Low/No alcohol at Christmas

[Suffs]

As PepperP says, we love the Adnams Ghost Ship (beware … there are two strengths) and OH enjoys the 0% Guinness too.

[Stokey Sue]

I've gone off regular Doom Bar too, don't think t survived being transferred to the sort of massive brewery Gregg Wallace would be fascinated by

Yes, as previously mentioned, backgammon often requires no alcohol, and gammoners favour Ghost Ship and Guinness, think I might prefer Lucky Saint to Ghost Ship, but it's so long since I had any Ghost I should try it again to be sure.

[Suffs]

A continuing programme of research and quality checking is a wise course of action SSue

[slimpersoninside]

I have now realised alcohol and I no longer get along! My post chemo taste in the area of beer has improved greatly so I'm now trying out no/low alcohol (<0.5%) ones. So far I've tried some of the usual suspects, ones I can remember being Peroni - won't bother again, Ghost Ship - fine, Clausthaler Unfiltered - very nice and tasty if you like hoppy beers, perhaps a tad 'heavy' for the hot weather but worth a try. Our Ocado order for next week has Bitburger (one of my favourites as an alcoholic beer), some Erdinger weissbier and I believe some Clausthaler Grapefruit after having had a German one from Waitrose and enjoyed it, very refreshing. My starting point for choosing what next is 330ml max and must be bottles NO cans. Looking at Ocado I will probably order a Lucky Saint lager, unfortunately the IPA is only available in a can.

I very much hope I find a few I like, we usually have a drink before our evening meal and I'd like to get away from SanPellegrino sparkling water or 'pop'.

[herbidacious]

There are a few online shops such as Drydrinker. During lockdowns we had a few selection packs from some of these companies. I don't often want AF beer etc but a chilled one (or AF cider) is very nice after an hour in the garden on a hot day. (Not had much of that this year for various reasons!)

https://drydrinker.com/collections/mixed-cases

[Badger's Mate]

I’m not a huge fan of most of the low/no alcohol beers I have tried, they don’t seem worth the calories. However I quite like Guinness 0.0 - if I know it’s going to be ‘a long night’, slipping a couple of those into the mix is a good idea.

That said, if I ever ‘just fancy a drink’, I would rather have a cup of tea.

[scullion]

i found the low alcohol cider tasted much more like apple juice than cider.
our son likes the brew dog one and i like san miguel though we also have peroni and heineken (and brew dog) in to ring the changes.
my partner wasn't that impressed by the guinness one, maybe he was comparing it too much with the 'proper' one. i can't say that i was enamoured either

[herbidacious]

I have had some very dry AF ciders. (And some very sweet and fruity ones.)
I am not really after verisimilitude anyway though. Just something different and a bit more grown up than most AF drinks on offer. (I occasionally get bored of water.)
T likes the AF Guinness.
About 98% of time I drink water.

[aero280]

Just to do a 180 degree turn, I will be going to the Watford beer festival on Thursday evening.

https://watford.camra.org.uk/festival.htm

If they have any alcohol free beer, I may sip one…

[Earthmaiden]

I had no idea there was such a choice of AF beers, especially IPA and stouts. Great if you are driving. I had my first chilled stout recently, that was quite a revelation too. Back in the day that was so not done!

[scullion]

i think the reason there are so many good alcohol free beers now is because of the yeast strain that has been developed - it gives all (ish) of the flavour of brewed beer but produces no/almost no alcohol. gone are the days of kaliber thank goodness!

[Badger's Mate]

I find the ‘ethics’ of drinking alcohol-free beer in the workplace quite amusing, now that I don’t have to worry about such things. Similarly the insistence of some organisations that beer traps for molluscs must be filled with A-F beers.

On chilled stouts, I suppose Guinness has long been served cold on tap.

[Lusciouslush]

Similarly the insistence of some organisations that beer traps for molluscs must be filled with A-F beers.

Thanks so much for that - best laugh I've had for days.....

[Earthmaiden]

Chilled Guinness was introduced after my proper real ale days - when any mention of chilling was a form of blasphemy!

Hadn't thought of the molluscs - does AF work as well? It is funny but is it the alcohol which really finishes them off as we have been led to believe?

[scullion]

no, it just slakes their thirst and brings them back for the entertainment and companionability of the pub - then they get a good snack on the way home - or is that lads...

[Lusciouslush]

Lol.....! So........ in addition/instead of putting down bran/oats to reduce the little bu**ars we will soon be advised to put down nutritonal yeast too for the sake of their health..........

This thread has so cheered me up!

[slimpersoninside]

Thanks for the yeast information Scully, interesting.

In the interests of money saving I have today purchased a 500ml bottle of a/f Erdinger whilst picking up some bits for tonight's meal in Waitrose (thoughts being, better to spend on one larger bottle to try rather than a 4 pack in the online shop next week). I can now confirm the 4 pack is staying! If you like wheat beer it's worth a go, not quite the same as the alcoholic version but nice all the same. I picked up a bottle of Lucky Saint too .

[Badger's Mate]

When I first heard that there was a garden using alcohol-free beers in their slug traps “because we have school parties visiting“ I was utterly surprised (in an old fogey ‘what is the world coming to?’ way). Still not quite sure what exactly they were worried about nor how they thought it helped.

[Earthmaiden]

They missed a treat in teaching the perils of alcohol.

[herbidacious]

On booze and slugs...

https://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/what-i ... !%E2%80%9D

"It is thought to be the combination of volatiles, and yeast that attract the slugs, and the alcohol content has been shown to have little bearing on effectiveness."

When T first started working for energy companies it was standard to go to the pub at Friday lunch time and either not come back or stagger back to log in early evening, then go home. It was often done on company cards too. This sort of thing began to end in the second half of the Noughties though.