What NA Beer are you drinking now? And what NA beers are you liking?

[bwible]

Got no NA beers but I have some Miller 64. 2.8% and 64 calories. Close enough?

 

[mergs]

I haven’t tasted many NA beers, though hubby bought a 6 of Weihenstephaner hefe NA. I poured a half glass and there was an unexpected bite to it not like an enjoyable hefe. Well, it was a carbonic bite, poured the rest hard got a big fluffy head and found it to be rather enjoyable and very close to the brand.

I've had this in Germany in the past (on business). In Europe NA beer is a serious thing. You drunk drive there, you are seriously in trouble. So, there's a real market for NA beers. I have had Weihen- Hefe NA and I think I could easily make it a go to dinner sipper. I was in Portugal in April and the national beer Super Bock (kind of the Sam Adams of PT) has 3 NA offerings and I would grab a 6 pack of the dark offering and have 1 with dinner back in the AirBnB and I was stoked to have it as an option. They're not as good as Athletic but very solid. My main issue is that they seem to be sweeter than I'd like.

 

[mergs]

I went on a stint of NA beer over this past summer. Here are my experiences.

1. BrewDog. I had a bunch of NA from them. Nanny State, Punk AF, Hazy AF, Elvis AF, and an AF stout (cant remember the name). These are all decent, but low in body and just a bit "off". Probably the best "beer" of what I tried.

2. St. Pauly Girl NA. Terrible. Dont even bother getting any. Cloyingly sweet, no bitterness, just terrible.

3. Laugunitas Hoppy Refresher. Super good. Better than any beer honestly. I loved this.

4. Hop Lark Hop Water. Citra was good. Mosaic was good. Decent.

5. Hop Lark Hop Tea. These were pretty good. 2nd best on the list. The Citra bomb one was great. The really hoppy one was great. The others were ok. But, definitely worth a try.

Agree. The Hop Tea is the best of the bunch! Also simple to make at home with the plethora of HB equipment I own that I have not been using in 6 months.

 

[mergs]

I've liked all of the brewdog AF beers.
Heineken 0.0 is good for a "regular" beer.
My favorite NA of all time is Erdinger Hefeweizen

Hey Jersey, I will look for the Erdinger! I have some Heineken 0. I can drink in a pinch in the summer and I add limes, Corona/Michelada style.

p.s. my avatar was taken up in Wawayanda in West Milford. I lived in NJ for 45 years. Property taxes drove me out. I know Boonton well.

 

[mergs]

If I'm going to do the insane amount of carbs....

good point. trade off is: lose the alcohol but they add/don't ferment the sugars. that said I drink a lot less of these and I found a very low carb brand that isn't bad if you tell yourself its a really "good Hop Water".

 

[mergs]

Got no NA beers but I have some Miller 64. 2.8% and 64 calories. Close enough?

for me personally, no. but I have my own personal reasons for limiting the booze. I'm not an evangelist and I don't judge so whatever works for others, I'm fine with. I go to social settings where I'm sipping on an Athletic (for example) and people are doing whiskey and cans of beautiful IPAs that I would normally drink.

 

[mergs]

I’m happy to be educated (and honestly have never thought about this before, so if my question is cliche by now just ignore me) - should NA beer be called beer? As far as I know, throughout history beer has been a fermented beverage. Isn’t this a bit like calling grape juice non-alcoholic wine?

Good question.

There are a few ways to make NA beer. One way is to due a full ferment like we all do at home or commercially and use methods to remove the alcohol. To me, that's still a beer.

Grape juice isn't fermented. Wine is fermented grape juice. you can also remove the alcohol from wine (I do it at home, chill and then add fruit, e.g. sangria) but its still wine.

that said, there are some NA beer techniques where there's a special yeast used that doesn't ferment the beverage fully so the ABV < 0.05. I believe there are other techniques where no ferment is done. lots of companies are experimenting with it because the market in NA beer is growing. Here's a good run down on current ways its done: How Is Non Alcoholic Beer Made?

Hope that helps answer the question.

 

[mergs]

Brew dog Nanny State is really good, but there is no local retailer.
I am happily drinking a Partake Pale Ale now. 10 Calories, tasty and supposedly zero carbs.

