Europe’s first-ever dedicated non-alcoholic craft beer festival has kicked off in Warsaw, placing Poland on the frontier of the fast-growing alcohol-free beer market while also spotlighting the nation’s wider shift towards mindful drinking.
Wish I could go. Most NA’s served in the US are basically budweiser. Boring, flavorless, thin. I know alcohol removal plays sole part in that, but I have genuinely had some very good NA’s. Unfortunatley they’re the exception. Overseas have very good NA choices. I’ve had draft German NA beer that I pertty much could not tell the difference between it and normal beer. Perfect for a hot day after hiking around. Spain has some really good ones too. The US? It’s mostly all Athletic brand stuff which has nothing distinctive about it, or crappy sweet stuff like Odoul’s.
Also in my county I notice a significant shift away from alcohol. In 10 or 20 years, I expect it will be viewed similarly to smoking today. An unhealthy habit from a time when people didn’t know better
Must have not reached germany yet
The world is losing its fun. 😔
No more cigarettes, no more substances, I can’t even name them without being afraid, no more alcohol, no more dancing cuz we’re getting recorded, no more casual hook ups, no more socialising. Only rotting in bed on short video formats. I feel alien sometimes striking up a zippo to light a cigarette.
chat is this user being ironic, place ur bets
I feel the English language is in need of an update; while the article does mention NoLo Beers to describe the beers of festival, the two most used words in English are alcohol-free and non-alcoholic - both suggest all these drinks belong to only one category: the 0.0000% category. De-alcoholized drinks are never entirely free of alcohol. This festival celebrates both, which I am totally fine with; so this is not a comment about one being good and the other being bad - this is a comment to vent my dislike the fact that English language lacks a word for ‘(very) low in alcohol <0.5%’ and just uses the (imo false) words that already exists for products that never had any alcohol in it. Imo alcohol-free / non-alcoholic drinks are soda’s, not de-alcoholized beer, wine, etc.
I think it’s generally pretty well understood that they contain a small amount, like decaf coffee. But perhaps non-intoxicating would be a good label.
Decaf is quite a good example. If you order decafinated coffee, the menu doesn’t say non-cafenic or cafeine-free.
The problem isn’t with the words for alcohol-free beer, or non-alocholic but for the ‘containing a little bit of alchohol’. It doesn’t matter to everyone, but for people who don’t drink for religious or (mental-) health reasons they do care. And often the label says it, that’s not the problem. The problem is they’re both described (in English) by the same word, while they’re not the same thing to those people.
Cool. Given that no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health, this seems like a meaningful step.
A little something for all.
Have to mention. Shout out for more of Miłosław “Bezalkoholowe IPA” - one of very few polish non-alcoholic (<0.5%) beer, that taste way better than classic one. Most nonalc taste just different, can taste it is something whole different. Bit this one, taste is way fuller and deeper.
if they made a nonalcoholic IPA that doesn’t just taste overwhelmingly skunky from the hops and yet is still recognisably an IPA, that is indeed impressive
IPAs that taste like something other than the skunkiest possible hops… I miss 2012.
This is similar to Forst 0.0 in South Tyrol (Italy) in that the non-alcoholic beer is genuinely good in its own way to the point of being superior to the original alcoholic beer.
“Mindful drinking” is no drinking
People aren’t allowed to have fun
If you can’t have fun without alcohol, you’re an alcoholic. Your addiction shouldn’t be encouraged and pushed on others.
If you have just one thing in life that brings you joy, then I pity you. Now if people want to gather some friends, get a bottle of wine, some pot, or even nothing while they talk, let them be
Maybe go touch some grass will help
I said that mindful drinking means not drinking, you reacted saying that I’m not wanting people to have fun, implying that alcohol is a requirement to have fun.
If you can’t have “joy” without alcohol, you have a problem, and should worry about that. Your reply doesn’t even make any kind of sense.
And also, no, I’m not going to “let people be” when they do things that cause a lot of problems. And yes, alcohol does cause a lot of problems, even when it’s “just a beer”, and unless you’ve lived in a cave without anyone else your whole life you have seen it, or participated in it
Maybe start caring about things once in a while, this “let things be” never worked.
This kind of black-and-white thinking is holding back so much positive change in the world.
Yes, any amount of alcohol is worse for your health than none, but being mindful of your consumption is still better than getting plastered every weekend.Yes, but at some point people can fuck off.
We live in a world where a lot of very useful medicine is bad because of the bullshit idea that they’re evil addictive drugs, where cannabis is shown as so terrifying and a marker of criminality, where rich people casually consume cocaine on a regular basis, where cigarette is literally killing people for money, and where alcohol is basically the biggest avoidable cause of death.
I’m sick of having to pretend like people are tiny stupid babies that are going to cry if I don’t let them put their fingers in the electrical socket.
Alcohol is a big problem, is extremely costly for society, kills people (and not just the ones that drink it), and supports an immoral industry that fuels a lot of shitty people.
Yes, drinking less is better than drinking more. But at some point, enough is enough. I was basically forced socially to drink alcohol until I grew enough will to accept the “shame” of not drinking, because society is extremely heavily in favour of alcoholism. I don’t see why it’s fine for alcoholics to pressure others into drinking, but pressuring people into not drinking is too harsh and needs to be done progressively.
