Nice spicy and earthy hops with hints of caramel malt. Disappointing lack of body. 3/5 stars.
Time for another edition of Dry Friday!
The tagline for this beer caught my interest. It is apparently “the beer to drink when you are out with your friends ready to have a great time.” AKA, the beer you drink when you’re ready to raise some hell. It just doesn’t seem to hit me the right way for a NA beer. I’m not sure if WellBeing is trying to reframe the alcohol-fueled party mentality (you don’t need alcohol to have a good time) or encourage teetotalers to join their full-strength-beer-drinking friends, but I didn’t quite connect with the message. How does this beer prepare me to have a great time? What is it contributing to the time spent with friends that a soda or water couldn’t? The answer is unclear.
Good Beer Hunting had an interesting perspective on near beers, specifically around how they are marketed. The gist was that it is coming across as an excuse rather than a style. When a brewery sells an IPA, they expect that people who like flavorful beer will drink it. When a brewery sells a NA beer, they expect that the drinker is focused on sobriety. Their niche is people who are worried about being left out of the party for the preferences, most of whom are not beer drinkers or are only temporarily avoiding alcohol (Dry January, pregnant, training for an athletic event, etc.). That’s a tough sell. It’s a bit like crutches compared to the entire entire industry of assistive devices and prosthetics. Sure, crutches are great when you need them, but if you need help walking long-term you’re going to get something else. Even the connotation of the word “crutch” implies a temporary and imperfect solution. Much better to be the motorized chair or prosthetic leg.
That’s a bit unfair to NA beer, though, and a very USA-centric view. In Europe, some countries have 10% or more of their beer sales in the NA category. Near beer and table beer has had an important part place in monastic life too, where some monks make low-strength beer for consumption on-site. Entire books have been written about American attitudes about alcohol, so I won’t delve into it here. Suffice to say, having more NA options that taste good will go a long way towards normalizing alcohol-free socializing. I, for one, look forward to trying more near beers this year to help overcome my own prejudices around alcohol.
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A Beer a Day 