I like a drink, but increasingly the drink doesn't like me.
So I decided to try some alcohol-free lager.
My memories of this stuff date back 30 years, but they are clear - it was revolting.
So I was pleasantly surprised by a bottle of Bernard Free, which was on offer in Tesco.
It's described as being a proper beer, and the ingredients support that: water, barley malt, hops and yeast.
The colour is correctly described as 'amber' - a dark lager.
It tasted fairly good, although a bit 'thin', but a hundred times better than earlier alcohol-free beers.
Does anyone else drink booze-free booze?
And what is Kaliber like these days?
Last edited by: Iffy on Sun 15 May 11 at 13:59
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You poor old sod Iffy. No wonder you are so sour, a glass-half-empty man if there ever was one.
Why not try illegal drugs? Some will tell you they are dangerous but they aren't very, as a rule, to a rational person. And some of them are almost legal these days anyway. At your own risk of course.
:o}
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sun 15 May 11 at 14:13
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I tried some of this so called lager one Sunday lunchtime a while back, when I was taking antibiotics for a dental problem. A small bottle (I can't remember what it was called) was enough for me, and it was pints of orange juice for the rest of the session.
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>>to a rational person
I am tempted AC but not rising to this particular bait.
Happy Motoring Phil I
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A sane man does not mention kaliber.
Becks Blue is the only one I find palatable.
Oh and BTW its perfectly legal to say its brewed with hops (or malt or barley) yeast and water, and leave out the fact its all taken out again!
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 15 May 11 at 14:34
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I tried a bottle of alcohol-free Cobra last year.
Without doubt one of the most disgusting drinks I'm ever had the misfortune to try. Couldn't manage more than a mouthful. Sort of a cross between cough syrup and sour milk.
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Kaliber used to taste like the contents of an ashtray.
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>> I like a drink, but increasingly the drink doesn't like me.
How do you mean? I've heard that people who drink too much whisky end up going off it altogether. I can't drink more then a few glasses of wine unless it's around 11%. But then I don't drink nearly as much as I did when I was a teenager. You get used to it, like Rattle.
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>> I've heard that people who drink too much whisky end up going off it altogether.
It's true because it happened to me. I still like whisky but quite a small amount now gives me severe malaise the next day, even on the spot sometimes. Large quantities of red wine are bad too, and more than a decent tot of brandy however good.
Fortunately this doesn't apply to some other drinks that I quite like, although mostly at home I drink screwdrivers like some silly drunken tart of a US housewife in an Elmore Leonard novel. And oddly it doesn't apply to illicitly distilled hooch as a rule.
Further to my advice - frivolous of course, I wouldn't advise anyone to smoke anything or sniff powders let alone take injections - to iffy to try illegal drugs, despite the foregoing they are probably a lot less harmful than alcohol-free beer judging by the reviews above from our camra comrades. Tee hee!
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sun 15 May 11 at 17:03
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Some low/no alcohol beers are better than others (what happened to Swan Light?).
But I've yet to 'have another' of anything of that ilk.
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>> Some low/no alcohol beers are better than others (what happened to Swan Light?).
>>
Swan Light was Low rather than No Alcohol, I think. It was very good.
If you can find "Bitburger Drive", this is the only alcohol free beer I have ever enjoyed. Becks Blue is more common but is too malty for my tastes. The first time I was given a Bitburger Drive, I genuinely had to double check the bottle as I was driving and felt sure I'd been given a proper beer by mistake. It really is very good.
Last edited by: Alanović on Mon 16 May 11 at 13:31
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Swan Lager, light or otherwise, more or less disappeared from the UK after the collapse of the Alan Bond empire. Its now retreated back to its home brewery in Perth, and rarely found in other parts of Aus.
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>> >>, I wouldn't advise anyone to -- sniff powders
>>
Nothing wrong with snuff (The tobacco product, not films).
The mentholated kind works wonders with a cold or blocked nose.
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>> Nothing wrong with snuff (The tobacco product, not films).
Quite right CP. But medics refrain from recommending snuff because 'it's a tobacco product', therefore officially designated worldwide as harmful. I have used it at various times in (ultimately unsuccessful so far) efforts to give up cigarettes. It is fairly helpful in that way but less effective actually in my case than nicotine chewing gum (which goes well with beer and which can be consumed anywhere). The problem with that is teeth: it helps to destroy your real ones and gets under the prosthesis that replaces them.
