Category Archives: NA craft beer

not an expert, just a lifelong craft beer lover who is now obsessed with non-alcoholic craft beer, my pandemic/post-surgery “hobby.” using it as an excuse to learn more and write about beer and the industry.

athletic brewing – pilot program: irish red ale

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i don’t have a lot to say about this beer. i bought it on impulse because i was out of one of their other beers that is a mainstay for me and i happened to be looking at just the right moment that this pilot program brew was made available to folks not in the club. so figured it would be a fun experiment, what with st. patrick’s day coming up and all.

faint malty aroma, pours a dark amber-red color (it’s been a long time since i’ve drunk a red beer so can’t really remember what color they ought to look like), and the carbonation is weird – bigger bubbles almost like a soda. there was a foamy head upon pouring (as pictured), but it quickly dissipated. it tastes fine, but is hard to distinguish from several of their other beers. nothing really bold about this one. not a strong hops presence, a little caramel, but not a heavy maltiness either. the description said something about stone fruit but i don’t really taste that. (had to look up stone fruit to understand what that was!) this beer is light and smooth and goes down very easily, but if you’re looking for flavor, this isn’t it. it would probably pair well with food though because it wouldn’t overwhelm it.

this is just a middle of the road beer to me. it’s pleasant enough and i will drink this 6pack but i wouldn’t order it again even if it was available regularly.

bravus brewing – blonde

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i just got home from walking dogs all morning and it’s a beautiful spring day outside, warm but not hot with a cool breeze. my landlord was fixing my wooden gate that leads to my apartment around the back of the house. the gate fell off one of its hinges yesterday, making it hard to open/shut, so i was glad to see him working on it. we had a lovely chat. i came home to the delivery of my latest impulse purchase from athletic brewing – the irish red (no longer available, one of the pilot program brews) – so a few of those went right into the fridge. but i was dreaming of a beer on the way home, so i decided to pop something that was already cold but new to me, the bravus blonde.

hmm. i’m not quite sure what i think of this beer. i am quickly realizing that all bravus beers have a unique and common aroma/taste that i can’t quite put my finger on – is that the hops they use? the malt? something about their brewing process to achieve non-alcoholic beer? i really don’t know. i’m not skilled enough of a taster to isolate or know what it is. all i know is that sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. in the case of the peanut butter stout, it REALLY works. in the case of the oatmeal stout, it sometimes works but appears to be a delicate balancing act that can go horribly wrong. in this blonde, i’m not sure if it works.

it poured a nice light golden color (they call it straw yellow but that doesn’t seem very complimentary) and had a little sudsy head to it. i get a little sour, funky smell that isn’t really pleasant to me. upon taking a sip, it’s pretty thin and the carbonation is light, so mouthfeel is a little weak but it is smooth. i’m getting a little citrus (though that might just be that i ate an orange when i first came home and the acidity is still in my mouth), a little banana (though not much). it’s got a light malty sweetness to it. i can’t quite decide if i like this or not. it’s not so bad that i won’t drink it but i’m not sure i will feel like i want to reach for this again anytime soon. and i feel like “blonde” as a descriptor doesn’t really work because this doesn’t taste like any blonde beer i’ve ever had before… though i really don’t know what i would call it.

i’m grateful i had a chance to try it. maybe i will experiment with mixing this with their raspberry gose and see what happens! but i don’t think, on its own, that this beer is for me.

bravus brewing – peanut butter stout

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i wrote about my weird experience with bravus brewing‘s oatmeal stout in a previous post, the upshot of which is that after contacting customer service, they had me send back some of it that i thought was off and sent me a mix-pack of fresh beer to replace it: 2 oatmeal, 2 blonde and 2 peanut butter stout, so i could try some of their brews i can’t find locally in stores. well it arrived today and i promptly put it in the fridge to chill.

