beer

I first read this perfect quote from Homer Simpson whilst in Bruges, Belgium circa 2010. I was staring at a wall of beer, belly full of beer, learning about beer, about to drink more beer and eat a bowl of moules frites. Bruges is the most stunning city with the most delicious food and Belgian beer at every turn. Bruges is beer mad and literally has beer flowing through the cobbled streets – in an underground pipeline! With an annual beer festival with over 400 beers, Bruges is a beer-lover’s paradise. I spent a wonderful, boozy, long weekend there and I remember it so fondly.

It is these kind of memories that make the initial idea of giving up drinking alcohol simply impossible. An untenable idea. Unrealistic. Life-destroying. Utterly incomprehensible. Before I gave up drinking, I would think thoughts like:

• What, so imagine a life where I never go wine-tasting again in a gorgeous vineyard? How awful.
• I can’t sit in a beer garden and drink crisp, cold ciders on a warm summer day? Yikes.
• I’ll never again enjoy a jolly Sunday Roast, lubricated with lashings of red wine? Life is over.
• The pleasures of sharing good pizza, cold beer and boozy banter will never be mine again. Ugh.

These imagined sacrifices put me entirely off the idea of a sober life and stopped me from quitting drinking alcohol time and again. Life just didn’t seem worth living if I couldn’t enjoy it, and the things I enjoyed all hinged around drinking. Those activities, trips and outings were part of the fabric of my life and for the longest time, I thought those activities were dead to me if I couldn’t have a drink. It is only since giving up drinking, in fact, that I have discovered that I can still take part and enjoy those kind of activities, I just need to switch up the drinking accompaniment. And there is no more noble and advanced non-alcoholic accompaniment than the non-alcoholic or near beer.

Originally, “near beer” was a term for malt beverages containing little or no alcohol (less than 0.5% ABV), which were mass-marketed during Prohibition in the United States. Near beer could not legally be labeled as “beer” and was officially classified as a “cereal beverage”.

Wikipedia

Becoming sober curious was not my first rodeo with non-alcoholic beer. I first discovered it when I was pregnant with my first child, but back then the market was limited and it seemed like there was only dusty old O’Doull’s as an option. I would keep a few O’Doull’s in the fridge and enjoy them with a pizza, the perfect pregnancy solution but ultimately only tolerable for a maximum of nine months (and even that was pushing it). Thankfully, since then, the non-alcoholic beer market has absolutely exploded and the upsurgence of craft ales that are both alcohol-free and tasty is truly astounding. Alcohol-free breweries like Athletic Brewing Co here in San Diego are changing the game and providing space and notoriety for these previously frowned upon near beers. Their flavors are complex and well crafted and truly good enough that they’ve ‘tricked me’ into enjoying them to the nth degree. These badboys are life-savers to me and have played an important role in me figuring out my alcohol-free life. If beer is the bedrock of booze then these new non-alcoholic beers are the backbone of my journey to sobriety.

Over the course of coming months I intend to show off a number of my favourites in this category but in the meantime, here’s my top list:

Enjoy and keep it up!