Alcohol free -- trendy?

Yes perhaps, and yes definitely! I guess I like darker and richer beers generally

One of the difficulties in trying to find a non-alcoholic drink that actually tastes nice is that, with the exception of the aforementioned Seedlip, the options just seek to emulate alcoholic drinks, rather than developing non-sweet drinks that have a completely different taste but don’t hint at mouthwash.

For the time being, if you want a long drink that’s the rough equivalent of a beer, you’re stuck with a beer-tasting concoction. But when you’ve given up alcohol for a bit, if you happen to try it again, it really doesn’t taste nice! I did have a pleasant alcohol-free Australian sparkling wine the other day, slightly too sweet of course, but other than that, the alcohol-free wines I’ve tried so far really are foul!

When we were first married with very young kids and therefore no spare cash, our evening drink of choice for weekends was “poor man’s G&T” which is the same as an ordinary G&T but with no gin. That phrase lives on in the family…
Best

David

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Strangely enough i gave up beer (not wine) to get my weight down when i was diagnosed with diabetes. Then Xmas my wife bought a bottle of Hop13 lager in a package with a nice glass. This was a lager that i really used to like…i tried but could not drink it. Wife made a lemonade shandy with it. Shows how your tastes can and do change.

As for trendy not to drink, not that I have noticed, or at least not in any widespread way.

And my experience it is not possible to categorise. There are young people today who ‘do’ drugs, and young people who do not. Funnily enough when I was a young person, let’s say teens through twenties, it was the same - there were people all around me who did drugs, and others didn’t. Whether relative proportions are the same is anyone’s guess, as there werent the same sureveys etc back then.

That is excluding alcohol from the definition of drug. When I was a young person I don’t think I knew anyone outside my parents’ generation who didn’t drink. Now I know people both young and old who don’t drink, so that appears to be a change, at least amongst young people. And those young people not drinking does not as a generalisation mean drug taking, at least not evidently so in terms of outward signs, and some are quite damning of drugs, in a manner that seems genuine.

But I guess there undoubtedly will be differences depending where one lives, and types of people with which one mixes. E.g when I lived in Newcastle upon Tyne there was very evidently a culture of drinking to excess, seemingly more skewed towards younger people - and young women seemed to be at the forefront, or perhaps if was because they made themselves more prominent by their loudness - and I have observed the latter increasingly in some other cities.

Regarding non-alcoholic refreshment, if I don’t drink, e.g. because I’m driving, the only acceptable liquid I have found in pubs and bars is tap water (at least, in UK and countries like EU states where tao water is potable).

I had good results making up that non alcoholic pimms number.
Using half lemonade and soda water and adding Balsamic vinegar- yes Balsamic vinegar. Adding it a little by little to taste. Then adding strawberries, mint cucumber and lots of ice. Almost like the real thing.

Neve done drugs and don’t know anybody who has. I must have lived a sheltered life !

As for alcoholic drinks, cider, wine, bitter shandy. But generally about seven units a week ie one drink a day.

Non alcoholic drinks tend to be water, orange juice, coke.

My three daughters each went through a teenage/early twenties stage of red wine. Glass filled to the brim. None of them drink more than a small glass of wine once or twice a week now.

None of them were ever short of money, but preferred to spend it on travel rather than drink.

I have found the Brew Dog Nanny State to have more about it than most. Also tried alcohol free Super Bock at a Portuguese restaurant and that was great for a hot summer day. Also Brooklyn Special Effects alcohol free was way above average.

I have been tee total all my life, never drunk. I used to race push bikes as a kid (up until I was about 18) at a national level so was sort of fit and never wanted to do it. My uncle was an alcoholic and I am very like him so I knew it would not end well if I did (he passed away mid 50’s due to drink related illness).

I used to get lots of stick from my mates at the time, right the way up until the end of the night when I was a free taxi and then I suddenly became everybody’s best friend …

It was strange back in the early 80’s to be like that and I was known as weird one for not drinking, not my green spiky hair …

I am now in my early 50’s and most if not all of my friends really struggle with hangovers. We all have kids and loosing a whole day of the weekend to a hangover is something I can’t get my head around. I am all for a few jars to have a good time but I don’t understand getting so drunk you can’t function and then loosing day(s) feeling ill.

As for drink my favourite is sparkling water with lime, but also like a fruit juice. There seems to be a lot of cocktails on menus now but they seem to be too sweet and sickly for me.

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I find a slice of lime squeezed into a very cold non-alcoholic beer makes it taste somewhat like a corona

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2 bottles of Erdinger NA in a pint glass with ice is pretty good

I’ve never understood that. I love to drink a variety of different alcoholic drinks: Hoppy ale, red wine, champagne (but not the standard mainstream ones aimed at the British market), malt whisky, very old cognac, madeira, port, cocktails… But by my mid 20s I learnt that it is a waste to drink so much as to be sick, or lose the next day to a hangover: and in the 40 years since I haven’t suffered either more than half a dozen times, and then mildly. Fir some reason that seems to be rare.

About 20% of drinkers do not get hangovers. From a study using the same set number of units drank in a night.
Although 80% of that 20% were usually heavy drinkers.
That 20% of 20% must have some special genetic makeup resistant to hangovers.
I drink, but I can’t remember the last time I felt drunk or woke up with a hangover. Well that’s what I tell myself. Hick.

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Agree with all three of those.

I have always had a low alcohol capacity before being sick - far lower than my friends in my youth only 1/2 to 1/3rd of many, likewise others I have socialised with since - and that has assisted my limiting of myself. And that the very occasional times I have omitted to count and stop, a hangover has been my reminder…

I have some Asian friends who feel very uncomfortable after drinking half a pint of beer. They will admit they have no parents,grandparents, uncles or aunties who drink. Indeed there is medical proof of a hereditary and cultural genetic disposition towards alcohol.
In England the max recommended units per week is 14. Ireland 17 and Spain a stonking 21 before the Doctors start tut tutting. Strangely Germans are only allowed 10.

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Yes, genetics do vary among the races, and there is a higher incidence among some (e.g. Asians) to have a gene for a specific, less-active, form of one of the enzymes responsible for alcohol metabolism. This can lead to greater facial flushing and overall lower tolerance for ethanol.

Sigh. Race is a social construct. It has pretty much zilch to do with genetics. Done lots of work for the 100,000 Genome Project before the usual suspects decide to have a pop.

Did it have anything to do with alcohol ?

I am aware of the exactly the same in a high proportion of Chinese friends and aquaintances. In one case it works to my advantage because he loves the taste of good wine, but can’t manage more than one small glass without significant adverse effect, so he chooses to open a bottle only when he has friends visiting who appreciate wine - that is the only time I have had wine exceeding £100 a bottle (bought at auction, sometimes by the case, with on one occasion a bottle at ~£1000). I also understand that it is due to a genetic effect (defect?) relating to the enzymes responsible for breaking down alcohol, most notably aldehyde dehydrogenase, and is prevalent amongst east asian populations.