I honestly never thought that I’d be prepared to give up alcohol for a whole month! I love a glass of peaty whisky on a cold evening or a pint after a long walk. I love trying the new craft beers, especially the sours, brought out by Brewdog and Fierce in my home city of Aberdeen and there are countless academic networking events where I’ve enjoyed a glass of boxed wine to help the chat flow a little smoother!
BUT, I hit Christmas pretty hard and I get really bad hangovers now (thanks 30s). I was starting to really resent the fact that I could lose a whole day after a heavy event; struggling to get up, ordering Burger King to my bed and sometimes being in so much pain even watching Netflix for the first half of the day was too much. I’d also seen tweets about academic drinking and started to notice for myself that ALL of the academic events revolved around alcohol and that there were a number of non-drinkers that maybe felt a bit pushed out and jaded at the lack of interesting alternatives.
Now, people have different opinions on non-alcoholic or low alcoholic alternatives to classic bevvies. I heard a lot of people ask ‘what’s the point?’ or say ‘just have a coke’. But I like the taste of all the alcohols and a lot of the time I crave the taste of a glass of wine with dinner not the effects of the alcohol in it. I also found that in social situations having a bottle of low alcohol beer made me feel more involved than a glass of coke would have. However I appreciate that is a highly personal thing. Not that this would have pushed me to having a drink but it also meant that people didn’t question the fact that I wasn’t drinking when I was out, because it looked like I was!
My biggest concerns for the month were that I’d struggle to enjoy things because I’d find it difficult to chat freely and to have conversations with people I didn’t know very well and that my friends would think that I wasn’t any fun or that I was somehow changing.
So anyway throughout January I tried quite a few of the low and non-alcoholic alternatives out there…and here is what I thought.
(Although, to make it quite clear… I don’t really know what I’m talking about. I like what I like and I’m pretty much making it up as I go along, so I’m not going to go on about mouthfeel, or colour, or nose or whatever! But well done you if this is a connoisseur level skill that you do have…I only have the experience and fervour to critique donuts this way!)
Right, without further ado…
BEER
Okay, let’s start with the BrewDogs. I was quite curious to try some of the BrewDog AF’s because I of course love BrewDog but also they’ve just opened the world’s first alcohol free bar in London called…well…BrewDog AF. Now, maybe it’s because I’m used to their alcohol full sours and stouts which are among my favourites or maybe it’s because I only managed to try four of their AF beers (I’ve reliably been told Hazy AF is the best) but I was a little disappointed. I got more used to them the more I drank and I’ve even had one or two since dry January has ended but I was never fooled into thinking I was drinking a real beer!
Wake Up Call (0.5%)
A dark, coffee stout…with something missing! I love a pint of Jet Black Heart or Zombie Cake, which feels a bit like eating a meal. They’re thick and full of flavour whereas Wake Up Call is a little thin and sad. This was one of the only low alcohol stouts that I managed to try so maybe they’re just hard to do.
3/10
Punk AF (0.5%)
This was the moment it clicked that it was not Punk ‘As Fuck’ but Punk ‘Alcohol Free’. Idiot! So, in all honesty IPA’s with their hoppy flavours aren’t my favourite anyway. This was certainly hoppy but still felt a bit thin and lacking depth. I’ve had this in the Aberdeen BrewDog’s since January when there have been no other alcohol free beer options but I always look at my pals bevvies or scan the options on the menu board and wish I was drinking something else.
4/10
Nanny State (0.5%)
This is my favourite of the BrewDog AF range that I’ve tried so far. It’s hoppy, which as we know isn’t my favourite, but it’s certainly the most flavourful. I think it’s the closest in taste to having a ‘real’ beer. I’d happily drink this on a night out or maybe have a few of these between alcoholic beverages so I’m not quite so hanging in the morning!!
7/10
Raspberry Blitz (0.5%)
For a hot second I’d forgotten I’d tried this one! I think that’s because it makes me think less of a sour beer and more of a sour fizzy drink. I love it though and I drank this many times last summer, usually after beekeeping. It’s super sharp and fresh and tasty. I’m not sure that it would quite fill the gap of an alcoholic beer for me, but I would drink it again and again and again on many occasions.
7/10
Okay, time to move away from BrewDog and onto all the other non and low-alcoholic beers I managed to get my hands on!
‘Pale Ale’ – Big Drop Brewing Company (Suffolk) (0.5%), found in Morrisons.
Excellent! This was 100% one of my favourites. It was rich, full of flavour, it didn’t taste/feel thin…it was one of the few that was so convincing that I managed to unexpectedly feel a bit like I’d ‘had a drink’. Not tipsy, but warm and relaxed! I wanted another one and I definitely want to try other non-alcoholic beers from this breweries range.
9/10
Low Tide – Shipyard (0.5%), found in Morrisons.
