Adnams Ghost Ship 0.5% Review: Suffolk’s NA Pale Ale
Published May 2026 · Updated October 2026 · 7-minute read · by Rich, founder of Unhopped
Adnams says it brews Ghost Ship Alcohol Free “like all our other beers”, with a full fermentation, and then takes the alcohol out. However it’s done, this is one of the most convincing alcohol-free pale ales we’ve tasted from a British brewer.
Who are Adnams?
Adnams has brewed in Southwold, on the Suffolk coast, since 1872, when George and Ernest Adnams bought the Sole Bay Brewery from William Crisp. Adnams and Co. was formed in 1890, the brewery still stands on the same corner of the town, and Adnams says beer has been brewed on the site since at least 1345. In 2010 it opened the Copper House Distillery at the brewery.
Its core beers include Southwold Bitter, Broadside and Ghost Ship, the pale ale it first brewed in 2010 and now calls its best-selling beer. Full-strength Ghost Ship was 4.5% for most of its life; Adnams now sells it at 4.1%. Adnams is an independent company whose B shares trade on the Aquis Growth Market; it considered offers in 2024 but decided not to sell. More on our Adnams brewery page.
Adnams’ move into alcohol-free
In March 2018 Adnams bought a GEA AromaPlus membrane de-alcoholisation unit for the Southwold brewery, and says it was the first brewery in the UK, and the second in Europe, to invest in this kind of plant. Within three months Ghost Ship 0.5% was ready, and it launched that year. Just over a year after launch, it won gold at the World Beer Awards 2019.
Demand kept growing. GEA says Adnams nearly doubled the plant’s capacity in 2019, and in January 2020 Adnams said it was making 12,000 litres of Ghost Ship 0.5% a day. In July 2025 it renamed the beer Ghost Ship Alcohol Free, starting with a new 440ml can; most supermarkets still list the bottle as Ghost Ship 0.5%. It’s the same beer, and Adnams says the strength “remains south of 0.5% abv”.
What makes Ghost Ship 0.5% different
Fermented, then de-alcoholised
There are several ways to make alcohol-free beer, from stopping fermentation early to taking the alcohol out afterwards; our guide to how alcohol-free beer is made explains them. Adnams says it brews the beer like its other beers, with a full fermentation, then removes the alcohol at cold temperatures by reverse osmosis. GEA’s case study on the plant gives a different account, quoting Jonathan Adnams on a lighter “restricted fermentation brew” with less malt, a colder, slower fermentation and a lot of dry hop. Adnams says it chose reverse osmosis over vacuum distillation because the cold process is “much gentler on the character of the hops and malt”.
Local malt and rye
The recipe uses East Anglian pale ale and Cara malts and rye crystal malt, with Citra and a blend of UK and US hops. Adnams says the rye is grown on a farm just up the road from the brewery; in 2023 it named the grower as Jonathan Adnams, then its chairman, at Reydon.
A gluten-free can
The 440ml can goes through an extra validation process so Adnams can label it gluten-free: it uses an enzyme to break down gluten, and the beer contains no more than 20 parts per million. Adnams says the draught version is gluten-free too. The 500ml bottle isn’t labelled gluten-free, so if gluten matters to you, buy the can. See our gluten-free alcohol-free beer guide for more.
On the bar as well as in the fridge
You’ll find Ghost Ship 0.5% on draught as well as in bottles and cans, and from October 2026 Adnams is launching a handpull keg version, which it calls the world’s first alcohol-free handpull beer. Adnams calls it “the UK’s No.1 Low-&-No Ale in pubs and bars”, though it doesn’t say where that figure comes from.
The beer itself
Adnams Ghost Ship 0.5% pours a clear gold with a white head. The aroma leads with grapefruit and floral hops, with a little pine underneath. On the palate there’s bright citrus bitterness, biscuity malt and that rye spice, in a light-to-medium body, and the finish is long and dry. The label backs that up: just 0.1g of sugar per 100ml, so it doesn’t lean on sweetness to fill the gap left by the alcohol.
Next to full-strength Ghost Ship it’s a touch lighter in body, but the citrus and the dry finish are recognisably the same beer. If you already drink Ghost Ship, this is the alcohol-free version to try first.
How Adnams compares
Among British brewers’ alcohol-free versions of their own beers, the obvious comparison is St Austell Proper Job, which is hoppier and more of an IPA. Among the dedicated alcohol-free breweries, Big Drop Pine Trail is more pine-forward and Jump Ship Flying Colours is a maltier amber ale. Ghost Ship sits in the middle: a traditional pub pale ale, citrus-led but not a hop bomb.
Is Adnams Ghost Ship 0.5% worth buying?
For pale-ale drinkers, yes. It’s dry, properly bitter and full of citrus, it’s easy to find, and at 12 kcal per 100ml it’s lighter than most of the alcohol-free pale ales in our calorie tool. It’s vegan, and the can is labelled gluten-free.
If you want a juicy hazy IPA or something experimental, look elsewhere: try Northern Monk Holy Faith or browse the best alcohol-free pale ales. But for what it is, the alcohol-free version of a classic British pale ale, it’s excellent.
Buy Ghost Ship 0.5%
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In supermarkets, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Asda, Morrisons, Ocado and the Co-op all list the 500ml bottle, and Sainsbury’s also sells four-packs of the gluten-free 440ml can.