On a mission to find decent, low-alcohol beer
Are there enough craft brewers out there making a good .5-per-cent brew?
Here we are smack dab in the middle of an Ontario summer, engaging our five senses in all that abounds, providing plentiful fodder for potential “how I spent my summer” essays should anyone inquire when we return to our routine ways come September.
This week Renée and I have been enjoying what one might call an iconic version of an Ontario summer holiday, situated on a lake just outside Algonquin Park. I arise to the call of the loon as the sun teases with its seemingly ever-so-slow emergence over Spectacle Lake Ridge and the silhouette of a duo in a canoe out to inspect the water’s edge enters the scene.
Throughout the day we vary our activities, sometimes sitting at the picnic table on the tree-lined shore outside our cabin and other times lounging in zero gravity chairs at the sandy beach. We swim, toss around a Frisbee, play badminton, bocce ball and horseshoes, colour, read, toast marshmallows over perfect fires, plunk the ukulele, BBQ, bake, eat and, of course, drink. Rinse and repeat.
Although the location changes each summer depending on our bank balance, the activities haven’t varied much until this year.
In March I developed a new relationship with alcohol. After almost 40 years of a passionate love affair, I called it off and have become what is known as a non-drinker. I’m not a teetotaller because the history of that word is connected to prohibition and advocacy against the use of booze, and I’m not into that. I still pour the healthiest shots around and keep good craft brews in the icebox should you stop over for a visit.
In fact, I’m on a mission to find even more craft beers, but in this half of my life I’m looking for the non-alcohol kind which, by definition, has less than .5 per cent of the potent stuff.
“Why bother,” query the “real” beer drinkers when I say I’m looking for a good near-beer. It turns out it is worth the bother these days and many brewers are ensuring there is a selection for people who opt out of alcohol for one reason or t’other.
Days after I had my last drink (it was a shot of Grey Goose, if anyone is wondering — I was sure it’d be a Rickard’s or a Jäger) I found myself down the road in London where I have imbibed on almost every square inch of land in that town. I sidled up to the bar at one of my new favourite stops, the Toboggan Brewing Company, part of the Joe Kool’s family of bars in which I cut my drinking tooth, and shyly asked for a non-alcohol beer.
I figured it’d be some run-of-the-mill, yellowish water I’d tasted by accident in the past but instead a pint bottle of Erdinger arrived and my whistle was whetted with a brilliant aromatic, full-bodied wheat beer.
I started searching for that brew so I could enjoy it at home and found the best resource for non-alcohol everything — PremiumNearBeer.com. The assorted cases of .5-percent brews I’ve had delivered include Sagres, a Super Bock from Portugal, a highly hopped IPA called Nanny State by Brew Dog in Scotland, and Krombacher, a clear, sparkling German Pilsner.
These great beers even enticed Renée to join me in this new identity of non-drinker, so to celebrate I ordered a 26er of .5-per-cent tequila! What I’d like to be celebrating with by this time next year is a variety pack that includes options from Ontario Craft Brewers.
One Ontario brewery open to social change is the Muskoka Brewery in Bracebridge, having signed on as a living-wage employer this summer thanks to the work of PROMPT, the Poverty Reduction Of Muskoka Planning Table. This move is quite remarkable given the calculation of a living wage doesn’t include alcohol.
So I’d say they are perfectly poised for another socially responsible and palate-pleasing step in turning their Cream Ale into a .5per-cent masterpiece. Even better would be our local Hamilton and Burlington brewers leading the way in this effort. While they’re at it, they could sign on to the living wage declaration and then crack open a cold one, booze or not, to celebrate!