Gym Beer – great idea or waste of money?
I'm no stranger to weird products - just recently I published an article about the "protein fruit puree" I found in Lidl, which I'm still confused by. So when I spotted 'Gym Beer by Iguana' at my local Morrisons, I knew I'd have to write an article about it.
I've been loving non-alcoholic beer recently, and I've been happily trying lots of different alcohol free beers to try and figure out which I like best. So I was definitely up for trying Gym Beer.
But before I get into the taste, let's first of all address the obvious thing about this alcohol free beer - the name.
I don't think the team behind Gym Beer are actually expecting you to drink this at the gym, but it's definitely positioned as a beer that you can enjoy before or after the gym. But because it's from Poland, I can't actually tell much of what it says on the can:
But I do know a few things for certain about this beer. For starters, it contains amino acids, caffeine, and fibre. Every 330ml can contains just over 4.5g of fibre, about the same as 2 apples. You also get 43mg of caffeine, about the same as half a cup of coffee. I find this strange, because I've always thought that fibre before a workout isn't a good idea (that's backed up by this study from the American College of Sports Medicine), but then you'd want to have the caffeine before the workout, not once you're done working out. So what's this beer for, before or after a workout?
Also, amino acids are the building blocks of protein and it's nice to see them present in a beer that's intended to be drank around a workout, but I thought Gym Beer would be much higher in protein. You only get just over 1.5g of protein per can, which is absolutely nothing. I published an article about a Skyr you can buy from Aldi that contains 75g of protein, that's the sort of thing you should be consuming after a workout.
Gym Beer contains 11 calories per 100ml, which is pretty low, but there are alcohol free beers I've tried that are lower in calories.
And as for the taste, it's absolutely fine. Not lovely and certainly not one of my favourites, but drinkable enough.
So my final verdict is that Gym Beer is a totally fine product, but I won't be filling my fridge with cans of this alcohol free beer for a post or pre-workout treat.
If you've tried Gym Beer, let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Finn H
Finn is the editor of You Well and has been writing about travel, health, and more for over 10 years.