An Adventure in Alcohol Free!

Sobriety! The art of being sober, to be without alcohol... let’s not panic.. keep reading

I was met with a number of blank stares, many social media queries & enquiries as to why? Whenever I first floated the idea of taking a break from booze and switching to Alcohol Free (AF). So I thought it may be helpful to explain some of the reasoning behind this decision. A lot is being made of the drinking culture in the U.K, we hear many Doctors & mental health groups cautioning us of the dangers we face in respect of this nations drinking culture.

So I thought it interesting, when on the back of that message I found many articles to indicate that the U.K. actually appears to be on the brink of an unforeseen, ungodly & quite frankly terrifying social shift. Depending on your standpoint of course.

Are we as a nation moving away from Alcohol?

While the traditional Pint continues to suffer the craft beer revolution, which shows no signs of slowing down, what is left of the Ale supping old guard now face a further threat, a threat which they could never have predicted.

AF Beverages! Alcohol free or to be techy drinks with a max of 0.5% ABV. Beer, Wine, Cider & now even spirits substitutes.

What used to begin and end with Becks has now sired an ever expanding and most importantly, improving, product line of alcohol free alcoholic beverages (work that one out).

If you are worried about how much you drink or have been thinking, for whatever reason of cutting down, there has never been a better time to give it a go. As I have been finding out quitting booze in 2018 doesn’t mean giving up the tastes you love and know so well.

Before anyone tries to kick my soapbox from under me, I’m not attempting to preach or indeed lobby for the Sobriety community, they speak for themselves. This is still a booze review site, I am not abandoning or turning on my Craft Beer buddies or indeed the wider alcohol consuming community, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the emergence of this market & the rise in quality they bring to the bar. To that end I thought it would be interesting to embrace this vibrant booze free community and at least sample what they have to offer

Now Admittedly, I was one of the biggest cynics, sneering as I passed by the one item in the zero alcohol range... AF Beer? What’s the point? You may as well have a beer? Yet, if you take the time to check out what’s being produced in this ever expanding niche, you will at the very least be surprised.

The range of AF Beer is still the little guy in the room, but with the increasing quality and taste, he is holding his own with the giants. Those same giants have started to take notice as they too begin to cater for the zero alcohol consumer.. Brewdog, Guinness, Budweiser, just some of the market leaders that are investing in AF products.

When these guys put time and money into something so fundamentally different from their core product, then you know that there is a growing market for it.

So for the next month or so, I will be drinking only AF beverages, sampling whatever I can get my hands on, from the core beer and ciders to spirits and even dealcoholised Wines. If German Olympic Athletes are drinking this stuff after physical activity, then there must be something positive to discover and I may be able to shed a bit of my well earned beer belly.

When my Beer drinking resumes, which it will. I will be aiming for quality over quantity.