And every day, it seems like there's some fresh new circle of Hell being discovered. Whether this is old white men who can't tell the difference between Iceland and Greenland (it's nice to see Erik The Red's old trick still works), Cosplay-triots using five year old children as live bait to unlawfully arrest their parents, and...I'm sure something else will inevitably come up that makes a dry January seem like denying a dying man of a water skin.
Yet somehow choosing to switch from my Miller Lite (blasphemous, I know) to non-alcoholic brews hasn't felt like an exercise in futility. I sleep better, I'm less swamp hag in the morning, and I actually find I have more energy in general than I did drinking 1-2 cheap beers a day. Of course, I keep emergency single malt scotch on hand for those days when, well, everything is horribly fucked. But, as this is California, and we go through hot and cold spells, lately the weather hasn't been cooperating with my desire to sample the delights of the homeland.
So, in lieu of craft beer, allow me to expand your consciousness in the non-alcoholic scene.
Lately, I've been partial to Guinness. Yes, they make the beloved classic in a non-leaded version that honestly tastes exactly the same. I had forgotten that not all stout needs to be some tar hued, bourbon vanilla infused, three course meal shake. The faux beverage still has that velvety smoothness and creamy texture as its heartier brother, the difference is, if you forget about it and let it warm up, there's no tangy alcoholic aftertaste. They recommend pouring it in a glass, but I am lazy as all get out and the can doesn't seem to make any difference except if you prefer a little head to your beer drinking pleasures.
But Guinness already made one of the better tasting non-alcoholic beers, even back in the day, called Kaliber. At a time when your options were fucking O'Douls or Old Milwaukee, Kaliber was the godsend you found hanging out in the back of the Bevmo store on the tiniest rack known to man with markdowns and pitiful NA offerings. So it should come as no shock to anyone that they managed to pull off the hardest hat trick by making their own beloved beverage in its unleaded form taste exactly like it should.
Of course, for variety sake I picked up a twelve pack of Heineken's 0.0, which while not my favorite, is a decently light and drinkable beer. Frankly, despite my horrid experience with Sam Adams Hazy NIPA, which tastes like someone took a shandy and mixed it with a beer and said "behold, Hazy IPA", there are companies like Athletic that managed to get it right.
I get it, a Hazy IPA can be citrusy or fruity too, depending on your preferred freshly mowed lawn tasting experience. Maybe you want a beer that tastes like you're riding a mower through a mango field in Tahiti. Or maybe you want more of a Manmosa vibe by throwing hops into orange juice. My point is, Athletic brewing got their Hazy NIPA right. Kind of like how Lagunitas managed to get their own 'Lil Sumthin' in it's NA form to be just as drinkable and palatable as the real deal. I ended up buying a twelve pack and distributing it at one of our apartment complex parties as I rarely crave the grassy taste of hops, and a lot of my neighbors enjoyed it. It's definitely the sort of thing you could unleash in a high school party, watch people pretend to get wasted, and laugh about later. And since we're having another complex party tonight, you already know I have a twelve pack on standby in the fridge.
You go into any Total Wine or Bevmo today and you no longer find just a single sad and lonesome rack shoved in some dark broody corner of the store. No, you have a whole goddamn aisle of options from Delirium Tremens (It's $24 a four pack, while eventually I have to try it and compare it to the real McCoy, I do have a dog that demands a metric FUCKTON of beef pizzle chews or he eats my socks) to Corona, to Lagunitas, and shit, even goddamn La Chouffe has their NA Belgian.
Truly I think the craft beer scene could revive itself if smaller independents decided to craft at least one house NA offering. I'm not talking seltzer water with a bit of hibiscus syrup splash, but actual fucking beer that's been muzzled. Granted, I know jack fucking shit about brewing beer or how to do so and effectively remove the alcohol. But still, in a perfect world, NA beer would be on draft. It's the only sensible evolution in my opinion.
