Supporting craft breweries

Macy0161

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123059434#Comment_123059434

The O'Brother in Aldi is decent imo - pretty much my staples to be honest, and is a local brewery for me. And the Dot Brew beers in Aldi as well now I think of it. Kinnegar available in any Lidl I've been in (as you mention the very good value crafty) - always good beers. Regarding the crafty, the actual rye river branded beers are good - often on offer in Tesco.

Pen Rua

Whiplash have a new non-alcoholic IPA. Will be curious to try this one.

https://www.whiplashbeer.com/collections/new-cans/products/never-drinking-again-non-alcoholic-ipa

Basq

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123061970#Comment_123061970

Ooft.. I've no doubt it'll be solid if Northern Lights is anything to go by but touching on €3? 🤨

A €23 difference on a 24 pack between it and WW's most expensive non-alcoholic offering.. that's substantial.

Black Sheep

The Wicklow Wolf is around 2.35 a can in my local… Personally wouldn't buy a 24 pack, I just buy 3-4 NA a week.

If the Whiplash was only as good as either the Wicklow Wolf or Lucky Saint options, then 2.99 a can is ambitious… But if it's better, then… Yeah, I would buy it at that price.

I know there's a mentality that low or non alcoholic beers should cost as little as possible, but to be honest, as long as they're cheaper than regular cans of beer, they're worth it to me if they help me not drink on a weeknight. And I do think the NA beers that are around a long time, like Erdinger, are far less pleasant than the new crop in recent years, seems reasonable that pricing would reflect that, in some cases.

I had a Lucky Saint hazy the other night, watching a zombie movie on TV, and when drunk cold from the bottle, it really is a damn good proxy for the real thing.

I'm also happy to pay full-wack for a micro IPA like Northern Lights, personally. If I'm drinking that, it's because it's so so close to being a 'normal strength' IPA in taste terms. It's the ability it has to deliver a taste / experience to you but maybe help you avoid some of the other unwanted effects of a full-strength beer, that's the value proposition to me.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123062155#Comment_123062155

Tried a few pretty poor attempts at non alcoholic IPA including Jaipur in England over the weekend. Not something that seems to be easy to get right. Thankfully I'm more of a lager drinker personally.

Lucky Saint lager has a nice mix of the old style "Erdinger type" (which is what it is) and the new chemically flavoured 0.0%. Should definitely be drank out of the bottle same as all non alcoholic for the full brain fooling effect.

Macy0161

I thought the reason the n/a ones had come on so much as they were using better methods than boiling off the alcohol which made the likes of Kaliber so rank? Hadn't realise it was a lot of chemical flavourings.

Anyway, I still find the Roadworks Early Start as good as many of them, but I must admit I default to Guinness Zero most of the time now. I used to drink Brewdog Nanny State a bit, but much less inclined for anything Brewdog these days. Erdinger Alkoholfrei Lemon is also grand in a Radler type way.

Black Sheep

Kaliber! Wow, there's a flashback. The ads were great at least.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123062936#Comment_123062936

Generally if it is full on 0.0 then it's all done with E numbers and sugar and never had alcohol in it. If it tastes like Erdinger it's boiled.

Some like Lucky Saint which use a modern extraction method. I think they do some sort of freeze extraction but there is also some form of high pressure extraction out there.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123062936#Comment_123062936

New stuff is brewed as a normal beer, probably on the lower end of the ABV scale for cost reasons, and then uses reverse osmosis filters that are designed to let the ethanol through and nothing else. That covers nearly all modern "NA" (<0.5%) products.

Some low alcohol products are ROed, some are brewed low in the first place, e.g. Kinnegar Low Tide I'm pretty certain is brewed to be 1% - it was 0.5% but increased as the 0.5% was pretty poor.

I haven't seen Kaliber for sale in Ireland in decades but I'm nearly certain it's still sold abroad, bottled only. My local GAA club had a Kaliber branded fridge well in to the 00s, I suspect it has died by now though.

Black Sheep

Just looked at the ingredients of the Lucky Saint in my fridge.. no E numbers, sugar etc. I'd be curious which beers, specifically, have these additions.

Can't say it tastes like Erdinger alcohol free either... What's the connection - Both NA versions of German beer styles, although different styles, but am I missing something else?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123064561#Comment_123064561

Lucky Saint tastes a bit more like the older style than what you would expect if your experience of non alcoholic was the likes of Heineken 0.0

BeerNut

E numbered ingredients can alternatively be listed under their names or what they do, so "Tartrazine", "Colour Sunset Yellow" and "E102" are all the same thing. There's nothing significant about E numbers appearing on ingredients lists, it's a choice made by the producer.

Black Sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123065125#Comment_123065125

Thanks for clarifying. I thought there was some connection between the companies, brewers or ingredients that you were alluding to.

Not sure I'd agree with your taste comparison, but sure it's subjective to a degree.

Black Sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123065223#Comment_123065223

I agree that additives aren't automatically a problem, but we regulate them in our food and drink for a reason, so it's useful to interrogate what is being used rather than leave it to businesses. I mean, in the past, there absolutely has been something 'significant' about particular food additives being included… E171 and similar have been withdrawn, I'm sure there'll be more in the future.

Lucky Saint just says water, hops, yeast and barley.

