YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE CLEAN TO ENJOY A CLEAR HEAD
Aug 17, 2026
If you’ve seen our Summer to Remember billboard on Turbo Island, or our Clear Head ambassadors emblazoned on the bars at Pride Festival, you’ll know we’re having a Clear Head summer.
And it isn’t just us. Sales of alcohol-free beers – a rising category since 2020 – rose further during the recent World Cup, with both pub-goers and supermarket shoppers looking for something lower in ABV. A combination of late-night matches on school nights and the record-breaking heat meant hydration was cooler than inebriation.
But is everyone on the sober wagon? No, in fact, the ‘messy girl’ aesthetic is making a comeback – think Kate Moss in her 90s heyday, cigarettes, and Charli XCX’s Brat Summer. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that this feels like a knee-jerk reaction to the ‘clean girl’ and overly ‘optimized’ way of living (looking at you, Steven Bartlett).
Both ‘trends’ – for want of a better descriptor – have one thing in common: the environment. Measuring your protein #goals versus sticking your middle fingers up to responsibilities are common reactions to feeling like the world is on fire (back to talking about the heatwave, here). You can try to control everything, or you can lose control.
What about the people with their glass half full? The ones who might go to the pub at lunchtime but be home for bedtime? The members of our community who are protesting, and recycling, and volunteering, and doing amazing things like this? The people who drink BBF beer knowing it does good, because 2% of sales go back to the local community, but – let’s be honest – because it just tastes better than the rest?
We make a genuinely delicious alcohol-free beer because we don’t think spending the evening putting the world to rights with your mates is an evening wasted, and we don’t believe in being totally wasted while doing it.
And look, you don’t have to pick a side. This is where the latest trend of ‘Zebra Striping’ comes in. This isn’t an aesthetic – it’s a way of drinking that isn’t about excess. You can have a pint of Clear Head 0.5% to hydrate and then try a pint of something else with a higher ABV. And then back to Clear Head 0.5%. You can barely even tell the difference.
Meanwhile, in Bristol city center, the cool kids are doing something else. They’ve taken the idea of a Shandy one step further. Skaters at Shredenhams take half a Laser Juice 4.2% and top up with Half a Clear Head 0.5%. A ‘Laser Head’, if you will. The perfect lower ABV pint for knocking back between landing tricks.
If you want to talk, we’re here for that too. We give 5% of sales from Clear Head 0.5% to Talk Club, the men’s mental fitness movement. They started with asking “How are you? Out of 10?” in our Tap Room. And so can you – here’s where to find a Talk Club.
