Pomona Island Alcohol-Free Beers

Pomona Island is an independent Salford brewery, set up in 2017 near MediaCity, with a pub in Manchester city centre and a café bar in Chorlton. Its alcohol-free beer in the shops is Nothing To Get Hung About, a 0.5% pale ale made with the alcohol-free specialists We Can Be Friends.

Who are Pomona Island?

“We started this brewery in very DIY fashion in 2017,” co-founder Nick Greenhalgh told the Bailey Head pub in 2022: “No money, terrible kit, the beer was okay, we put every penny back into the brewery.” The founders worked second jobs and “cut and shut the kit and brought in more tanks”, he said. It brews on Daniel Adamson Road in Weaste, Salford, close to MediaCity, CAMRA says.

Nick Greenhalgh, Ryan Thompson and Gareth Bee have been directors since July 2017, and until May 2019 each was listed as holding more than a quarter of it, Companies House shows; James John Dyer joined the board in May 2019, and since then no one has held more than a quarter of the company. CAMRA names the head brewer as James Dyer, “formerly of Tempest Brew Co”, and says the brewery is “Part owned by the people behind the Gas Lamp in Manchester city centre”. We found no drinks group involved, so we list it as independent.

The brewery shares its name with Pomona Island itself, which may sound tropical, British Beer Breaks wrote in 2023, “but is actually a part of Manchester’s old docklands”.

What Pomona Island brews

Untappd lists 812 Pomona Island beers, with 474,390 ratings at an average of 3.9, and the brewery sums up its range there as “Haze, West Coast, Sours, Stouts, Traditional Cask, Mixed Ferm, Barrel ageing and blending.” Untappd’s list of its top beers starts with Factotum and Phaedra, both hazy pale ales, and runs to double and triple IPAs such as Good Morning, Captain and Ego Tripping At the Gates of Hell, and a fruited gose, O’hanraha-hanrahan.

For a meet-the-brewer night at the Bailey Head in 2022, its list ran from In Dreams, a 4.2% cask pale, and Mild Peril, a 6% dark ruby mild, to Jelly Jars and Bird Calls, a 6.5% gose with blackcurrant, elderberry, quince and Halen Môn sea salt, and Chevron Action Flash, a 10% triple IPA. Shops and the press call Pomona Island award-winning, but we found no named awards, for its alcohol-free beer or any other.

Pomona Island’s pubs

North Westward Ho, its flagship pub in Manchester city centre, opened on 5 October 2023 in the former Chaophraya unit above Sam’s Chop House, near The Gas Lamp on Bridge Street, which Taste of Manchester calls its sister bar. It has 18 craft beer lines, 5 cask lines and 4 lines of natural wine and cider, Manchester Wire reported, the wine and cider from “the coincidentally named Little Pomona, which is bizarrely no relation”, and “a huge range of low and no-alcohol drinks”. The pub’s name comes from a pub ship moored at Pomona Docks in the 1970s, Taste of Manchester says. “We want the space to feel like a pub, not a bar,” the team said.

In April 2026 Pomona Island took over The Creameries on Wilbraham Road in Chorlton, “a café bar with a focus on coffee, wine, cocktails and food service”, Manchester Wire reported. It opened for drinks on 29 April 2026, with food from the following week, and has 16 rotating keg lines, six of them for wine. CAMRA calls it the Creamerie and says it has no real ales.

Pomona Island’s alcohol-free beers

Nothing To Get Hung About is a 0.5% pale ale in 440ml cans, “Created with alcohol free brewing specialists We Can Be Friends”, The Alcohol Free Co and Dry Drinker say. We Can Be Friends is a Bromley-based brewery founded by Sam Ray that specialises in 0.5% beers, according to EEBRIA and Beer Ritz. The Alcohol Free Co and Dry Drinker both list We Can Be Friends, not Pomona Island, as the beer’s vendor. Nobody says where it was brewed, how it’s made, or when it came out.

Beer Ritz and Hops & Hampers carry a line that may be the brewer’s own (we couldn’t confirm it): “Let me drink this down, cause it’s an Alcohol Free Pale Ale hopped with Cryo Mosaic, Amplifire Riwaka and Citra.” The Alcohol Free Co describes it as “Hoppy and juicy, with refreshing lemon and lime soda pop character”, and “Juicy, refreshing and easy to drink.” We couldn’t read Pomona Island’s own website.

Most shops give 0.5%; Beer Ritz lists 0.0%, and we couldn’t check the brewer’s figure. Hops & Hampers lists barley, oats and wheat among its allergens, so we wouldn’t call it gluten-free. The Alcohol Free Co calls it vegan-friendly, and Dry Drinker tags it vegan. Nobody publishes its calories that we could find. No source says whether it’s a one-off or a regular, and we found no awards for it.

Untappd also lists a second alcohol-free Pomona Island pale ale, A Little Seasoning, A Little Dressing, marked non-alcoholic, but we couldn’t confirm its strength or find it in a UK shop.

How Nothing To Get Hung About compares

Alcohol-free pale ales and IPAs from UK breweries in our directory, including one of We Can Be Friends’ own. Calories as published; checked 31 October 2026. Scores are Unhopped ratings out of 10.

The Pomona Island beer in our directory

Checked October 2026. Scores are Unhopped ratings out of 10.

Where to buy Nothing To Get Hung About

On 29 October 2026 The Alcohol Free Co and Dry Drinker each had six for £33.38, and The Alcohol Free Co also had single cans at £5.84; those are affiliate links. Hops & Hampers listed it at £4.50, in stock; Beer Ritz showed it as previously stocked, and Wise Bartender doesn’t list it. We found no supermarket stocking it, and we couldn’t confirm whether Pomona Island’s own pubs pour it. For more, see our guide to the best alcohol-free pale ales.

Facts checked against Companies House, CAMRA, Untappd, The Bailey Head, Manchester Wire, Taste of Manchester, British Beer Breaks, EEBRIA, Beer Ritz, Hops & Hampers, The Alcohol Free Co and Dry Drinker, 31 October 2026.