8 hours later and i am currently enjoying their peanut butter stout enormously! i’ve read so many great reviews of this beer, and i am totally a stout person and have yet to have a really satisfying NA stout experience, so i’m really psyched to finally try it and love it so much. (i love athletic’s all out stout but it doesn’t really compare to this one in richness and body/mouthfeel. it almost reads more like a porter to me.)

as you can see in the pic, this beer pours a nice dark brown almost black color with a good head that gives off an amazing sweet peanut butter/chocolate aroma. the carbonation and body of this beer is appropriate for a stout, though probably not quite as thick as an alcoholic one. but pretty good for an NA, especially since it does NOT have lactose in it. the flavor is really rich – creamy, chocolatey, a little hazlenut in with the peanut butter. i was worried it would be overly sweet but i don’t find it to be at all. it’s just right, though i would certainly classify this a dessert beer and probably couldn’t drink more than one in a sitting. i can hardly believe it only has 106 calories cuz it sure tastes like it has a lot more!

i’m looking forward to trying (another night) the fresh oatmeal stout that they sent me, to see if i have a different experience than the last ones i had to send back to them. i wonder if it’s just a freshness issue? (the ones I sent back were purchased at total wine, so who knows how long they’d been there – i can’t find any dates on the cans.) i did notice when i first opened the can and smelled it, i did get a very faint whiff of the smell that turned me off so hard on the brews i sent back. but that whiff did not convert to a taste when i took my first sip, and the other aromas quickly overpowered that faint smell. so not sure what that is – the hops? the malt? i dunno. but it’s like the ones i thought were “off” were really unbalanced, and that nasty smell and taste just overtook the rest of the beer. i’m really hoping they tell me what they find when they get those beers back so i can understand more what it was that went wrong. but drinking this one tonight confirmed to me that something was not quite right about those beers, so i’m glad they let me send them back and grateful they replaced it with some delicious fresh beer!

so thanks brendan, at bravus customer support! i will certainly be buying more of this peanut butter stout!

happy women’s history month!

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it’s women’s history month and today is international women’s day, so i thought a little post discussing women and the NA craft beer world that i’ve been delving into would be appropriate.

first, i want to start with this article a friend posted on facebook about the history of women and beer brewing, because i found it fascinating:

“Up until the 1500s, brewing was primarily women’s work – that is, until a smear campaign accused women brewers of being witches. Much of the iconography we associate with witches today, from the pointy hat to the broom, emerged from their connection to female brewers.”

knowing this herstory really helps challenge the association of beer with men and masculinity which has become the norm in modern times. of course women were the first brewers! i’m not surprised by any of this information – fuck the patriarchy for ruining everything – but it makes me even more committed to writing about and diving deeper into the NA beer world as a woman.

it’s interesting to note that the stanford university study referenced in the article, though it is many years old (2014) and focused on the larger alcoholic craft beer industry, found “20 percent (399) had at least one female founder, of which 40 (2 percent) had an exclusively female founder(s).” it also cites “17 percent (349) had at least one female CEO — only 67 of those (3 percent) had an exclusively female CEO, the rest were co-CEOs with at least one male (typically wife/husband team).”

however, in 2019, the brewer’s association website craftbeer.com did a survey and found “only about 7.5 percent of brewers are women. The number of female staff jumps to 37 percent for women in “non-production, non-service” roles (like sales and marketing). the only area where women reach a majority is as brewery “service” staff — though at just 53 percent, it’s pretty balanced. furthermore, of the 54 percent of breweries that only had a single owner, 96 percent of those owners were male.”

these stats are pretty sad, and only get sadder when you start looking for ethnic/racial diversity as well. so i want to do what i can to lift up the women brewers, owners and other players i learn about.

in a previous post i mentioned rightside brewing, whose beer is en route to me this week, so it seems appropriate to mention it again here. it’s founder, emree woods, is not a brewer, but rather an entrepreneuer who had the idea when she was pregnant with her first child three and a half years ago. it took a while – another child and a pandemic might have slowed her down a bit – but her “third baby,” as she refers to it, is finally out in the world and i’m really looking forward to trying it!

when i posted a question wondering about other women-owned/founded NA craft breweries in the NABAS (non-alcoholic beer appreciation society) facebook group, i learned that several were co-founded by women, often with their husbands/partners or other family members: wellbeing brewery was co-founded by genevieve barlow; surreal brewing was co-founded by donna hockey; bravus brewing was co-founded by heather brandes; and gruvi brewing, co-founded by anika sawni, who also hosts a podcast about recovery called a sober girl’s guide.

i’m sure there are probably more that i don’t know about (if you know of any, tell me, cuz i’m new to this world and still learning about the players and history of the industry), but just knowing this much makes me feel like there’s maybe a slightly higher ratio of women involved in the NA craft beer world than the alcoholic one. this may be due to the fact that the NA craft beer world is smaller at the moment, but i hope it continues to be an inviting realm for more women to get involved in.