Agreed. Partake is now my goto. Hard to beat the nutrition details! Its better than Hop Water but its not going to satisfy your typical beer drinker unless you really want to embrace the NA and low carbs. Its not as tasty as Athletic, etc but its got 1/6 to 1/10th carbs but its tastier than Hop Water (but its clearly in that "direction" as far as flavor and body). Lately I've been using Partake's Pale to make black and tans with Guinness 0.0. Pretty tasty.

 

[bracconiere]

I've started making it as well. Starting to scale up as I get the hang of it.

for some reason reading through the update....what about kombucha with using wheat germ for the tea, and maybe a dry hop? it'd have a lot of good vitamins that way too!


maybe like 1lb of raw wheat germ for a 5 gallon batch? but strain the actual flakes out? then maybe a dry hop with an ounce of hops?

 

[mergs]

I was just re-reading my original post and it deserves an update. I just reached my 6 month mark of no alcohol on 30 May and it seems weird re-reading my post back on 13 Dec 2021. At that time I was just starting this experiment and at that time I had planned on going back to drinking. Today, my plan is to never go back. I don't want to evangelize, this is my own path and yours should be different. I was fully capable of drinking and brewing good beers, staying reasonably healthy,, holding down a career but at age 56 I am now going to try sobriety as a long term health choice.

During covid my drinking went from "hitting a pub or brewery a few times a week" to doing 3-4 homebrews every night. My BP was not under control and neither was my blood sugar. I don't really know why I felt I needed that 4th beer at night but I did and eventually realizing this is not normal, nor healthy, on Nov 30 2021 I realized I needed to test myself and snap out of this. So I did a "sober December" as a test. I passed and kept going in Jan, then Feb and we're now in May 2022. My brain is much clearer and my BP has been low for a couple of months. Considering I'm on BP meds and its finally under control, that's my main reason for stopping and switching to NA.

I know that its odd to be talking about this subject on a home brew forum (I've been brewing up until last year for 15+ years) but with the prevalence of really quite good NA beers, clearly there's a market for it and its a trend, and there must be others like me that want to drink less or not at all. Apologies if this topic rubs the wrong way. Believe me... I LOVE a good beer. Its part of my soul. I literally remember the first time an unknown brewpub owner handed me his new beer called Heady Topper and it changed things forever for me. Now, the prevalence of drinkable NA beers has changed things again.

with that, I'll add to my original list.

Guinness Stout 0.0. This is probably the best NA offering I have seen out there for any style. Its 85% of what I remember the original being. I think I could pick it out of a lineup against normal Guinness but its really nicely done. Its got a major flaw though: they add a little fructose, apparently (giving it 13g of carbs per 12 oz). So, rather than having a second Guinness 0, I thin it out with a Partake Pale (10 cals, 0 carbs) and make a black and tan. Its pretty delicious

Anyway, cheers to all who have added their replies. I've enjoyed hearing about the NA beers you all have tried and will add them to my list.

 

[bracconiere]

My BP was not under control and neither was my blood sugar.

yeah, i started drinking a lot of homebrew when i was 26. mostly because i gave up on cops helping me ever thinkformyself enough to stand up to dope cooks, and i knew beer was easy to make and i wouldn't end up getting taken advantage of....but when i was 29-30 i had horible heart burn, bad enough to be puking blood. and when my ass abccess poping and was spewing blood WHILE i was puking blood....i damn well knew beer & milk isn't a living plan! but i'm a cheap bastard and if i had to eat i wanted to learn how to do it as cheap as possible! at first i almost went the pill route, but said to myself, why is i drink in the first place? because i don't want to let someone use chemicals to take advantage of me...so i looked for a list of the vitamins i need and a list of what's in food. found the USDA nutrient db, and some third party utilities to use it...


i don't even have dandruf any more! lost 90lbs, kept it off for 13 years...liver is in good shape, blood sugar good, cholesterol good...BP good...

just got to make sure i make sure the 'bills' get paid, and keep it within the budget....

I know that its odd to be talking about this subject on a home brew forum

no man, it defintaly should be said especialy around here... this be risky bussiness. but doable!

edit: damn, i'm thinking, i should SOOOOO use the preview function before making posts like in the future!

 

[Broken Crow]

I'm right there with you on the clean diet and no pharma. I use fuggle and or EKG based ales as a mild muscle-relaxant. About 30 years ago I did some reseach that showed that even Ibuprofen had the impact on your liver equivalent to about 6-12 beers, but the effect was only strong for the first hour. Now, with my tolerance drastically dropped since my 2014 injury, I am experimenting with spreading 3-6 beers over an entire day for the slow reflex-retardation effect that keeps my hypertonicity from engaging, and still coming in at a lower level of liver-intoxication that the least off the shelf or prescription drug combo can do. (Yeah, treat the cause..NOT the symptoms!)

