Nice little writeup on the rapidly growing niche segment of NA craft beer. Would love to find a solid NA stout to try. Craft Beers Without the Buzz
Picked up a 4pk of Lagunitas non alcholic "Hoppy Refresher" Actually not bad, for what it is... Think seltzer water with hop flavoring. I'll give more of this growing trend a whirl.
I hope when this stuff starts showing up in the stores, they shelve it with the soda pop instead of with the beer. There isn't enough shelf space in the as it is.
LOL sadly would this whole sober curious not be a gateway into the real stuff. That is a great line to use in the bar, hey baby my friends tell me your a little sober curious, I can fill that need. LOL
I thought maybe people wanting to be sober shouldn't maybe consider BA as a proper forum for that, but, that is just my little opinion. Non alcoholic stout? How about a thin chocolate shake.
I just purchased Athletic's two flagships last week. I plan to experiment with them as I train this summer. It'll be a little more fun than not drinking at all while training. I would love to get my hands on Athletic's limited work, but 50 to 100 cases for online sales is incredibly slim. That's just 200 customers getting a 6 pack each.
I have no reference for the American ones, but the German ones (which are popular over there) begin life as real beers, but have most of the alcohol removed after the fact. I think the final products have to be under 0.5% ABV or something close to that. They aren't seltzer or sodas. They're marketed as everything from beer for people driving or being active to borderline energy drinks.
There are some non-alcoholic beers that are not regular beers with alcohol removed later (via boiling/distilling, osmosis, etc), but use an "arrested fermentation" process using special yeast strains, so that the "beer" doesn't development a normal alcohol content. Here's a description of likely the first "Craft" NA beer, circa mid-1980 from Firestone-Fletcher (Firestone being the father/f-i-l of current owners of Firestone Walker): So, not exactly a "new" technology. Not sure which German/other European beers use that method (seems like Clausthaler does? Maybe (defunct?) Moussy?) There's also some new process - https://www.abvtechnology.com/ Yeah, that's also been the case in the US since Prohibition (well, actually predating the 18th Amendment).
One of the Swedish macros has a 0.5% abv beer which they claim uses a "cold contact process" where the wort is cooled to 0 degrees celsius, yeast is added and left in contact with the wort for 24 hours, the yeast is centrifuged away and it is then lagered for one week at 0 degrees celsius.
