I quit alcohol a year ago, but still enjoy non-alcoholic beer like Athletic Brewing's [0]. It's got great selection and taste, although lacks the alcohol kick of course (which I don't miss).
I now sleep and feel a lot better, my resting heart rate decreased substantially, among other benefits.
It's not easy to quit alcohol, especially from a social aspect. But good non-alcoholic beer makes it possible for me at least.
Some people enjoy the bitterness, I know I do.
However, I've gotten sick of IPAs everywhere and I share your sentiment.
A few years ago, there weren't as many craft breweries around Central New Jersey. They had a small yet varied selection - one or two different lagers, stouts, wheats, and IPAs.
Then those came around (mostly hipsters who couldn't even handle the alcohol content of one glass!) who started promoting an IPA as an "adult" drink. Now there are craft breweries - if not multiple - in damned near every town on the Shore. At many a good three quarters if not more of their offerings are some variant of an IPA.
I would guess because bitterness is what makes it taste like an "adult" drink.
A lot of non-alcoholic options tend to be sweet: soft drinks, fruit juices, mocktails being the first that come to mind.
The newer trend with companies like seedlip, or with actually good non-alcoholic beers means you can having something "adult" to drink without rotting your teeth
I would assume it comes from disliking the taste of hops. I find hoppy beers taste like soap, personally but IPAs and other hoppy beers have become incredibly popular, so navigating the craft brew landscape can be a minefield for people that dislike it.
Still, it's not like there's exactly a shortage of beers for people that don't really like hops so while it makes it kind of difficult sometimes (especially when all you're given is a name of a beer) it isn't something to get that upset over.
Because there is way more to beer than IPAs! There are lagers, hefeweizens, stouts, radlers, and yet the only beer that's stocked in any quantity are the same boring bitter-ass "craft" IPAs.
And maybe I just hate watching people and the market gravitate towards only one thing.
For a bit more detail than some of the other responses.. for example, seeing Lagunitas on the name made me concerned it would be very hop-bitter (IBU) but that was not the case at all. I found it to be more like a modern flavored sparkling water (think LaCroix and the like) except with the floral flavor of dry-hopping, and a bit of sweetness kinda like tonic water.
Glad to see Athletic getting mentioned here. I haven't quit alcohol, but as I've aged (51) I've found the margin for "trouble free" consumption has narrowed considerably -- in terms of sleep, but also weight gain and impact to my cycling performance.
For the last year or so, there's always a couple kinds of Athletic in the fridge, in addition to whatever regular beer we have on hand, and most of the time I choose the NA as a result.
(Not for nothing, but a good IPA can be 200 calories a can. Athletic's is 50.)
These really are my sweet spot. I'm a very cerebral person (for better and neurotic worse) and the "dumbing" effect of alcohol is sometimes welcome but often comes on too strong. ~2.5% beers are something I can enjoy.
You can of course mix beer with cocaine, but I guess it's better to mix them inside your body, by taking each of them separately the normal way. The parent was talking about cocacola.
If someone is trying to cut back on alcohol consumption I don't think that's necessarily good advice. Sweet drinks like lemonade are so easy for me to suck down without thinking.
Hot beverages are a lot harder to suck down. I try to start most mornings with a hot cup of sencha or oolong tea, but there's a lot of good, hot options like chrysanthemum, ginger, or lime.
Personally speaking, the carbonation in shandies prevents me from chugging them down. Besides, when I prepare them myself I tend to water down the mixer a bit, otherwise they end up being a little too sweet to my taste.
I strongly prefer DIY lemonade, exactly because I've got full control over the sweetness. (and throwing in a few fresh mint leaves is a nice touch, too..)
Just pick up a small bottle of 100% pure lemon juice, add about a half the bottle to a quart of water, ymmv, and whatever (brown!) sugar and other stuff you want.
+1 to lemonade shandies if you're feeling like limiting alcohol intake for an evening. They're actually a good way to enjoy aggressively hoppy IPAs if you find those a bit tough to drink neat.
A brewery near me did a run of "Tomato Gose" which I really liked and then followed by "Clamato" which was interesting... and I learned that clam juice is a thing in Canada.
There a place near me that makes micheladas (beer, Worcestershire, lime, hot sauce), with an added splash of tomato juice. My wife has fallen in love with them and it’s her regular around the house adult beverage .
Kvas(1), a fermented bread drink from Russia and Ukraine, might fit the bill with its alcohol content of 0.5-1% (it’s considered a non-alcoholic drink, but I’ve had Kvas that was _strong_).
There’s nothing better than cold kvas on a hot day - shame we can’t just buy it in the supermarket here in America.
Can't agree with you enough here. It's something I've learned as an adult when it comes to alcohol - better to have that one good beer or wine, enjoy the taste and the feel of it, than to drink more of mediocre stuff.
I always enjoyed a good beer, wine and whiskey. But during the covid year, I took a few months break. Then when I had a drink again, I could see how much it affected me. So I didn’t do it again for a few weeks. I tried couple more times but each time it was just not worth it for the next 1-2 days. (After one or two drinks, that is).
Same for me. Me and my partner had to set an artificial rule to never drink on weeknights. Especially at the beginning, the stress induced by the pandemic made it really easy to want to pop a beer open at 5 every day. It mostly worked, in that there was an obvious benefit even though we slipping every now and and then.
I believe they meant the next day/several hours later.