I took some snuff in Spain once while the car was having two new tyres fitted, and noticed that the small, Latino-looking tyre fitter was looking at me with some interest out of the corner of his eye. I asked him cautiously in my broken Spanish if he was perhaps American - Latin Americans are American too, remember. He turned out to be Colombian, so I had to explain and disappoint him.
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...I like a drink, but increasingly the drink doesn't like me...How do you mean?...
I used to drink a fair bit until a few years ago.
Now, any more than a couple of bottles of premium lager and I feel a bit gummy the next day.
So I might go for a couple of weeks without a drink, and most of the time I don't miss it.
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If you haven't tried it, Iffy, draught Leffe Blonde in good condition - quite a lot of pubs have it but it is sensitive stuff and a bit iffy so to speak - drunk in halves, will make you feel extremely well and voluble probably without much comeback if you don't have more than three. Even two can do the trick.
This is a genuine recommendation. The stuff is nectar.
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Leffe blonde is a good one, great flavour and goes down a treat with an arbroath smokie zapped in the microwave for 15 secs to take the chill out the fats / oils and release the flavours. Quite a moderate lunch but extremely enjoyable.
Guiness is one that never upsets me, I can drink it when I'm I'll and feel better for it.
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...If you haven't tried it, Iffy, draught Leffe Blonde in good condition...
As a midweek treat I'm necking a 75cl bottle now.
So far, so good, but at 6.6%, hardly in keeping with my OP.
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So far, so good, but at 6.6%, hardly in keeping with my OP.
Glad to hear it Iffy. The bottled version is perfectly good although not as good as the draught at its best (although of course much better than the draught at its worst).
Go gently. It's a good conversation stimulant if you are that way inclined.
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...Go gently. It's a good conversation stimulant if you are that way inclined...
You're right - I can't stop posting. :)
Quite enjoyed the drink, although a bit rich for me - too much like barley wine.
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>> Quite enjoyed the drink, although a bit rich for me - too much like barley
>> wine.
I rather like the occasional barley wine, so I might give it a try.
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I dont find at all like barley wine, so you may be disappointed.
Buy a bottle of white beer Iffy if you fancy a change.
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>> I dont find at all like barley wine, so you may be disappointed.
Well, I'll give it a try. I guess it'll be in Sainsbury's.
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...Well, I'll give it a try. I guess it'll be in Sainsbury's...
Clk Sec,
Matter of taste, but the golden, rich, almost 'thick' flavour was very reminiscent to me of barley wine.
And strangely enough, Sainsbury's was where my bottle came from.
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>>Matter of taste,
Thanks, Iffy. I'll give it a try and let you know.
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>> I was a teenager. You get used to it, like Rattle.
Nope, I have tried hard, but I really cant get used to Rattle - He still leaves me bemused.
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I can consume, in considerable volume, without any after effects:
Peroni
Becks
Gin.
French white wine
Champagne
Prosecco
"White" beers
I would love to consume, in greater quantities, but suffer badly afterwards:
Port
Drambuie
Cointreau
Leffe Bruin
Leffe Blonde
Kwak
I can not abide Scotch.
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 15 May 11 at 17:31
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You won't be liking Rusty Nails then. About 2:1 Bells and Drambuie. The last time that I was really ill from drink, about 20 years ago, a very attentive host had kept passing me reloads.
I don't drink much more than a couple of anything now, the after effects of any more seem more noticeable than they used to be.
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Creme de Menthe is the most dangerous drink in my collection.
Having said that, I inherited it from the back of my Grandma's drinks cupboard so it could just as easily be Windolene.
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>> I would love to consume, in greater quantities, but suffer badly afterwards:
>> Drambuie
Love the drink, but as you say, it's a bit of a poison chalice. Port only leaves me mildly inebriated with no hangover. It's funny how different people are in terms of processing these drinks. I need the stomach of Keith Richards.
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>> Drambuie
>> poison chalice
Never, ever, get really really drunk on Pastis. It makes you more mean, evil and stupid even than 20 pints of good English headbanger's wallop, and the hangover while you're trying to tidy up the wreckage, salvage your relationships and get the bus to Cannes for a replacement driveshaft for your Dyane is the same thing in spades.
Do I speak from experience? I leave it to you to judge.
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>> Nope, I have tried hard, but I really cant get used to Rattle - He
>> still leaves me bemused.