Brewdog Punk AF is water, lactose, malted barley, hops, yeast, malted wheat, malted oats and lactic acid (E270).

Heineken 0.0 and Guinness 0.0 mention 'natural flavourings', I'd be interested in what that is exactly.

Does appear Heineken 0.0 doesn't even have yeast in it, it's like a malt drink?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123065401#Comment_123065401

I was talking a little bit about the ingredients too but I realise now I am wrong there. My non alcoholic education came primarily from the Lucky Saint team and reading up on it now some of the 0.0 beers are not as different in manufacturing as Lucky Saint like to claim. I often remember hearing from them how 0.0 beers are as bad for you as Coca Cola.

Heineken 0.0 it seems is also extraction brewed for instance.

TaurenDruid

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123065440#Comment_123065440

Does appear Heineken 0.0 doesn't even have yeast in it, it's like a malt drink?

Heineken's advertising for actual alcoholic Heineken says it only has 3 ingredients, water, grain and hops. They appear to class yeast as some form of catalyst and are claiming they remove 100% of it before it's canned/kegged.

Macy0161

I haven't seen Kaliber for sale in Ireland in decades but I'm nearly certain it's still sold abroad, bottled only. My local GAA club had a Kaliber branded fridge well in to the 00s, I suspect it has died by now though.

I was just using as an example of the very (very) poor version of a n/a beer! It just sticks in my mind given how awful it was!

irish_goat

Beck's Blue is the one I remember being awful, you could smell it from a mile off.

BeerNut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123065440#Comment_123065440

Of course, and IMO alcoholic drinks shouldn't have their blanket exemption from ingredients listing laws. My point was just that the presence or absence of E-numbered ingredients doesn't mean anything by itself.

One of the "natural flavourings" (there's a whole other story around that terminology) in Guinness 0.0 is fructose, but at the launch event they wouldn't say what the others were.

For the big brewers, yeast is classified as a "process aid", not an ingredient.

Blisterman

I find "Hop Waters", like the Sierra Nevada Hop Splash, a better n/a option for me than any N/A beer, as it's something different and satisfies a hop craving without just tasting like a thin beer.
I might be wrong, but I don't think any Irish breweries have made any.

Pen Rua

Over the weekend, I was reflecting on how I don't think Northern Lights is worth ~€4+, whereas I happily pay €5+ for many mid-high ABV IPAs. Why do I feel one is of such poor value relative to other beers, that I comment as much here Maybe I am subconsciously tagging the value proposition to the ABV, so in my head I feel like the lower the ABV, the cheaper the beer should be (which of course doesn't always track).

Guinness 0.0 is on offer in Tesco atm; 4 pack for just over €4 excl DRS. Picked one up, and was surprised by how decent it was. There was an unwelcome after taste, but overall it was decent and made for a nice sipper.

the beer revolu

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123077350#Comment_123077350

We are conditioned to associating higher ABV with higher cost because of both our duty calculation system and the the fact that it usually costs more to produce higher strength products. All our lives, stronger beers have almost always cost more to buy - it's only natural that we expect lower ABV beers to cost less.

Interesting, though, duty on wine is a fixed amount per bottle (within a broad ABV range) so we tend to not fixate on the ABV and expect weaker wines to cheaper.

JoeLapira

I see Brehon Brewhouse are launching their Red Ale across all UK Wetherspoons for Paddy’s day. I very rarely see them available on tap/cask anywhere here but somehow the UK is getting a nationwide run. They must be focusing more on exporting than local, which is a shame.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123201000#Comment_123201000

UK chains are big on marketing so all sites will be told to push cultural events and have themed beer. It's a good idea for an Irish brewer to do a big Paddy's Day batch for across the water. I used always add Rebel Red to my M.Coors order and had access to Kinnegar (from a supplier I can't remember).

There was a horrendous amount of badly punned cask used come out for George's Day, Poppy Day and worst of all things like "Mother Rucker" for the 6 Nations.

The constant plugging of the never ending rotation of cultural events was painful and the customers never seemed to care. It was obviously dreamed up by some tea total marketing suit.

BeerNut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123201000#Comment_123201000

They have a big tie-up deal with Wetherspoon. Irish branches are supposed to have at least one Brehon or Dungarvan beer on cask at all times. It tends to be hit and miss in practice, however.

JoeLapira

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123201201#Comment_123201201

Thankfully there’s no bad pun from Brehon as it just appears to be called the usual Killanny Red. Judging by their socials, they seem to have a new UK distributor. I would just love to have a few pints of their stuff more often 😂

JoeLapira

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123201243#Comment_123201243

I’d often pop into a spoons when in Dublin, never see any of the 2 you mentioned available. Having looked at their socials, it does appear Porterhouse temple had the ulster black on cask recently. Hopefully they’ll have something on by Brehon next time in the big smoke

Black Sheep

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123202631#Comment_123202631

One or other has always been on cask when I've gone into the Silver Penny.

Blisterman

Tried the new Clockwork Stout by Changing Times there recently. I didn't think it would be possible to come up with a move flavourless stout than Island's edge. But somehow they've managed. Not good at all.

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123210855#Comment_123210855

Isn't that kinda the point though. This is not supposed to be beer for craft fans.