I’ve only tried a couple.
Guiness is pretty good.
Athletic IPA is not bad.
Both have less body and concentration than normal, but are drinkable. I tend to lose interest about half way through one, though. That said, I’ll keep a couple around. I pretty much drink water, Spindrift, coffee and tea, and every once in while I want another N/A option. These will work.
Heineken and Corona have been recommended to me, but I haven’t tried them.
Highly recommend Untitled Art’s non-alc offerings. Guinness 0 is solid and not that far off from the real thing, but I feel it is a little out of balance. Comes off a bit more acidic than I feel is right. Best Day’s IPA was good, but the Kolsch style didn’t hit me right. If you are open to non-alc cocktails, the St. Agrestis Phony Negroni is pretty hard to beat
I love non-alcoholic beers. In fact I never drink beer with alcohol anymore.
Lots of great selections among the Athletic Beer Co., but the best are the specials that you get directly on their website.
Living in Europe, I’ve taken to the Belgian style beers. Force Majeure has become one of my favorites, especially the Triple Hop. And when I crave something sweeter, the Kriek. I don’t miss the alcohol at all, in fact I appreciate that I can get great taste without the burden of alcohol.
Same here. I save the alcohol for my wine.
It’s amazing how much NA beers have really increased in popularity. I own a restaurant in MD and I’ve gotten way more requests than ever before. I attribute it to a lot of the new generation not drinking as much, particularly because weed is legal most places now. We sell Athletic Brewing IPA and Brooklyn Special Effects - people like em’. Gone are the days when St. Paulie Girl NA and Heineken 0.0 were the only game in town.
Problem though is a lot of people seem irritated that the prices is almost the same as a can of beer with alcohol. That just is what it is - we don’t tell breweries and distributors what to charge lol.
I’ve been told that making a N/A beer is more costly because you have to add the step to remove the alcohol. Makes sense to me.
Back in the day before Uber/Lyft many of my friends would have N/A beers available at parties they threw. If I was driving I would use those as “spacers” and alternate between the two. Much better choices now.
Athletic’s Oktoberfest is very tasty, but I think it’s past the season. But i just discovered Deschutes Fresh Squeezed N/A IPA, and went out and bought more the next day. Great stuff.
Guess I’ll go against the grain and say I feel lagers work much better than IPAs with the N/A treatment.
Only N/A IPA I’ve had that I thought was good was the Brewdog one, and that was 12 years ago when my wife was pregnant with our first kid.
A few months ago I had to give up alcohol for a few weeks, and I thought the Athletic Mexican Lager was the best one I tried.
Maybe my opinion is shaped by all the regular IPA I drink … I dunno. Every NA IPA I’ve had tastes like effed-up IPA, not unlike how screwdrivers taste like effed-up OJ.
I have the “advantage” of no longer drinking regular IPAs … so my bar may be lower, but the Athletic Truckers is very good. And I’ll second the Deschutes Fresh Squeezed.
But the best beers I have tasted are Pilsners.
Jason
Good to know.
You know, I have to admit, I was pretty damned surprised at how much of the beer drinking experience N/A beer brought. Honestly, the only thing I missed was the flavor of my preferred alc. beers. If N/As could do IPA well, I would absolutely be mixing them into the rotation, and would opt for more dry nights / periods…