the pink boots society is one group that hopes to help more women get involved in the larger industry (not NA-specific). it was created “to assist, inspire and encourage women fermented/alcoholic beverage industry professionals to advance their careers through education,” with one specific goal to “teach women beer professionals the judging skills necessary to become beer judges at the GABF and other competitions.” their site has a lot of info on it, including some history of women and beer, a podcast, and offers scholarships to upcoming seminars on technical aspects of the industry. they even have a collaborative brew they are doing across chapters, with an exclusive hops blend. there appears to be a PBS chapter here in new orleans, so perhaps i need to check them out! i wonder if they have any NA stuff going on?

well that’s all i got for today, but i’ll keep sharing info as i learn it. happy international women’s day and women’s history month!

**edited to add: shortly after i posted this, i got the email from athletic brewing announcing their collab for international women’s day – trailblazer, a hoppy lager using the PBS 2021 hops blend, brewed by athletic brewer cara wilson, with 100% of the proceeds going to the pink boots society. i of course just ordered some.

big drop – pine trail pale

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well, thanks to the dysfunction of the usps these days, it took nearly two weeks to get to me in new orleans from chicago (even with priority mail), but i finally poured my very first tasteNA sample from big drop brewing, their pine trail pale.

it’s funny how for most of my adult life, i have not enjoyed pale ales, IPAs or anything that has a strong hops bitterness to it. i’m usually much more of a dark beer fan, a lover of maltiness, sweetness, and caramel, chocolate, nut, and/or coffee undertones. but now that i’m drinking NAs, i’m finding i can tolerate hops more and actually enjoy it in some brews. i don’t think i’m gonna become a huge IPA fan anytime soon, as things labeled as such usually have much higher IBU than things simply labeled pale ale and i’m not that into the bitterness, but i’m happy to have more options.

so, this beer. it arrived earlier today, late morning, due to its detour and extended stay in a distribution center in southaven, MS, so it was only in the fridge for like 6-7 hours. but i couldn’t wait any longer! (my fridge is petty cold though.)

first of all, i love their can design and logo. the company is originally from the UK and has just recently started brewing and distributing here in the US, so it has a bit of a different “cool” look to it than a lot of the US NA brands. this should help them stand out on the shelves, for sure.

it poured a pretty pale yellow color but had minimal head. usually that would make me think it might be flat, but not in this case and really didn’t bother me visually. it had a fresh, floral aroma that was inviting. the carbonation and body of the beer was great, good mouthfeel – that addition of lactose really helps it to feel like a beer in my mouth. i get the pine, a little citrus (lime), and the hops bite is there, prominent but not overpowering. it’s light and crisp and paired nicely with my pasta dinner. i can see why it won a world beer award for style!

i would drink this again for sure, and now that i have an idea of the quality of their beer, i’m even more excited to try their galactic extra dark, which is basically a stout. thanks tasteNA for the chance to sample this! hopefully next time it won’t take 2 weeks to get to me!

beer talk 3/6

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no new NA beers to sample this weekend since the stump jump and cerveza atletica arrived, but i have plenty to keep me busy. (my kitchen floor is littered with NA beer stock cuz i can only fit so much in the fridge at one time!) i did end up buying a six pack of the partake pale at total wine as i liked it enough to want to drink more of it. they were out of a lot of things and didn’t have anything new, so that’s all i got.

my friend allison went out there and asked at customer service for them to order brew dog NAs, and they said they would. (i hope they get the wake up call and nanny state, though i’m sure she asked them for the ipas cuz that’s what she drinks.) so maybe that is the route i will take in the future, instead of trying to find the beer manager who never seems to be available when i go. i’m gonna make a list and ask them to order a bunch of stuff because it will be cheaper for me to buy from them than ordering it online. (they need to restock wellbeing amber and coffee cream stout, and add their victory wheat; i’d love it if they added bravus peanut butter stout and blonde to the other bravus beers they already carry; and it would be great to be able to sample NA offerings from untitled art (mostly interested in the chocolate stout), two roots (helles), sober carpenter (blonde, white, red), gruvi (peach pie ale, stout, lager, pale ale), big drop (pale and stout) and ceria (i’m interested in the belgian white but they also have an ipa that would probably do well). i know, it’s asking a lot. but if i don’t ask, they’ll probably never order it and i know all of those are carried at other total wines around the country so they shouldn’t have trouble getting them.

