What’s the Best Non-Alcoholic Alternative to an Ice Cold Beer at the End of the Day?
The flavor of beer is rich and complex and I can’t think of anything to replace the experience of beer.
If it helps, I actually like fruity beer, something sweet but with still some bitterness and that complex flavor I can’t describe that most good beers have.
Why not a softdrink or a root beer? It’s just not the same, it’s like a different branch from beer.
Ice cold non-alcoholic beer, perhaps?
NA beers can be great. Lagunitas sells a Hop Water that’s pretty good too - very light though. And most high-quality ginger beers pack a lot of flavor.
For a long time I was in the “Non alcoholic beer can never replace real beer” camp. But in the last few years they’ve come a long way … and now you can buy low or no alcohol craft beers that are actually quite good.
Athletic makes some great NA beers too. Everything from a light lager like you’d expect from something like a bud light all the way up to NA stouts.
Ginger Beer with lime is fantastic.
Hop Water is insanely good. Like a citrusy, slightly bitter seltzer and usually cheaper than any NA beer that’s worth drinking. It’s quite a bit more money than any store brand seltzer though (which I would’ve recommended otherwise in either grapefruit or mango flavors for basically the same reason).
I agree. Really hits the spot sometimes!
Yup. There should be a couple where you normally buy alcohol. Check out middle eastern grocery stores too. Mine has a wide range of NA beers.
Non alcoholic beats have gotten so good with the proliferation of reverse osmosis distilling! The previous methods ruined it.
I’d like to try getting a small reverse osmosis pump such as for survival desalination, and try doing small batch dealcoholising for more variety of wine. I’m sober now and I’m grateful for my options, but I was really into exploring before.
At least here in Europa NA beers have improved wo much in the last few years. I literally don’t know when I last drank one with alcohol when I just felt like drinking a beer (as opposed to when I wanted to drink alcohol).
And since OP likes it fruity, (NA) Radler/Shandy is just great. It’s 50:50 (NA) beer and lemon soda mixed. This was one of the original ways to get a fruity beer with a lower alcohol content (since the soda doesn’t have any) when NA beers weren’t good yet, great for a hot summer day.