Mash Gang Review: The Alcohol-Free Brand Behind Chug and Lesser Evil
Published May 2026 · Updated October 2026 · 8-minute read · by Rich, founder of Unhopped
Mash Gang made its name with a long run of limited releases. Since 2025 it has settled on a small core range, and its flagship has a World Beer Cup gold medal to show for it.
Who are Mash Gang?
Mash Gang began in 2020, in the first lockdown, as a home-brewing project between friends: Pellicle names James Loveday, head brewer Jordan Childs, Mike Baggs, Alex Loveday and Ben Gibson. Within months they had scaled up from a 19-litre kit, and in October 2020 they ran a six-beer tap takeover at BrewDog’s Old Street bar in London. The first full-scale commercial brew followed in early 2021, at Northern Monk in Leeds.
In mid-2024 the brand was bought by DioniLife, a non-alcoholic drinks company led by its founder Damian McKinney, formerly chief executive of the Stoli Group. More on the company, its partners and the full range is on our Mash Gang brewery page.
What makes Mash Gang different
Brewed to 0.5%, never stripped
Many alcohol-free beers are brewed to full strength and then de-alcoholised. Mash Gang says it never does that: it brews “purposefully 0.5% ABV beers”, using specialist yeast and a mash designed to give body. “We never strip,” its website says. Our guide to how alcohol-free beer is made explains why that matters for flavour.
No brewery of its own
Mash Gang has never owned a brewery. It has been called a “phantom” brewery: it writes the recipes, and partner breweries brew them. Fierce Beer in Aberdeen was brewing most of the core range by 2024, Pilot Project in Chicago brewed for the US, and in May 2026 Mash Gang named Hall & Woodhouse in Dorset and Abita Brewing in the US as new partners. Co-founder Mike Baggs told the Morning Advertiser in 2025: “We will never have a brewery or an office.”
Collaborations
Working inside other people’s breweries has led to a long list of collaborations. Out of Nowhere is a West Coast pilsner that Siren Craft Brew sells under its own name; Self-Titled, a 0.5% American pale ale with Northern Monk, became Mash Gang’s first big supermarket listing, at Morrisons; Ghost In The Machine is a pilsner with We Can Be Friends; and Serpiente, a pale ale inspired by Mexican tepache, came from a partnership with Cervecería Paracaidista, a Mexico City brewery whose brewer Mash Gang met in Chicago. Vault City and Harrogate Brew Co have co-branded beers with Mash Gang too.
A lot of beers, many of them short runs
Mash Gang says it has brewed more than 200 alcohol-free beers since 2020. That’s part of the appeal, and part of the frustration: many of the beers people talk about, from HAWG to Serpiente, were limited releases that you can’t buy now. In April 2025 Mash Gang announced a new permanent core range, Chug, Glug and Journey Juice, which suggests it wants to be easier to find.
The Mash Gang beers to buy now
Chug is the flagship: a 0.5% hazy IPA hopped with Citra and El Dorado, which Mash Gang describes as mango, passionfruit and grapefruit with a crisp, zesty finish. It launched in 2022 as Chug XPA, has since been reworked, and in April 2026 won gold in the Hoppy Non-Alcohol Beer category at the World Beer Cup. It has 17 kcal per 100ml (56 kcal a 330ml can), it’s vegan, and we score it 8.4/10.
Lesser Evil is our highest-rated Mash Gang beer at 8.5/10: a cherry chocolate stout with oats, cacao and vanilla that Mash Gang describes as velvety dark chocolate and sweet and sour cherry with a dry finish. There’s no lactose in it, and Mash Gang calls it completely vegan-friendly. Beer Today reported that it won double gold and beer of the year at the 2025 International Non-Alcoholic Competition.
These buttons go straight to Mash Gang’s shop; they aren’t affiliate links. Stock checked 12 October 2026.
The other two core beers aren’t in our directory yet. Glug is a golden “cerveza” lager brewed with corn, on sale since July 2025; Journey Juice is a fruited hazy IPA with mango, passionfruit, lime and a little chilli.
Past releases in our directory
Seven of the Mash Gang beers in our directory are past releases that were hard to find, or sold out, when we checked in October 2026. Their pages keep what we know about them, and point to similar beers you can buy: HAWG (an American pale ale with six New World hops), Cult (a hazy pale ale, still listed but sold out at Dry Drinker), Serpiente, Out of Nowhere, Siege Perilous (a Saaz-hopped Bohemian-style lager), Stoop (an oak-aged American pilsner) and Cheap Lager.
A Christmas pick. Lesser Evil, Mash Gang’s cherry chocolate stout, is our pick of the alcohol-free Christmas beers this year, and a four-pack makes a good stocking filler.
How Mash Gang compares
Among the UK’s alcohol-free specialists, Mash Gang has the most in common with Big Drop and Brulo: alcohol-free-only brands that brew with partner breweries rather than their own kit. Jump Ship, Drop Bear and Nirvana make alcohol-free beer in their own brewhouses, and Northern Monk is a full-strength brewer with an alcohol-free range. Where Mash Gang stands out is the number and oddness of its releases, and the fact that it brews to 0.5% rather than de-alcoholising. For the wider picture, see our guide to the best UK alcohol-free craft breweries.
Is Mash Gang worth buying?
If you like hop-forward hazy beer, Chug is the place to start: a World Beer Cup winner at 17 kcal per 100ml, in four-packs at Waitrose. Lesser Evil, our top-rated Mash Gang beer, is a dessert-style stout made without lactose, which plenty of its rivals use. The frustration is availability. Most of the beers that made Mash Gang’s name have gone, the specialist online shops we checked were out of stock, and the rest of the range is mostly sold direct. If you want more choice in one order, our rankings of the best alcohol-free hazy IPAs and best alcohol-free stouts list beers that are in stock.