meanwhile, i always look at every new retail food/drink store i’m in to see what they have. this past week: target doesn’t carry ANY NA at all; neither does the random circle k by tulane, though they have a pretty extensive beer cooler; lakeview grocery had minimal macro offerings and the lagunitas IPNA was randomly stuck in the middle of the alcoholic section next to the other lagunitas stuff; and i went back in to rouses on carrollton just to see if i could find the beer buyer (wasn’t there). this pic below is of their sad NA section.

however, i do have several new brews on the way to me. i couldn’t resist ordering the athletic st. patrick’s day offering of an irish red, which is one of the pilot brews; i’m not a big red drinker but i’m looking for variety right now.

i also “discovered” rightside brewing, randomly, from a post in one of the NA fb groups i’m in. i’d heard the name before but hadn’t been curious until a link to an interview with the founder/owner was posted. turns out it’s a woman-owned brand and southern, out of atlanta, georgia. they have a great website with a blog that tells the story of the beer/company and offers inspirational and informational posts. how could i not support this business? so i immediately ordered a six pack of each of their citrust wheat and ipa, as they are smartly offering the two six packs = free shipping promotion that is quickly becoming the standard in the NA beer world. i’ll let ya know what I think when they get here.

the other thing that happened was that i reached out to bravus brewing‘s customer support after my experience revisiting their oatmeal stout left me confused as to whether my taste buds had just done an about face on their beer, or if it was a bad batch. they immediately wrote back, offering to give me a pre-paid return label if i’d send them back some of the beer in question. i’d bought two four packs so i tried some from both and both tasted off to me, so i sent back two of each. i mentioned how i was hoping to try some of their other beers (pb stout and blonde) and they offered to send me a free fresh mix pack of oatmeal, pb stout and blonde to try! now THAT’S customer service! so that is also on the way. i hope they don’t get the beers i sent back and tell me there is nothing wrong with them, cuz that would just mean a) my taste buds are wack, and b) i don’t like their beer. but i will remain hopeful until i try them.

ok, that’s all i got for this week. and yes, i am clearly obsessed at this point and this is becoming quite an expensive habit. but i’m also not spending nearly as much money as i used to on food and due to the pandemic i never go out and spend money in bars or restaurants or anywhere else, so i figure it’s ok for now. and at some point, when i’ve sampled all these beers, i will know which ones i like enough to want to keep on hand and it will be a much smaller number of beers. but for now it’s a fun adventure that takes my mind off this fucked up world we are living in and at least feels like a semi-healthy choice to be making in my recuperation.

athletic stump jump and cerveza atletica + partake pale

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copied over from my instagram:

i am behind in posting my NA beer reviews.

i just finished drinking this athletic brewing stump jump autumn brown ale, which i had been dying to sample for quite a while. (it’s hard to find it in stock on their website.) sadly i am underwhelmed. i think i actually like their maple brown pilot brew better. this one definitely has the look and mouthfeel of a brown ale down, but the taste is just kinda meh. it’s smooth, malty, a little nutty, and not as sweet as the maple brown, but kinda nondescript. some brown ales can be like that but i guess i just expected a richer flavor out of something called an autumn brown. i have five more of them so i guess i’ll be drinking them but they will not be the first thing i reach for. it’s not a total miss, but not anything exciting either. 😕

earlier this afternoon with lunch i tried partake brewing‘s pale. if you recall, i had been previously disappointed with their blonde and unimpressed with their stout, but someone in one of my facebook groups suggested that i give their pale a shot because it was better. and they were right! just enough hops to make it interesting and give it a bit of a bite, which is something that beers without alcohol often lack, but not so much that it overwhelmed me. i don’t really like an overwhelming hops bitterness, hence why i don’t like most IPAs. it had a pretty good mouthfeel even though it’s pretty thin and light but it is crisp and refreshing and went very well with the pizza i had for lunch. and it only has 10 calories! that is ridiculous! tastes pretty spot on and only 10 calories – i give it a 👍!

