It’s Beer AF
Sling back 4 or 5 of these babies and still win the weekly game of Twister.
Let me save you the trouble of an urban dictionary search and translate. The title refers to beer that is “alcohol free.” This is not a new segment. Non-alcoholic beer has been on the shelf for ages. But, lately I have found a number of small and craft breweries offering non-alcoholic beers ranging from stouts, to ambers, to IPAs.
When cruising through a Dallas area Whole Foods, sixers of this Run Wild IPA from Athletic Brewing Co. caught my eye. Always a sucker for a tasteful beer can, threw one of the six packs in my cart. Moments later I caught the tag “Non-Alcoholic Brew.” Now, suddenly, the sub $9 price tag made sense. But, with the three award stamps on the box, and an intense week of studying ahead, I gave it a shot.
I was blown away. I’ll concede that after having tried O’Doul’s decades ago, the personal bar for this brew was low. But, then I thought what the barometer should be. It’s a work in progress, but here’s were it stands:
- Does it taste good?
- Does it taste like an IPA (or does an NA stout taste like a stout, etc. etc.)?
- Can you tell it is a non-alcoholic beer?
The answers for the Run Wild IPA are Yes, Yes, No. I suppose a more effective framework would not leave one wondering which is good: yes or no. Like I said, it’s a work in progress.
Since this discovery, I found that Brooklyn Brewery has a successful Special Effects Hoppy Amber and a Special Effects IPA. I’ve had the latter and its ratings would be Yes, No, No. The Run Wild edged BBs NA IPA on both taste and IPA likeness.
The good news is, there’s more on the shelf to sample. Three Notch’d a Virginia craft brewery has a non-alcoholic IPA that’s as close to local as I’ll get in the Hampton Roads area. Also on the list are four or five AF offerings from the Scottish brewery, BrewDog. As you can tell, there’s alot more work to do including a rundown on why one would want a beer with no booze.
