Bavaria 0% is my favourite, I happily drink that, it’s lovely on a hot day, super refreshing.

St. Peter’s is decent, erdinger is nice too but gassy, not so keen on becks. Had some Holstein alcohol free at a wedding years ago and that was good too.

I’d much rather drink AF lager than coke on s night out. It’s af beer or soda water for me, depending on how cheap I’m happy to look.

mikkeller – drink’in the sun. 0.3% & best I’ve found at near-enough zero

It’s not my fvourite beer by a very long stretch but doesn’t have that odd cloying over-malty taste that many low alcohol beers have. It’s pretty hoppy/bitter – tastes a teeny weeny tiny bit like american IPA if you keep it nice & cold

Beck’s blue is OK, as is that Czech stuff

I find Heineken zero the only lager without the chemical taste if alchohol free, although its a bit Budweiser like.

I defer to Erdinger though, for its taste and for the Polypropol(sp) content.

G&T flavouring? From the look is that in the baking aisle?

It is indeed fella. Give it a go.

Alcohol free beer is to me like vegie/vegan fake “meat”. It’s saying you really want the real thing.

Just have things that are naturally free of the thing you’re avoiding.

Didn’t like Nanny State, but Becks Blue & Erdinger were okay.

I find them pretty useful to help curb the midweek drinking once in a while.

Free damm is where it’s at for this stuff. P

Put a bit of this in tonic water and it is absolutely indistinguishable from a G&T

If they do the same thing with bourbon let me know, you might just have saved my liver.

Alcohol free beer is to me like vegie/vegan fake “meat”. It’s saying you really want the real thing.

No, it’s saying you don’t need the “real thing.”

People who eat chicken burgers are in denial about really wanting beefburgers, accused no-one ever.

I’d drink them if I found one I liked. Over two pints affects my sleep these days, plus in nice weather I end up drinking every night which isn’t ideal. Don’t really like becks blue, bookmarking this and going to buy a bunch of the suggestions and do a taste test

I like Erdinger. Not a fan of Becks Blue.

The problem with soft drinks like pop, j20, and the rest, is that they are all sweet. Sometimes I might be out for a night but need to drive, or drive early the next day, or like recently in the very last few days before doing Ironman Wales, had to attend a bbq for a few hours. Didn’t want to drink alcohol so close to the big race, didn’t want lots of sweet sugary pop, so a few bottles of Erdinger for £1 a bottle on offer at Tesco was great.

Ice cold on a warm evening, drive home, well hydrated, no hangover.

Great.

Oh, and I like beer too, and brandy, and whisky, and rum sometimes.

The Erdinger one is OK but definitely still tastes like a non-alcoholic beer. Paulaner Hefe-Weißbier Alkoholfrei on the other hand is almost indistinguishable from the real thing. I’ve only ever seen it at a Tesco in the next town from us, but it’s worth a trip just to stock up on it. Cheap as chips too.

I think it’s erdinger they hand out at the end of Manchester marathon. **** lovely stuff. Mind you I’d probably drink stale piss at that point if it was nicely chilled.

I’ve been getting selection boxes from DryDrinker and most of the beers I’ve tried so far have been pretty good.

Don’t get the bitburgerone, it’s like yeast soup.

Another Erdinger fan here. Not keen on the St. Peters.

I like the taste of beer but I’m not fussed about the alcohol. I find it slightly sad that some folk drink beer despite not enjoying the taste. I think I grew out of that in my teens.

Erdinger here too, they have a good choice of German alcohol free beers at our local beer emporium

I’d much rather drink AF lager than coke on s night out.

Last time I went out i thought ‘I’ll drink coke, it’ll be a rare treat’
High as a kite off the caffeine and felt like shite the next day.

I like the becks blue on a sunny day when I don’t want to get drunk

Erdinger Alkoholfrei is great but it needs to be properly cold IMHO. They are well known for sponsoring Biathlon and Triathlon athletes as an isotonic recovery drink.

More here

Another good one is Rothaus Alkoholfrei again, properly cold….Rothaus

Fortunately a lot of our bike tours are close to the brewery so a Alkoholfrei and Weisswurst are de rigour…

Alcohol free beer is very common in French service stations.

At the end of an arduous and long drive one time, exhausted and wired, bagging a late night layby camping stop I thought I’d found my last chance saloon heaven in the chiller cabinet of the petrol station.

I had not. It was alcohol free only. I could barely contain my weeping…

Maybe I should have tried it after all?… 🙂

Cougar – Moderator 
People who eat chicken burgers are in denial about really wanting beefburgers, accused no-one ever.

But that’s more like substituting low alcohol for full strength. Quorn and tofu burger eaters are in meat denial though.

I have to admit, I don’t see the point for me personally.

I read an article a while back that scientists had found when you drink alcohol free beer your brain thinks it is about to get a hit of alcohol so releases endorphins to give you that happy relaxed feeling you get when you crack open a real beer. I think I’ve experienced this to some degree myself but obviously if you do this all the time your brain will wise up and hold back on the endorphins.

https://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=287572211

Going to try this San Miguel tonight, we’re having curry, so will be ideal 🙂

I’ll report back.

I’ve been drinking low/non-alcohol beer for a while and tried most things. By far and away the best is Mark and Spencer Czech Lager 0.5%. Like the Saino’s one suggested by Binners it’s brewed by Staropramen and it truly is indistinguishable from a ‘normal’ (i.e. mass market) lager. Even better, according to the back of the label it’s only 4 calories per 100ml (though I’m sure this must be wrong).