Also, it’s not like this progressive “grey” thinking has been doing much, since alcohol and cigarettes have been known to he 100% harmful with no real benefit for decades and decades, and yet are still here. What is the end goal, to stop these 200 years after we know for sure that they’re bad?
So yeah, rant aside, I get your point, but I think it’s the kind of soft thinking that keeps us in this same situation. A bit like with politics, when you try to be a centrist in a context where the dominant side is immoral and actively trying to self-propagate, you just end up playing for their side unknowingly.
Why dont you have a drink and chill out?
I agree with most of the premise of your comment. I downvoted because of what you’re advocating for. Yes, alcohol is bad, and it’s dumb that it’s allowed and other drugs aren’t. I don’t think the solution is to try to get rid of alcohol though. It’s education, and providing choices. Yes, alcohol is bad, but people should be allowed to make bad choices (for themselves). We should be allowing more choice of drugs, rather than trying to force people to only have a small subset. You should get to choose what, if anything, goes into your body, not the government.
Okay, let’s put the perspective from another angle.
Should companies be allowed to make money out of an addictive, toxic drug that pushes people to be more violent, irresponsible and basically out of control, and at the same time much more vulnerable to rape?
Yes. I think advertising should be limited, or zero, but selling it should be allowed.
If we follow your logic, there’s so much more that shouldn’t be allowed. Sugar is incredibly addictive and generally bad for your health (at the quantities we have access to). Shouldn’t they not be allowed to sell it? What about cars?
We should be allowed to choose what level of risk we accept for ourselves. It shouldn’t be pushed on us, and it should also not affect others though.
Sugar doesn’t make you beat up, kill, or rape people. Sugar doesn’t actually kill you if you are addicted to it and stop too fast.
Cars are a tool with a lot of uses that would be really hard to replace, but yes, they should be much more restricted, it’s absurd that having a 1+ ton metal machine is so easy but carrying a pocket knife is seen as crazily dangerous.
Drinking alcohol has no use, very bad effects, is addictive in one of the worst ways (once again, I don’t know of many drugs that actually cause you to suddenly die if you stop too fast), causes horrible behaviours that endanger both the user and people around, funds a horrible industry of pieces of shit.
Even things like heroin or cocaine are not that unilaterally bad.
The only thing that even compares would be cigarettes, as they bring absolutely nothing good at all, and also can kill others, but the scale is very different and no one has ever been killed because of the influence of a cigarette, or raped because of being too high from it.
If we follow my logic, alcohol (and cigarettes) should not be allowed, and that’s it. Once it’s done you can wonder all you want about sugar, cars and heroin, have debates, etc. Nothing prevents anyone from banning alcohol and not following up with a campaign to ban everything that can be bad.
And one last point, if you ban alcohol, it becomes impossible to advertise it. If you ban advertising, I can guarantee that it will actually not be banned, because the laws are going to be circumvented by lobbies. That’s why there are lobbies that have been protecting cigarettes, but there’s no such thing as a lobby for heroin or so, a ban is much harder to avoid than a restriction.
Sugar doesn’t make you beat up, kill, or rape people
Cool, neither does alcohol.
Or I must not have noticed last night when my beer threw me into a murderous rampage.
I see your post doesn’t attract a positive like-ratio but let me just say to you as an ex-alcoholic, I really like your choice of words and it was a good read.
Nope. This is just straight evidence.
I do drink alcohol. But the healthiest thing is to drink no alcohol at all. (German Article)
Not 1 glass of wine a day. Not half a beer. Thr healthiest is none at all.
suru clearly recognizes and mentions that
He does - and still says it is black-and-white thinking holfing back positive change.
No, they acknowledge that zero alcohol is best (“Yes, …”) while recognizing that a step toward zero (“but”) is better than heavy drinking.
“Black-and-white” refers to the previous comment that the only mindful drinking is zero alcohol, which discourages action by someone who might otherwise make the switch to zero- or near-zero alcohol beer while allowing the occasional standard version.
It was noticed that fights didn’t break out anywhere!
I hate beer, so with non-alcoholic beer, I just don’t see the point at all. Tastes like crap, and doesn’t even give you a little buzz. 😅
Do you like non-sweet cold drinks that are not water? Non-alcoholic beers tend to be the only option in that regard (and even then most are too malty for my taste).
I can’t think of many non-sweet cold drinks that aren’t water lol. Maybe ice tea? I like that. But I never drink that tbh. I mostly like refreshing fruity beverages like juices and lemonade and stuff like that. I do like alcohol-free ginger beer, that’s nice.
On occasion, must, as well.
If I go American, root beer and cream soda are probably my two that I can drink from that region. 😅 But those are obviously sweet.
Yeah self-made iced tea (industrial iced tea is usually chockfull of sugar) is great, too, but is not as readily available as a bottled drink unfortunately. A sugary drink on a hot day just makes me feel more dehydrated than before.
Corona Cero might be my favourite. Non-Cero is already a rather light corn beer, but Cero is the perfect summer drink.
The point is probably the taste for people who do like it. I love the taste.
Must be that, I suppose 😄
Just to add a data point, I don’t drink alcohol but I do find a light beer if the summer, or a stout in the cool times, really enjoyable. But obviously if you don’t like the taste then you don’t like it!
Yeah, if you like it then I guess it’s worth it. 😊