lastly is the athletic brewing cerveza atletica, which they describe as a light copper brew. i found its color to be darker than light copper and i was expecting this beer by its name to be more in the vein of corona or similar light lager/pilsner mexican beers. i would say it’s more like dos equis amber. very smooth, good body and mouthfeel, malty and fairly light. i like this one and can see it being a good table beer for me as i think it will go with pretty much any food. i will buy this one again. 👍

ok i think that catches me up. 

selection at whole foods broad

finding NA beers in new orleans

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this topic is so frustrating it needed its own post.

when i first started this NA beer adventure back in the fall, i began by ordering direct from breweries online. this seemed the easiest way at first to check out some of these brews. athletic brewing is smart enough to offer free shipping if you purchase two six packs – well, it’s of course not free cuz they just build the cost of the shipping into the price of the beer ($12.99/six pack) – but still, some of the other breweries charge high prices for their beer AND add on shipping. some you have to buy a whole case to get free shipping. so it can get very expensive, especially when you don’t even know if you’re going to like what you are purchasing!

then, add in all the problems that come with shipping. USPS is still having trouble so every time i order something that ships through the postal service, it takes forever to get here. (i currently have a tasteNA sample that was sent out last monday stuck in post office purgatory in mississippi for who knows how long, as tracking hasn’t been updated in more than two days.) and even when private shipping like UPS is used, it’s still a major headache and there are delays. here in new orleans, i’m always worried any delivery will get stolen off my porch if i’m not around to grab it as soon as it’s delivered. (has happened before.) i live in a rear apartment and i can’t seem to train any delivery service to actually drop packages on my back porch or at my door – they are always thrown on the front porch somewhere or sometimes even my neighbor’s back porch, so if i don’t stay on top of when something gets delivered, it can easily go missing. yesterday i left my dog sit to wait at my house specifically because UPS gave me a 3 hour window that my athletic beer delivery would arrive in, and via the app i watched the truck drive all over midcity and my neighborhood for hours without dropping my box off. (it finally arrived at 6:10pm, almost 3 hours later than they told me it would and after i’d already gone back to my dog sit.)

in addition to all this, i have received dented and leaking cans in shipments, and when much of the country suffered from severe cold weather in recent weeks, i read dozens of stories online of frozen beer arriving at folks’ doorsteps, cans completely burst open. i imagine the extreme heat will also be hazardous in the peak of summer.

so because of all the stress getting my NA beer shipped causes me, i have undertaken the even more frustrating task of searching out the various retail outlets around the city where it seems likely i might find NA beer, including grocery stores, specialty liquor/beer/wine stores, and even corner convenience stores. my findings have been disappointing across the board as to what is currently stocked, and i have endeavored to speak with beer managers and purchasers at many of these outlets to request they order beers for me, with mixed results.

i feel like i sound like a commercial for total wine these days because they have turned out to be the only place in town that carries a decent selection of NA beer, including craft varieties from the smaller breweries. during dry january they stepped up their NA marketing nationwide and have since added a singles shelf where you can sample individual bottles from packs, which is enormously helpful in determining what you might like or not. the downside is that they are out in metairie almost to clearview, so a hike from midcity, and they don’t seem to restock very quickly when they are out of things, which is often. i have yet to track down the beer manager as she is never there on the days i am out there, but i will keep trying. i did have a good convo with another worker in the beer department who said he would leave her some notes and the names of some of the beers i’m hoping to have ordered. (mostly bravus peanut butter stout and ceria’s grainwave, but brew dog beers would also be nice. maybe big drop, untitled art, or any number of the new small breweries popping up every month.) but they are still my best bet for finding something to drink.

(at least I don’t mind giving them my money, as the goods unite us app scores total wine highly and 100% democratic in its corporate contributions.)

grocery stores i’ve checked out: rouses on carrollton only has a few macros like o’douls and buckler and sharps, maybe heineken and bud. no craft, at least the last time i was in there a couple of months ago. (i stopped shopping there for political reasons.) i did not speak to a beer manager but i probably should go in there just to ask, as the more retail that carries craft NA the better for the scene in general here in NOLA.

i have looked at winn dixie on carrollton, roberts fresh market on claiborne, dorignac’s, and the big easy fresh market, which has a surprising amount of craft beer but like the other groceries, only has a few macro NAs, the more mainstream commercial brands that i’m not interested in. i haven’t found a beer manager at any of these places to speak with yet.