Relax, you've had a few days break, enough to prepare for the next onslaught..
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I got extremely drunk on Pernod and black when i was 16 - 33 years later just the smell of it is enough to make me feel ill !
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>> Pernod and black
Heh heh... Pernod or one of several other even deadlier brands.
But black, Skip? Black currant juice for all that's unholy? I want to puke at the very thought, without (shudder) ever having tasted the concoction.
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Last time I drank Kaliber I had a worse hangover than if I had been out on an all nighter
Had a nice one in a Browns restaurant a few years back - it was German. Cant recall the name, but looking on their site it looks like they dont do it anymore.
Didnt Carling launch a low alcohol lager around 2% on draught a couple of years back? Carling tastes like pi$$ anyway, so I imagine this was worse
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Sadly most the stuff I drink is the commercial crap these days :(. I really miss my Belgium and German beers.
I do love a good pint of Leffe, but the trick with that stuff is to then have something weaker after it, otherwise you will be falling over.
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>> I do love a good pint of Leffe, but the trick with that stuff is to then have something weaker after it, otherwise you will be falling over.
Real beer drinkers are just greedy babies.
Rattolo: it isn't sensible or civilised to gulp beer that may be 7% in pints. You drink it slowly in ladylike halves. And you don't need 'something weaker' after it. You just have another, then maybe another. And in your case perhaps one more.
Any more than four or five though and you may know about it next day. I seldom have more than two now although three are all right.
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A drink without falling down.I did about five years ago now on holiday in Greece this stuff called Ouzo.To much with the Greek salad me and this other chap from Derby we finished off the bottle.He fell near the hotel and so did I torn my trousers my better halve was not pleased with me.Come to think of it we always end up with a couple who like a drink last time a Belgian and his wife from Antwerp.Got to be carefull with Belgians we always take the micky out of them a bit like the English and the Irish.
Now i drink a couple of glasses of red wine or a pint of Guinnes.Ihave tried the non alcoholic stuff.Ok i suppose I have a glass of coke instead.
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Like Carmel, I enjoy a Pasrtis now and again. It was responsible, however , for me disgracing myself at my 50th birthday party.
I sat on the stairs to welcome my guests with a sampler of Bayanis and Lemon Fanta to sip at. Sip ? No fear ! An hour and 5 or 6 drinkies later, I fell down into the hall. I was carried upstairs and put to bed. I vaguely remember falling out and getting wedged between the bed and the wall until rescue arrived.. Strandely, no hangover in the morning, but I missed a damn good party !
I like both the Leffes, but prefer the bottled or draught bitters. I've been to friends for a meal tonight but just had 3 glasses of white wine and a cup of tea.
Spirits give me heartburn but I've got 2 bottles of Laphroaig to be opened yet...with a dash of good water........Manchester tap water will be fine...straight from Haweswater !
I like a Guinness or a Magners sometimes but I never think of putting them on the shopping list, for some reason.
Ted
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>> I like a drink, but increasingly the drink doesn't like me.
Are you on any medication (for high blood pressure)?
I'm not suggesting for a minute that you should stop or change any medication without medical advice, but from personal experience the diuretic tablet bendroflumethiazide did odd/unexpected things to me, and my tolerance for drink is back to "normal" having stopped taking it.
It's probably just the obvious dehydration you'd expect from a "water tablet" in addition to alcohol, but I suspect there's something else more complicated going on too.
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Don't drink orange juice , particularly the fresh stuff as an altenative to alcohol......
I was at a do on Saturday at a local country club with SWMBO and as I was driving that evening ,I decided to have a half pint of fresh orange juice to drink before dinner......
Within the hour , during dinner, I felt a sharp pain as though a giant hand was squeezing my stomach and I made a dash for the loo and only just made it in time.......
........Suffice to say I recommend it as a cure for constipation.
I have no doubt that it was the acidity of the orange juice that was responsible .
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One Christmas Eve, 40 years ago, I drank a bottle of port before 10am. Never been able to even sniff the stuff since.
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If I'm not on alcohol I almost always stick to water or tea.
Tonic and angostura bitters is a good non-alcoholic aperitif if I'm driving and thus will have my one glass of wine with supper.
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I recently bought some Mann's Brown Ale in my local offy, it's only 2.4% and is very tasty, if you don't mind the slight sweetness. Very good "School Day" beer.
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Brown and Mild (with Manns Brown from the Ilford Brewery) was my first teenage tipple.
