Some interesting trends here that I wasn’t aware of. Eg: “Alcohol consumption in Ireland is now less than the United Kingdom and most other European countries, including Spain, France, and Germany.”
After years of not bothering with alcohol I tried some of the alcohol-free versions of those drinks and the difference was negligible but the next morning was a lot more pleasant.
The original article title is “Off-license consumption fuelling rise in non-alcoholic drinks as demand for 0.0% alternative sees post-pandemic surge”, but I took an interesting quote from the article for the title of this post.
My 0.0 consumption has definitely increased in the past 3 years - prior to that, I never really opted for 0.0 - the options were Erdinger or… Erdinger on licence. The choice has improved greatly, was well as the taste, so it’s a much more viable (and sometimes appealing) choice now. I still drink normal beer, but that’s dropped over the last three years. Sure it’s like €3.20 for a single can of decent beer these days - €7 for a six pack of decent alcohol free.
I’d forgotten all about Erdinger and Franziskaner - you’re right, they were the first I remember here in the late 90s / early 00s. I think there was another one that wasn’t German, but it was very hard to find.
My local supermarket has 0% gin as well which opens up a lot of options for mocktails. But they charge the same price as a bottle of alcoholic gin.
I don’t always drink 0.0 (I have cut down on beer in general) but it’s been really handy to have more options.
