a short story about a beer that shouldn't exist

once upon a time, a boy was born in 🇭🇰hong kong.

trams, dim sum, a skyline that never switched off.

at 13, my little brother and i got on a plane to the 🇬🇧uk.

our parents stayed behind. it rained, obviously.

at 🏫st edmund's in 🏰canterbury i won a double scholarship,

and somehow became the school's first non-caucasian head boy.

at 18 i fell properly in love with drinks.

i studied wine for fun, and became one of the highest-scoring 🍷french wine scholars.

then philosophy at 🎓durham, 🦡grey college.

long debates, cold pints, the best years of my life. so far.

then, in 2019, a doctor sat down by my bed with some bad news about my 🩺liver.

i had to stop drinking. overnight.

no last pint. no farewell tour. just done.

the funny thing? i didn’t miss the alcohol.

i missed the 🍻pub. the friends, the ritual, that first-pint exhale.

instead i held a lime and soda and pretended it was fine.

so i tried every alcohol-free beer i could find.

sweet. thin. sad. none of them did the one thing a pint does:

help you unwind.

so i asked a silly question: could a beer relax you without the alcohol?

back home in asia i found the plants my ancestors brewed into calming teas,

and a japanese tea book from 1211, the 📜kissa yōjōki.

every hero needs a wizard.

mine was 🧪professor paul chazot, a pharmacology professor at durham who heard my silly question,

didn’t laugh, and lent me his lab.

then came two years of trial and error.

stock pots, demijohns, sticky notes, and a lot of batches that tasted like a garden.

my flatmates were very patient.

somewhere in the middle of it, i graduated with a 🎓first in philosophy.

everyone asked what i’d do next. i said: beer. they assumed i was joking.

in 2021 the first 🍺impossibrew lager was born.

i packed the first boxes myself and hand-wrote half the notes.

in 2022 i got invited onto 📺dragons' den.

they all said no.

“the most credible 24-year-old that has ever walked through the den’s door.” touker suleyman

“sadly, for that reason, i’m going to say that i’m out. but good luck.” steven bartlett

a few months later i was named 🏆food & drink entrepreneur of the year.

turns out being told no is great fuel.

in 2023 our lager and hazy pale ale won at the 🥇world beer awards.

beer judges, blind, liked the beer without the booze.

the dragons said no, so i asked our drinkers instead.

on 💸crowdcube, they said yes: £1.2m in under a day.

in january 2026 we landed in our first supermarket, 🛒ocado.

the first time a stranger’s order turned up with our cans in it, i grinned for a week.

and now i’m back in the pub.

same friends. same ritual. same first-pint exhale.

just without the bit that nearly broke me.

what started in a student kitchen has now sold over 🍺4 million cans.

right now, one sells every 15 seconds.

“it’s kind of fun to do the impossible.” walt disney