Nice and crisp this one. A bit lacking in body but good flavour and certainly refreshing.
Wow this IPA is the business! Fruity hop aroma. Deep bitterness. Body and malt. This is the benchmark now! There's a few other UpFlow brews in the cupboard so I'm looking forward to those now.
Also nibbling on some Ukrainian snacks. Sukareki are toasted black bread with flavourings and they're totally delicious! Perfect with beer. These ones are spicy tomato flavour and they definitely carry a kick. Nom.
This describes itself as a "Non-Alc Pale Ale". I'm not sure it hits the notes I'd expect from a pale ale. Not enough body. However it's quite refreshing, light flavoured without being incipid. Perfect when the temperature is 33 degrees like right now. A good Summer brew.
This Austrian number gets the take on lager right. Heavy, metallic bittering hops and a rich maltiness.
Lager is hard to get right with alcohol but without its super tough. This one nails it. I'd drink this happily.
Being a lager, this isn't going for the fruity delights of a pale ale or similar. To survive being alcohol free a lager has to make up for the lack of body somehow.
This one tries to make do with some heft hops and a bit of malty body but it still has that thinness and a hint of the standard commercial booze free beers.
It's not bad but for my tastes lager is always going to fall flat without alcohol. A good effort but it's a tough gig.
Meh. Boring and bland. You're not fooling anyone here.
I rode to Bondi Beach yesterday for a nice leisurely swim in the hot weather. I try to do this ride once a week leaving early on Tuesday mornings but the weather in 2021 hasn't been helpful. It's a really lovely ride with a single challenging hill in Waverley and the enticement of a swim at the end.
Normally I'm riding too early so whenever I do the ride late enough I drop in to the Russian deli on the way back up the hill. Yesterday was a late ride so I popped in to pick up some Eastern European delights. I got a big loaf of black caraway bread, some salted herring fillets and a couple of big bottles of kvass, perfect for my booze free month.
Kvass is an interesting drink made from fermented rye bread, popular in the former Soviet states and some of Eastern Europe. On a hot day it's a really delightful refreshing drink. I remember having a glass at a market in Riga on a hot day in July and it being such a great way to cool down.
I discovered Kvass from a couple of Russiaphile friends and have been in love with it ever since. It's not really a beer though but something different. Still a satisfying cold drink.
This brand, Очаковский, was recommended by the woman in the shop. They have a few brands so I needed some help.One of these days I'm going to drive over with a freezer bag so I can pick up some of the bags of pelmeni they stock too. Yum.
Kronenbourg is a terrible beer that was available everywhere in the UK when we lived there. It's bloody awful stuff, but still better than the equally ubiquitous Fosters. Once we discovered Real Ale though, we avoided this garbage.
The zero alcohol one here is weird. It's got something citrus going on in there. It's trying to be a "wheat beer with a taste of citrus" but the citrus doesn't taste like the real deal. It's an artificial flavouring would be my guess.
The underlying beer isn't too bad. The best way I'd describe it is like a good tea being ruined with bergamot to make Earl Gray. You can taste the two things separately in the palette.
A lot of these alcohol free beers go for the wheat option. They're generally lighter anyway and often have fruity esters that give some body. This one wouldn't be bad if they removed the citrus. Punters could always add their own at serving time.
Update: I tipped this one out. It was awful.
There's a good chunk of middle-of-the-road mainstream beer brands in my selection and this tastes as expected. It's a lot like the Cooper's 0% beer. Lots of dry hops to give a crisp taste but not much else going on. I expect a lot of these to taste similar.
Still, they're doable. When Holly was pregnant with both kids we had a bunch of these in the house. They're okay but now that I've had the good craft stuff, my expectations are higher.
Holly and I are having a break from booze for the month of February. It's a difficult month cos it's often got the hottest stretches of weather all year, so not having a cold beer at the end of an especially hot day.
I went and splurged on $170 worth of no alcohol beers. They range from craft brews to the mainstream like Carlton Zero and Erdinger's alcofree version.
I'll try and review each one I try. First up is Vandestreek's Playground IPA. This is a Dutch brewery but it's a long way from Heineken or Amstel. It's clearly an IPA with a strong bitter hoppiness and a reasonably full body. It's still a bit on the thin side but you have to give up something when you give up the booze. This one's really good and I'd gladly drink it again.
