Alcohol-free beer used to taste awful. These days, the lager at least is pretty good (Heineken is my favourite) so that may well be one factor.
I’ve had a few AF IPAs that still haven’t got the mouthfeel right, but they’re getting close with the hoppiness
Guinness 0.0 is genuinely good enough to pass as a mid-level Guinness from a train station pub
I think they now just brew the same drink then remove most of the alcohol as it keeps the taste closer to being the same.
If you’re not gonna get drunk, what’s the point of imitating alcoholic drinks? Just drink a soda at that point, it’s tastier.
Some people, myself included, like the taste and ritual of drinking beer, but don’t want to get drunk.
It’s like vegan meat substitutes.
Sure there are awesome vegan dishes and the substitutes taste worse than the real deal but it’s not wrong to want to interact with the culture you live in in a normalish manner.
I’ll have a af beer with my vegan hotdog and enjoy myself even though they are just substitutes.
That’s completely fair honestly
Because different people have different tastes?
It’s not tastier.
Because tastes differ. You can get tired of always having sugary drinks and af beers often have a more complex and interesting taste than sodas.
Don’t like soda. Do like beer. Don’t always want to get drunk
I like drinking beer, not just to get drunk but often as a simple past time. I regularly drink alcohol free beer when I don’t want to consume any alcohol for any number of reasons and these days there a lot of them that are really good and I would prefer to drink that over a soda. I don’t really have much love for alcohol free spirits however if you like the taste and process of making cocktails then it’s probably also a good thing to be able to do that without getting drunk.
Maybe it has to do with the placebo effect. Just spitballing, but it may put the mind in a place where “ok I’m out in a bar and I’m drinking ‘beer’, so I can relax and socialize”
Kinda like how kids can fully believe and act drunk off of juice if you present it as wine but to another level
I feel the same with “meat” that imitates meat. Just come up with something new, why do they have to imitate the thing that they are supposed to be disgusted by? How about protein rich imitation veggies and fruits?