M&S also do a ‘Southwold’ (i.e. Adnams) 0.5% ale which is okay, if a bit caramel-tasting and a touch of a metallic aftertaste.

The Saino’s one is almost as good as the M&S one, and Heineken 0.0/Blue is perfectly acceptable as a bog standard bottled beer.

For curry and chilli type dishes I’ve often used decent chilled ginger beer (not supermarket plastic bottle sugar water with ginger flavour, the decent stuff of fermented ginger spice). Works well as a booze substitute that goes with spicy dishes.

Typically if I’m doing alcohol free it will be to pair with food as I drink far too regularly with meals (though it is nice). Going out socially I’d rather not got out than be the odd one out feeling uncomfortable because I’m driving and drinking whatever rubbish substitute they have. I still wouldn’t have alcohol free beer though. Last one I had tasted like rotten cabbages.

Its quite nice, lots of AF beers available on the continent, we had a pack of that when Mrs P was pregnant and we went to Murcia for a week. Did the trick.

Put a bit of this in tonic water and it is absolutely indistinguishable from a G&T, without the alcohol

When i used to work in a nightclub in the 80s we had a tray with a shallow layer gin in it. We would dip the rim of the glass in there and fill up with tonic. Once you have the gin smell, no one could tell the difference. it’s probably frowned upon now

Started drinking it due to heavily pregnant wife not able to drive, then continued as it wasn’t ‘done’ to be semi-pissed whilst looking after an infant.

Still drinking it despite getting permission to move onto the good stuff, mostly because of the low calories (trying to get down to racing weight for CX season which has already started… 😳 ) and because you can do things like crack one open at lunch without getting tutted at, and down one on the drive home from a race (tactfully lowering the bottle when you see a police car…).

Thanks for suggestions above, I was just sticking to Erdinger/Nanny State. The Becks stuff upsets my guts!

Tried alcohol free red wine out of interest, it almost fools you for a second, but then you realise that yes, it’s just fruit juice. Not actually bad, but an even poorer substitute than alcohol free beer…

Tried alcohol free red wine out of interest, it almost fools you for a second, but then you realise that yes, it’s just fruit juice. Not actually bad, but an even poorer substitute than alcohol free beer..

The only ones I’ve found to be remotely palatable are the Belvoir “wine” drinks – they’re not actually wine, but fruit juices combined to look, and come close to (but not actually emulate) the taste of wine. They’re quite dry, and have a similar mouthfeel to wine – you can’t just chug them like you can Appletise and the like, so it’s a half-decent substitute if you can’t have the real thing.

Becks blue is OK but more often than not I have 1 normal beer and then move on to a tall glass of Tonic/Soda water, ice and lemon. Still feels like a proper drink and not packed with sugar like coke, J20 etc.

angostura bitters and tonic is also a very palatable alternative to an alcoholic drink

Thanks for the info Jakester. That’s interesting to know about them both being brewed by Staropramen.

The M&S one is lovely, but I’ve found its a bit hit and miss whether our local M&S has any in stock, hence defaulting to the Sainsbury’s version.

binners – Member
Thanks for the info Jakester. That’s interesting to know about them both being brewed by Staropramen.

The M&S one is lovely, but I’ve found its a bit hit and miss whether our local M&S has any in stock, hence defaulting to the Sainsbury’s version.

Yep, that’s been my experience as well. The chap who went to have a look in the back for me said they’re really popular, hence I think the patchy availability. That Saino’s one is indeed almost as good.

Tried alcohol free red wine out of interest, it almost fools you for a second, but then you realise that yes, it’s just fruit juice.

A bit like alcohol-free cider. So… that’ll be carbonated apple juice, then?

wow.
main thing to take from this thread is that yeah, stw hasn’t changed- there’s some awfully judgmental bellends on here still.

why do some of you care that other people might not eat or drink the same stuff that you do?

The irony is strong in this one.

yeah, i realise that! sort of unavoidable, but i’m not sure it’s being judgmental so much as noticing an obvious trend? oh well.

😆

TBF, I’m not sure there’s many folk on this tread criticizing the choice of others. It’s not like we’re discussing phones or drive trains.

it’s the usual suspects really. even bringing up the “you eat fake meat because you really want to eat actual meat” BS!

anyway yeah, not touched booze in 3 decades but given the advances (and yes, there’s been a lot) in alcohol free beers over the last 5-10 years i’ve recently got quite into a lot of them.
the weissbiers are probably my favourite, erdinger, schneider and maisels all do lovely tasting variants. innis and gunn do a “none” alcohol free IPA that’s very hoppy and tasty, better than brewdog nanny state for me (plus it’s not brewdog, who seem to be utter shitbags)…
lager/pils, i never really liked much anyway but becks blue is quite harsh tasting, i find. krombacher is much smoother. if cobra zero is still a thing, avoid. it tastes like licking a rusty battery. yes, i’ve tried.
that st peter’s that tesco sells is very tasty, very malty though. like a snack rather than a drink.

if you prefer to not drink alcohol free beers, then that’s great. lots more people nowadays don’t though, and that doesn’t make them bad people, or wrong, or somehow inferior.

plus, drunk people are easier to kill…

Any one have any good low strength beers say sub 3%?