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Mine was Sauternes. Never touched it since, though.
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I too liked bottled brown ale when I was 17 or 18. It's the sweet-toothed way into beer.
Algerians like a drink and have, or used to have, some quite good and very strong red wine. Their beer is fairly weak but you can get a bit drunk on it in the end. However even before I stopped going there at the end of the eighties more and more restrictions were being put on the sale and consumption of alcohol, under pressure from pious or sanctimonious and repressive Muslims. Even when you could drink in pubs, sitting down at a table only, it wasn't good being a foreigner because after a few drinks people could get guiltily religious and start interrogating you for signs of atheist or disrespectful attitudes (or if it was a hacks' and secret police pub, for capitalistic, imperialist, anti-socialist attitudes). It could get a bit wearing, especially as the beer worked better on them than it did on you and you were easily suspected of being a heroic-scale boozer.
Last time I was in a small town there you had to buy booze at the back door of the pub and drive off to some building site on the edge of town and drink it in the car. Even there vigilantes holding big bits of timber could come up and ask what you were doing. Not the most comfortable of situations for a peaceful evening drink and chat.
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Is that Brown like Newcastle Brown - which only tastes of sulphur.
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It's safe to say that Newcastle Brown is unlike all other brown ales. It used to be said that there was a special ward in Newcastle General Hospital for its devotees.
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Tastes nothing like Newcastle Brown, which is also stronger and fizzier. Student drink.
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Newcastle Brown, isn't actually a Brown Ale, none of the sweeter chocolate and roasted malt flavours of the traditional Brown Ale, which was a distinctive London and the south, Belgium and, strangely, old American brew.
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 16 May 11 at 14:49
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After a similar thread some time ago, I have been counting out alcohol consumption in the house.
Every month on average we consume
8 bottles of wine, 30 bottles of beer, 70cl Gin. 35cl port.
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>> Every month on average we consume
>>
>> 8 bottles of wine, 30 bottles of beer, 70cl Gin. 35cl port.
How restrained!!
Bar the Gin & Port Mrs B and I get through not far short of that in a week.
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...Mrs B and I get through not far short of that in a week...
And they tell me times are hard. :)
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I always try not to monitor what I am drinking, or how much money I am spending come to that.
Life is happier most of the time like that, give or take the occasional appalling shock.
Today I called the insurance broker about the car. We are living in rural paradise now instead of Kensal Rise where we were doing skippers in my daughter's old flat a year ago. Unsurprisingly, they haven't called back. They are trying to work out how to reduce the huge premium as little as possible. Unfortunately for them we don't often make claims.
Damn carphounds. And they've got you over a barrel because you are legally obliged to give them money.
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>> Damn carphounds. And they've got you over a barrel because you are legally obliged to give them money.
I take it all back.Today got a courteous phone call saying that the premium is less than half the old one. Even taking the broker's commission into account, that seems like a good deal. I don't even care if it actually isn't.
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>> How restrained!!
I am ashamed, clearly I need to raise the bar, I will let you know how we get on over the next month,
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Hmm. Tried to calculate out our alcohol consumption but didn't work too well. It's possible we've had as much as Zero's monthly intake I suppose, but that would be over a fifty year period.
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You know, some years we get through nearly a whole bottle of gin between us. With beer however, we're much more restrained. There's some bottles in a cupboard somewhere which were a bit out of date when we brought them from our old house 9 years ago...As for wine, I can't bring myself to spend the sort of money the stuff I like costs...
:-)
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>> As for wine, I can't bring myself to spend the sort of money the
>> stuff I like costs...
>>
>> :-)
I had a measure of Longmorn whisky in Scotland one year. Fantastic smooth taste with almost sherry like quality. Made my vision blur afterwards. 25 years old and £70+ a bottle. I did think about it, but decided against. But buying something like that is like buying a treasured relic from the past - even better to be able to drink it.
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>>Leffe Blonde
>> Quite enjoyed the drink, although a bit rich for me - too much like barley
>> wine.
>>Thanks, Iffy, I'll give it a try and let you know.
Not one of my favourites, I'm afraid. Like you I thought it was a bit too rich, but not at all like barley wine.
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...but not at all like barley wine...
Mmm, sounds like I must have had too much of something else before I had that tin of Gold Label.
It was some time ago.