If you don't feel any adverse effects later, you're probably drinking responsibly (never more than 2, always with food), or are still on the younger side.
Age is a huge factor in how we process booze. As you get older, your liver gets worse at handling the byproducts of alcohol, specifically acetaldehyde. It's the poison that leads to longer, worse hangovers. I didn't get hangovers until my early 30s, and they've gotten considerably worse over time, while simultaneously being _much_ easier to achieve. If I drink at all on an empty stomach, even just a single beer, I really feel it now in my early 40s. Maybe not later as a hangover, but rapid onset sluggishness. The effects on sleep are no joke, and as you get older sleep is harder to come by for a number of reasons, which we've learned is incredibly problematic.
You get to a point where you have rules: always eating something first (which could affect other health goals like calorie counting), drinking water between drinks/every other (which leads to feeling gross and bloated, possible hyponatremia if you're not careful), and taking supplements like NAC before bed/every 2-3 drinks. It becomes clear at some point that not drinking is the only real solution.
Another vote for Athletic Brewing. My wife and I are huge beer lovers who quit drinking recently. We both agree that the benefits are completely worth it but I'm not sure we would have gotten through some recent social functions without drinking (including 4th of July) unless we had a NA beer in hand.
We've tried a few others, the Brooklyn Brewery Special Effects was pretty good too. Totally different flavor from any of the Athletic stuff.
I'm not sure if it was related to my high blood pressure (which was a major health concern before managed, an IVH is NOT fun.) but alcohol was just never an enjoyable experience for me in any large amount (I'm like a 1 drink a month type due to this), I just felt nauseous in a bad way and generally unwell.
Athletic brewing's Upside Dawn is probably the first beer I ever drank that I truly ever enjoyed due to this. I keep a case in the mini-fridge in my office. The other `upside` is that it is socially acceptable to drink an NA beer during work hours and as a programmer I don't have to worry about declining ability or focus.
Also, it's worth noting that local vendors will sell it for ~60% the price as online. My local Wegmans sells it for just $9.99/6 pack compared to $17 at their website.
Athletic really seems to be the leader in this sector in terms of taste. I have a spouse who drinks a lot of non-alcoholic beer and as such I have gotten to try a whole host of them - so far Athletic has handily defeated competition in the few flavors they offer.
The only thing about Athletic is that they don't offer calorie-free options. Lagunitas' Hoppy Refresher is probably my favorite of the calorie-free options available. Though when you go calorie-free with NA beer you're pretty heavily pushing what the definition of a beer is.
Not sure about the US, but in Canada there are a couple of yellow label grocery store brands of non alcoholic beer which are very surprisingly good as well. Seems like there are more and more options every day.
Most of the nonalcoholic beers I've tried are pretty terrible, Athletic have somehow made a nonalcoholic beer that actually tastes like a beer. I've got a case of Run Wild in the fridge and it satisfies my beer craving without the alcohol.
I'm hoping more brewers can figure it out. Athletic is way ahead of the ones I have tried so far.
So I like a beer or two, but any more than that and its downhill later on. So I've taken to bringing beer and high-quality ginger ale to parties. So that I can switch over and have something that I still enjoy and fits in to the scene without close inspection. An alcohol-free beer might fit in... if I enjoy the taste.
Thanks for sharing! Is it this one: [0]? I'm a weekend warrior climber, and Blood Orange beers are my favorite! And even better if it's for a noble cause.
thanks for sharing, looks great, I ordered them right away. I like most non-alcoholic beers, what bothers me most is the lack of variety so I'm always happy to try new ones
I work at Stripe, though not on the L10N/I18N or identity teams. It would be tremendously helpful if you could send me some feedback so that we can improve, jlh at stripe dot com.
I'm a native Spanish speaker too, and nothing in this announcement strikes me as unintelligible, but that might be my own biases at play given the familiarity with Stripe's lingo.
Otherwise, if you're a trained linguist and have demonstrable consulting experience QA'ing technical documentation then we'll be happy to arrange something.
In either case, we appreciate your feedback, and my emails are open!
What a quality answer! I get very poor quality support from Stripe's live chat, but the professionalism and helpfulness on HN from Stripe people like you and Edwin is beyond reproach, that's for sure.
That is an interesting data point. In my case the support I got from Stripe over the years (email, chat, IRC, ...) has been consistently stellar. Are you in the US?
I'm not in the US. Typically I use live chat during European evening hours, and I often get agents with upper-intermediate English skills, who miss the crux of my question or who are completely unfamiliar with Stripe's own dashboard or services. Not even on an API-level. Simply on a "here's a thing that Stripe has and here's something it can do" level.
No trabajo de gratis para multinacionales cuiquito. Tu credencialismo barato y sobrador lo puedes archivar donde mas te convenga.No se si es la respuesta que estabas esperando.
Google translate says: "I don't work for free for small multinationals. Your cheap and spare credentials can be filed wherever it suits you. I don't know if this is the answer you were waiting for."
Stripe | Backend / API Engineer | Mexico City | Full-Time | ONSITE (remote for now)
The Global LATAM team is a key component to Stripe's global strategy in the Latin American market. Our mission is to reduce the barriers faced by large and emerging businesses around the world by abstracting away the complexities of payments. The Global LATAM team is responsible for building the payments products & infrastructure needed to launch new markets and process payments successfully throughout Latin America.
