Decent. Clean. But if you're a lager person, Lucky Saint or Heineken 0.0 might taste better as pure lagers. The functional ingredients still work though.

Cask Reserve Amber: Different. More malty, slight caramel notes. Interesting if you want something warmer. Not my go-to but it's well made.

The IPA is the best one. Start there.

The honest downsides

It's not all perfect. Here's what bugged me:

Availability. You can't pop to Tesco for it. It's online-only for most people. Delivery takes a couple of days. You need to plan ahead. This is the biggest gap between IMPOSSIBREW and the big AF brands.

Price. £1.89 a can is not expensive for a craft beer. But it's more than the £1.20 Guinness 0.0 or the 80p Beck's Blue in the supermarket. You're paying for the ingredients. Whether that's worth it depends on whether you notice the difference. I did.

The branding. It's a bit "tech startup" for what is ultimately a beer. The name IMPOSSIBREW is fine. The "Social Blend" stuff on the can could be simpler. Some people will be put off by anything that sounds too marketed. The beer is better than the packaging suggests.

One month verdict

I went in sceptical. I'm coming out a regular buyer. That's not something I expected to write.

IMPOSSIBREW doesn't taste like a gimmick beer. It tastes like a proper craft IPA that happens to be 0.0% ABV. That alone puts it in the top tier of AF beers I've tried.

But the ashwagandha and L-theanine make it something different from everything else in the AF market. There is a real, noticeable calming effect. It's not dramatic. It's not going to replace a strong G&T after the worst day of your life. But for normal weeknight "I want to unwind" situations, it works. Actually works.

Is it placebo? Maybe partially. But the research on both ingredients is solid, my wife noticed without being prompted, and my own dumb control experiment showed a consistent pattern. I'm not a clinical trial. But I'm a convinced customer.

If you've tried AF beer and found it unsatisfying - not the taste, but the fact that nothing happens after you drink it - IMPOSSIBREW is worth a go. It's the only one I've tried that bridges that gap.

I'm still buying the Triple Hopped IPA most weeks. A 10-pack for £18.90 lasts me about two weeks. This link saves you £10 off your first order if you want to try it.

Related: Guinness 0.0 vs IMPOSSIBREW | Lucky Saint vs IMPOSSIBREW | Best AF Beer for Midweek Evenings | Does IMPOSSIBREW Actually Work?