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Whitbread mild used to have a lovely nutty taste but, unfortunately, it ceased being available in the mid-1990s - Tetley mild and bitter was OK, but I switched to Guinness.
Ironically the Tetley plant in Warrington was shut down and production transferred to Leeds. The different water meant the beers never tasted the same as from Warrington and we also lost the annual club trip to tour the brewery (it entailed eating lots of delicious food and drinking copious amounts of beer free of charge).
One problem with alcohol-free draught beer is that you have the volume but not the means to knock you out at night...:-)
As for Kaliber and similar, the one time I spent a night on it as I was driving, I had the runs for several days afterwards.....
Last edited by: Stuartli on Wed 1 Jun 11 at 17:26
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I've found that my tolerance to alcohol has grown over the years, but the hangovers have got worse.
I can polish off a couple of bottles of Old Rosie and a bottle of Cab Sauv in an evening and hardly feel squiffy. Obviously I will be, and would never attempt to drive or anything.
It's not often that I do get a hangover but when I do, boy is it a doozer! Last bad one was the morning after we went to Belle Vue and stayed over at the hotel over the road. I, quite literally, went to the dogs! It was at least five o'clock in the afternoon before I felt even remotely human again.
Mrs B doesn't believe in booze - before I met her I'd have a wee drinkie most evenings but now I only tend to drink at weekends (or what passes for weekends, thanks to shift work!). I'm met with a disapproving stare if I suggest drinking on more than one night a week - probably for the best when all is said and done.
I do enjoy a pint though - I spent a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in the pub today with my stepson sampling the delights of Black Sheep, Wainwright and Landlord.
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Ah Badwolf.
My beloved, a woman of iron self-discipline and frighteningly consistent views, often tries to persuade me to have an AFD (alcohol-free day). Apparently it's a way of not poisoning yourself or becoming an alcoholic.
It doesn't make me go berserk but it quite often makes me bawl obscenities. There's a lot to be said for normality.
I haven't fallen down for years or got a headache or been sick the next day like a whippersnapper. But the moral hangover is no joke. You have this feeling that the end of the world is nigh. Or if not the end of the world, the end of something you value (you perhaps). Far, far worse than merely puking or being in physical pain.
Well worth avoiding believe me.
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>>a woman of iron self-discipline and frighteningly consistent views
What a fabulous turn of phrase!
Mrs B often says to me that she thinks I'm an alcoholic. A little extreme, I feel. I must confess that I feel that a day without a refreshing tincture is a day wasted, but I don't reach for the moonshine as soon as I wake. I can (and sometimes do) go for a couple of weeks without booze. Damned miserable, but a chap's got to make a point occasionally.
I wouldn't mind the draconian and sometimes stentorian approach if Mrs B was the paragon of restraint, but she can drink with the best of 'em. To be fair, she doesn't do it very often but when she does, she does. The most memorable occasion ended with her cowering with fear against a wall on the walk (stagger) home, convinced that a passing hedgehog was a killer Womble. I have to admit that I did plant the idea in her addled mind out of mild curiosity. Turned out even better than I could have hoped for.
I have a pint glass, appropriated from a local hostelry, upon which are several booze-related quotes, my favourite one being "Everyone should believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink.".
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Badwold said:
>> The most memorable occasion
>> ended with her cowering with fear against a wall on the walk (stagger) home, convinced
>> that a passing hedgehog was a killer Womble. I have to admit that I did
>> plant the idea in her addled mind out of mild curiosity. Turned out even better
>> than I could have hoped for.
Excellent! Attack of the mutant killer wombles indeed.
I enjoy an occasional drink. Local offies (for local people) sell a lot of unknown beers from micro breweries. I sampled a Chimera IPA at 7% and was mightily impressed: a wonderful lemony flavour characteristics of some Badger ales, with enough kick to leave me in a dreamy state. Not unlike Belgian beers, but with a surprising amount of flavour, which is sometimes lacking or odd in stronger beers.
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May I recommend Fursty Ferret? Never found it on draught but it's very pleasant out of a bottle.
If you're ever in Southport, a visit to the Inn Beer Shop is a must ( www.yelp.co.uk/biz/the-inn-beer-shop-southport ).
Last edited by: Badwolf on Wed 1 Jun 11 at 23:18
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Not so much falling down but falling over themselves to get a bargain @Tesco
3 cases for £11 due to pricing error!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13621315
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A drink without falling down - Armel Coussine
