INTRODUCING
The best non-alcoholic beers:
Non- alcoholic most often means 0.05% alcohol by volume or less, but the terms vary with each country's authorities - Żywiec calls their 1.2% product "low alcohol" , Haake Beck at <0.5% labels their beer in the U.S. non-alcoholic, while another German beer, Clausthaler calls their 0.45% beer Low Alcohol - in the US up to 0.5% is non-alcoholic under the Volstead Act.
Unlike mocktails, non-alcoholic beer is not for everyone. One must be very disciplined to delve into this world, or not. I did not go there for six years, out of pure fear of drinking again. I do not under rate fear in personal motivation; being alert to what is toxic has gotten us after all, from paramecium to semi-intelligent virus & ape-like by keeping our ears up. In the end, we each ask ourselves, "am I comfortable with this, am I going to hate myself in the morning - worse, how did I end up somewhere other than my bed?"
Consider the following for comparison: malt vinegar, tasty on french fries contains 0.2%; a glass of fresh orange juice can contain up to 0.5% alcohol & in Germany grape juice can have up to 1.0% , soft drinks up to 0.3%. Some vanilla extracts have 35% . I have read claims that beers at <0.5% have "less alcohol than a piece of bread" - this needs research - rye bread has 0.34% by vol.. Most NA beers have fewer calories then regular beers, & fewer carbs - this is a boon to many of us finding our metabolism is not as speedy as it once was.
At Biff's Na Na Na, we use the "Canoe Scale" for beers:
Canoe Scale
0 = "Up a creek..."
1 = "Fucking close to water"*
2 = Bilge Water
3 = Portage
4 = "Is that a buzz?!"
5 = Teutonic
Here is an initial list of beers arranged by their canoe scale ratings ... most of us evolve and these ratings will too. Unfortunately, at this time few bars carry any selection of NA beers: and in the U.S. usually a 1.1 , or a 3 - rarely a 4 or 5 rating. Happily, most liquor stores ( or package stores, as Connecticut calls them), and large grocery chains carry a wider selection.
And lets remember, boys & girls, we compare brews NA to NA, not to the best new micro fad or that incredible draft 50%abv brewed since 1506 in the little village of twenty in Transylvania: peer to peer, NA to NA and beer to beer!
- Clausthaler - Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany 5
- Haacke Beck - Beck's - Bremen, Germany 5
- Null Kammer Josef** - Austrian 5
- Molson Excel - Canadian 4
- Lech Free - Poznań, Poland 4
- Thomas Brau - German 4
- Kaliber - Irish Guinness 3
- Żywiec Niski Alkoholu - Żywiec, Poland 3
- Sharps - Miller, usa 1.1
- O'doul's - Anheuser Busch, usa 0.5
Notes:
* "Why is American Beer like making love in a canoe?"
** from a Viennese expression: "What did you get for your troubles?" "Null kammer Josef", ie. "0,Josef" = practically nothing or 0.5% alcohol.
