Non Alcoholic Beer October 29, 2019

Hey peeps!!!With Heineken bombarding TV ads with their annoying commercials for their new  Heineken 0.0 Non-Alcoholic beer, I wanted to take a look at beer sans alcohol. I was flipping through the January/February 2019 issue of Men's Health Magazine when I noticed they had the results of a survey that was held on their Twitter feed. Here is the graphic for the survey.

They paired the survey with an article entitled The Five Best-Tasting Nonalcoholic Beers to Get Through Dry January by Joy Manning dated January 10, 2019. Check out the article for some recommendations. The roots of non-alcoholic beer lies in that grand moral and social experiment in American History that I keep referring back to in my historical posts on beer: Prohibition. 

The first non-alcoholic beer in the United States made its debut in 1919 which just happened to be the year that the Volstead Act aka The National Prohibition Act was enacted, going into effect at midnight on January 17, 1920. The act defined the scope of an intoxicating liquor as containing more than 0.5% alcohol by volume. Which opened the door for the creation of non-alcoholic beer at the time known as "near beer." Even after Prohibition on beer was repealed by the Cullen-Harrison Act of 1933, consumers grew to like the near beer and the brewers continued to make them. A cool article that discusses the process of making non-alcoholic beer can be found here: The Science of Non-Alcoholic Beer by Brent Rose from the Gizmodo website dated May 23, 2013.

My first experience with non alcoholic beer came through my dad and his grocery store. My dad would go through his non drinking phases and would turn to non-alcoholic beers to curb the urge to have a beer. These were two of the non alcoholic beers that I remember him having:

Kaliber beer is a non-alcoholic beer made by the brewers of Guinness. The website Origlio beverage describes it as so:

Brewed as a full strength lager with the alcohol removed at the end of the brewing process, Kaliber is made with pure Irish spring water, classic Irish barley and the finest hops. Lager yeast is used to give the beer its full-bodied flavor.  With well-balanced tones of hops and malt, Kaliber is the smart choice for the enjoyment of a great tasting beer when alcohol is not desired. This European take on a non-alcoholic beer is maltier then most American NAs.

The other non-alcoholic beer is Moussy which is made is made by Brasserie du Cardinal Fribourg S.A in Switzerland and follows the rules established by the German Purity Law of 1516. What differentiates Moussy from other non-alcoholic beer? Their website MoussyBeverages describes the process for making Moussy:

A major reason for this outstanding product quality is the unique, patented, MOUSSY brewing process that was developed as a result of many years of research and experimental trials. The ingenious fundamental concept is not to remove the alcohol from conventional beer but rather to prevent the formation of alcohol in the first place.  How that works is, of course, our brewmaster's best kept secret.

While I believe that my dad drank the original version of Moussy that debuted in the 1970s, they now brew Moussy in a variety of fruit flavors. I've noticed that a number of Muslim markets in the general area of my neighborhood sell Moussy. You can read more about Moussy on their website MoussyBeverages.

Now never let it be said that I won't engage in some research for a post. At Finn's Corner we carry the Bitburger 0.0 non-alcoholic beer. Now I've been a big fan of Bitburger's offerings. What do I think about this one?

I shared it with my friend Conal who is an amazing writer. You definitely check out his writings on his website ConalDarcy.com and his writings on the Barchiving website. Now Conal has spent a number of years in Germany and has had his experiences with German brews, especially Bitburger. So he knows what's up when it comes to these German biere.

What we both agreed on was that the beer had a burnt malt taste to it. We weren't sure if that was by design or if it was that particular bottle. So I decided to have another one, which didn't taste any better. There's just something weird about the taste of the Bitburger 0.0 that I can't place my finger on. Oh well. I gave it the old college try. 🤷‍♂

For my next post, I'm going to delve into the above mentioned German Purity Law of 1516 aka the the Reinheitsgebot. Keep your eyes peeled for that post.

Until Then Happy Drinking,
SiscoVanilla
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