It’s a hot summer afternoon. I’m sitting down on a hot afternoon, with a burger, and a cold beer.
What I’m looking for is something to replace that cold beer with. I want it to be crisp and fresh, but also not sweet. I love tart and bitter flavours. Unfortunately, my options are either cold and sweet, cold and alcoholic or hot and non sweet.
So threadiverse, what alternatives am I missing?
Tereré is great, but it’s a bit of a pain to source in Australia. What else is there?
If you are willing to make it yourself, kvass or ginger beer, those can be dry and sparkling. Water kefir or kombucha. All very, very low in alcohol, not intoxicating. Chinotto soda is something I buy for dry months too.
As someone else said, tonic water has a bitter edge that really hits the spot, I make a sweet non alcoholic cocktail called the Friend Zone, made with strawberry tepache (strawberry fruit kvass), lime, and tonic water, and I swear everyone thinks it’s a boozy cocktail. Too sweet for what you are looking for here but it’s certainly the tonic pulling most of the weight.
Non alcoholic beer
On the days when I’m really just hanging out for, and worked a really sweaty, dirty day on the chainsaws, I drink N/A beer. The cheapest I can find. It either hits the spot or it tastes like garbage and turns me off beer again. Either way it averts the craving and lets me stay sober. Most alcos in recovery will frown on N/A beer, but I don’t care, whatever helps me not drink alcohol is fair game.
This right here. Some are very bad, but there are some really good ones around these days. Guinness for example tastes almost identical to real Guinness.
I actually think Guinness zero tastes different but in fact way better than the original. There’s been times when i was drinking, but would occasionally opt for a zero if it was an option.
Leffe blonde LA (0.5%, i think) is awesome, miles better than most. I find the Guinness LA a bit bland, lacking in the aftertaste and a bit watery.
Seconded, non alcoholic Guinness is excellent.
I also like the NA forms of:
- Corona
- Peroni
- Warsteiner
- Erdinger
Had a few other good ones but can’t recall which they were.
80% Unsweetened iced tea, 20% lemonade. Play with the ratios. (the classic Arnold Palmer is 50/50 but that’s too sweet for me.)
Toni and Angustura on ice, with a splash of lemon. I put a dab of sugar sometimes.
Tonic water is your friend. Works for both low-alcohol options (bitters, preferably citrus bitters but you can experiment) and boozy ones (G&Ts are obviously a classic, whiskey tonics are pretty nice sometimes, herbal liqueurs work very well, etc.)
Often when I’m out and want another drink, but don’t want to keep drinking, plain tonic water is the preferred choice recently. I got 99 problems, but malaria ain’t one 😎.
Beyond that, you can look into the wild world of drinking shrubs.. Haven’t been arsed to try it yet but I like the concept.
Ginger soda. You can use a ginger bug to ferment soda. You can add flavors to make different varieties or you can just do the ginger base.
Its refreshing and good for you. Does have like up to a half percent alcohol… But nothing that will be inebriating.
I’m a huge iced tea fan.
My go-to social drink is a club soda with a twist of lime
It is simple, cheap and has the added benefit of sort of looking like it might be a vodka club or gin and tonic.
Rye kvass, Kombucha
I don’t know if you can get it in Australia but I like Spindrift seltzer/sparkling water when I want a beer substitute. Obviously it doesn’t taste like beer. I was someone who hated seltzer for a long time, none of it tasted right and too fruity but also somehow not enough since its just sparkling water. Someone recommended Spindrift since they use real fruit so it has some real flavor but it’s still low in calories. I’m partial to the grapefruit flavor because it’s the most tart/crisp.
Along the same lines, I think, I don’t know what Spindrift is, but when my hubs went sober, he started drinking 100% grapefruit juice with Seltzer (usually grapefruit flavored seltzer) on ice. He says it tastes just like IPA with it’s bitter notes. Probably a 1:2 ratio of juice:seltzer
So if you can’t get Spindrift, you can still make something similar!
Spindrift is the brand but it’s basically what you described, unsweetened fruit juice with sparkling water. I think the ratio is a little different but exact same idea. I like the flavor of beer but I just need the tartness and the bubbles to be happy.
Malt beer or even better Kvass
Oh, yes, also cold black tea (no ice, no lemon, just nice slightly bitter taste. Also nice because the taste is not really fighting with the taste of whatever you eat
Unsweetened Ice Tea.
Can choose pretty much any variety of tea you like and just drink it with ice and no sugar.
Around here (not Australia), it’s normally black tea, lemon optional for mild sweetness. Unsweetened green tea (not matcha) is also common. Not good if you’re looking for unsweetened, but the Arnold Palmer is also a popular drink, which is 50% iced tea and 50% lemonade.
Anywhere boba tea is served, you’ll find varieties of matcha iced tea available. More of a cafe drink, but probably good if you’re a matcha person. Milk tea is also common in boba shops and is just any variety of iced tea plus dairy, so if you like your tea with cream, that’s still enjoyable as a cold drink.
In Japan, barley tea is pretty commonly served cold and unsweetened, along with other popular tea varieties like oolong and jasmine. If you’re in Australia, it might not be too difficult to get Japanese imports (or even to just learn to make your own, they’re easy).
In Japan they drink cold unsweetened tea.
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Why a Bottle of Japanese Iced Tea is the Ultimate Summer Refresher
Water kefir is a great alternative. You can buy it in organic shops or make it at home. The hardest part would be to source grains but once you get them started, as long as you take care of them they last forever.
It’s tart, fizzy, refreshing, has flavors reminiscent of some wild fermentation sours, and can be flavored with almost any fruit after transfer (and probably hops too).