Admittedly what first attracted me to this beer was that it has a gull on the label and…I like gulls. But it had depth and flavour and it didn’t have the thin ‘feel’ that I grew to find super disappointing in other beers. It was fruity and tropical and I could even taste the promised hint of blueberry when I concentrated hard enough. This was another low alcohol beer that I could drink over and over again and another that made me feel psychologically tipsy!
8/10
Braxzz Porter – Braxzz brewery (0%), drunk in the Black Isle Brewery pub in Inverness.
(I love this pub!)
I don’t actually remember drinking this! Which potentially tells you all you need to know, BUT luckily, I did make notes on it in my phone. They read, “tastes kinda alcoholic. Best stout/porter yet”. So I must’ve liked it…but not enough to commit it to memory.
5/10 (Totally hedging my bets there)
Brooklyn Special Effects – Brooklyn brewery (0.4%), drunk in Hootenanny in Inverness.
I think we need to start by saying that this was so convincing that when I left the pub after having three of these the thought crossed my mind to ‘sober up’ so I could keep my wits about me getting home (I was completely sober!) AND I woke up with a hangover. Now, okay, it wasn’t a hangover – I think I was just over tired and dehydrated but I still had that beery taste in my mouth and the feeling of shame about ‘drinking on a school night’ hovered over me. All of that collectively made me feel hungover. Definitely one of the things I was trying to avoid! I mean I had three, so I obviously like it…a lot. It was hoppy and piney, with lots of flavour and good ‘depth’.
8/10
St Peter’s without, Gold (0%), found in Morrisons.
Dear lord, do not do this to yourself. This is up there with my least favourite beers of all time and I’ve tried a lot of very funky sours (usually ordered by my supervisor and friend Ewan). I took a few swigs, made a few other people suffer it and then abandoned it on a table mid party. It was SO malty/yeasty. I like both of those things, but not with that level of pungency. It reminded me of when you do a brewery tour and they get you to try and taste the malt before it goes through the brewing process. That experience is great on a tour…. I just do not want to drink a whole bottle of that flavour. The one positive thing I have to say about this is the bottle. It made me think of an old medicine bottle, the kind you’d dig up at the bottom of your garden. For that I can give this beer half a mark!
0.5/10
WINE
‘The Bees Knees’ by North South Wines ltd (0%), found in Morrisons.
In mid-January I did my first 45 minute talk to a group of beekeepers and this was an achievement I wanted to celebrate. The Bees Knees doesn’t claim to taste like a sparkling wine but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t disappointed that it didn’t! It reminded me of Schloer or sparkling elderflower and it was probably in a similar price bracket. What I did like was that I had a cork to pop! It made it feel more like an event. Without that I feel like I might as well just have bought a bottle of my favourite, coke zero, and called it a day. I wouldn’t not buy this again…but I’m not going to look forward to my next bottle or crave the taste of it!
5/10
McGuigan zero – Shiraz, from Morrisons (0%).
Looked like wine, smelled like wine…tasted like disappointment. Honestly, every mouthful of this was bitterly sad. I wanted real wine and I wanted real wine more than before I started drinking this alternative. I would not buy this again…ever.
1/10
GIN (yes gin!)
Ceders Wild (0%)
The only note I made on this on my phone was, ‘pointless’! I tried it with tonic, quite a strong one to be fair, and I don’t think I really got any notes of botanicals at all. I tried it straight from the bottle too, just to make sure I gave it a fair shot and, I mean, it tasted of something (probably juniper) but not a lot. If I’m honest I think I’d get just as much of a mock-G&T feeling by just drinking the tonic with a bit of ice and lime. I should probably add here that it was quite expensive at about £15-£20 for a medium sized bottle.
1/10
Seedlip Spice 94 and grapefruit tonic in a can (0%)
I’d heard a lot of people talk about this non-alcholic gin alternative but after the failure of ceders wild I didn’t fancy forking out another £20-£30 for a bottle. Luckily my friend bought me a pre-mixed can to try at a party…and it was great. I think it’s worth bearing in mind that obviously the company have carefully mixed the drink for you, so they’ve undoubtably ensured that you’re getting the maximum flavour. I do wonder what it’d be like if you mixed it yourself with whatever tonic you have lying around the house…but I’m not curious enough to spend any money!
6/10
So, all in all it was easier and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. I’ve even gone for non-alcoholic options since the end of January! It’s early days but I’ve loved not being hungover. Maybe it’s a ‘new me’, maybe it’s not, maybe it’ll be a fairly hangover free year, maybe I’ll have a wild couple of months after this post goes up …who knows?! I’m not telling you how to live your life, I’m not a paragon of health! But if this has given you food for thought and it’s something you want to try too at least you know there’s plenty of decent non-alcoholic options out there (and some not so decent ones)!
In A Kingdom By The Sea 