 

[bracconiere]

Ibuprofen had the impact on your liver equivalent to about 6-12 beers,

not to mention the stomach bleeding!! that stuff is a band-aid that should be taken off as soon as possible..


i made an amide out of ibuprofen for reasons you can imagine...after a week, it was a pink puke show!

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Great thread. For the record, I am friends and family with people who have the disease of alcoholism. That said, I think those of us who do drink could do with less from time to time. The problem I have is that your 0.0% have a big bunch of carbs, which I’m trying to avoid. I have a “beer fest” one a month where I drink whatever beer I want for one day, but the rest of the month I only get 2 real beers a weekend, (self regulated). No alcohol beers are not low carb, so I have not had one. I’d love to see a low/no carb NA beer.

 

[mergs]

for some reason reading through the update....what about kombucha with using wheat germ for the tea, and maybe a dry hop? it'd have a lot of good vitamins that way too!


maybe like 1lb of raw wheat germ for a 5 gallon batch? but strain the actual flakes out? then maybe a dry hop with an ounce of hops?

I have a feeling that hopping at the beginning of a kombucha batch (while its warm) might impart antimicrobial aspects into the batch and have negative impact on the SCOBY and the ferment. I'm willing to try it though!

 

[mergs]

Great thread. For the record, I am friends and family with people who have the disease of alcoholism. That said, I think those of us who do drink could do with less from time to time. The problem I have is that your 0.0% have a big bunch of carbs, which I’m trying to avoid. I have a “beer fest” one a month where I drink whatever beer I want for one day, but the rest of the month I only get 2 real beers a weekend, (self regulated). No alcohol beers are not low carb, so I have not had one. I’d love to see a low/no carb NA beer.

Totally agree. Sam Adams is insanely High Carb. On the other hand, Partake from Canada is low: Styles & Flavors · Great Tasting Non-Alcoholic Beers

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

Totally agree. Sam Adams is insanely High Carb. On the other hand, Partake from Canada is low: Styles & Flavors · Great Tasting Non-Alcoholic Beers

They have it at total wine and more. Thanks, I’ll give it a try.

 

[mergs]

They have it at -----. Thanks, I’ll give it a try.

Shhhh, that's my source!

 

[BrewinInPA]

1:1:1 Negroni, Bulldog Gin, while the stuffed shells are baking.
View attachment 774531View attachment 774532

 

[BrewinInPA]

Oops wrong thread

 

[mergs]

I tried Clausthaler Dry Hopped NA beer yesterday. Its pretty high carb (as most of these are) but a decent beer (the hops definitely help) and better than their standard offering.. It would be an OK choice if you were in a restaurant and needed a beer with dinner, esp. if it was a choice between that and O'Douls or Kaliber, but I wouldn't seek this one out.

I also had Weihenstephaner's Hefeweissbier Alkoholfrei and it was pretty good. I've had this before in Germany and it seemed to have been a little fresher there which isn't surprising. I could have a couple of these at a summer party and be content.

 

[BrewinInPA]

Tröegs LaGrave

 

[mashdar]

I tried Clausthaler Dry Hopped NA beer yesterday. Its pretty high carb (as most of these are) but a decent beer (the hops definitely help) and better than their standard offering.. It would be an OK choice if you were in a restaurant and needed a beer with dinner, esp. if it was a choice between that and O'Douls or Kaliber, but I wouldn't seek this one out.

I also had Weihenstephaner's Hefeweissbier Alkoholfrei and it was pretty good. I've had this before in Germany and it seemed to have been a little fresher there which isn't surprising. I could have a couple of these at a summer party and be content.

A bit of a necro post, but figured I tack on here rather than starting a new thread.

I was pleasantly surprised with Clausthaler Original. They even seem to have added a faint lightstruck flavor to it! It's got some grain, hops, bitterness. The grain tastes unfermented similar to some of my very low ABV homebrews.

On the other hand, Budweiser Zero is a huge letdown. I can hardly smell anything on the nose, and I'm not sure I even taste anything besides carbonation when drinking it. Maybe a hint of acetaldehyde and something vaguely sweet at the very front. If you were considering Budweiser Zero, just drink some seltzer. I actually like an American macro lager from time to time, but yikes.