i have, however, spoken to beer managers at whole foods both on broad and arabella station, asking them to beef up their NA selections. (i also checked the metairie whole foods for selection but did not speak to anyone there.) the photo at the top of this post is of the selection at the whole foods on broad in midcity. both uptown and midcity carry brooklyn brewery special effects and IPA, as well as lagunitas IPNA, plus a few more mainstream NAs like heineken and beck’s. i asked each of them to order specific beers, like athletic, ceria or bravus, and they basically said they weren’t familiar with the NA craft beers and would see what they had available to them to order… that they can’t order what isn’t on their distribution lists. i haven’t been back yet to check if they’ve gotten anything in.

i’ve been in to martin wine cellar uptown and was disappointed with their meager NA selections, and on a whim stopped in at a convenience store at the corner of broadway and claiborne that i knew stocked a lot of craft beer. (probably since it is close to the universities.) they didn’t have anything but the guy working there was really nice and wrote down all the brewery names i mentioned and said he would see what he could order. i pass by there every day in my work travels so will definitely follow up with him.

and lastly, i’ve been in a few times to 504 craft beer reserve, a place that literally stocks hundreds if not thousands of craft beers. i really thought if anywhere in town would have a good NA selection, they would be the place. but no, they had maybe 4-5 options, mostly macro or commercial import, nothing craft. i spoke twice now with one of the guys who does the ordering and the second time he actually wrote stuff down and took my number to call me back when he’d researched it, to see what he could get. i’ll report back if i ever hear from him.

there’s lots of other places yet to check but the story i keep getting from the folks i do talk to is that distribution is limited for these NA craft breweries. the buyers at the national chains (like whole foods) tell me that even when a brand is available in other parts of the country at their stores, it’s not always available to us here. and they always point out they don’t have a big audience for NA so it’s not worth it to them to order a lot of new and different NA beers. they are all uneducated about the burgeoning NA craft movement but sadly most don’t seem interested in learning about it.

personally, i think local retail is really missing out on a LENT promotion opportunity. dry january comes at a really bad time here in NOLA cuz of carnival season, so it’s not as big a thing here as it might be in other parts of the country. but lent is a missed marketing opportunity, as tons of people give up alcohol during lent and might be open to trying non-alcoholic options during this time. grocery and liquor stores should have end caps promoting NA beer and spirits. it just seems dumb that they don’t. but as with most things, new orleans tends to lag behind the rest of the country, so i guess the NA craft beer trend is just one more thing in that category.

i will keep trying to educate and plant the seeds of interest in NA brews in retail outlets around the city. i feel like a one-woman NA promotional machine! if you are reading this and are in new orleans and interested in craft NA beer, please try to speak with the beer managers at whatever retail outlets you shop at to let them know there is interest. i think the only thing they will respond to is direct pressure from shoppers, and it needs to be more than just me asking repeatedly.

lagunitas hoppy refresher

lagunitas hoppy refresher

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i picked up a few new things off the singles shelf in the NA section when i was at total wine yesterday. lagunitas hoppy refresher was one of them. it’s not an NA beer but it’s adjacent, so i’m including my review of it here anyways.

it’s basically hop infused carbonated water. so kind of like a hoppy lacroix. i don’t usually like fizzy waters or seltzers or things like lacroix, and i also don’t usually like beers that have a heavy hop flavor to them, like IPAs, but for some reason this sort of works for me. i can’t see me wanting to drink these very often but i could definitely picture myself ordering this with a meal out at a restaurant on a hot day when i wanted something beer-like that’s refreshing and not sweet. there are zero calories, zero carbs and there is zero alcohol in this beverage. (it does, however, have small amounts of yeast in it.)

if you are a fan of fizzy waters and hoppy beer, you will probably love this. i give it a thumbs up even though i probably won’t buy it to drink at home. it is indeed very refreshing though there is a slight aftertaste and mouth residue that i’m not crazy about. but i’m glad i tried it and i will definitely drink the whole thing and enjoy it.

bravus oatmeal stout

on sampling NA beers

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i’ve been at this non-alcoholic beer exploration for about four months now, with mixed results. i keep thinking i’ve found 5-star beer choices *for me* (cuz everyone’s taste buds are different), but then when i go back and try the same beer a few weeks later, i’m experiencing that beer in a totally different (and usually more unpleasant) way.

the latest example of this was last night with bravus brewing‘s oatmeal stout. i’d bought a bunch of singles at total wine in metairie a few weeks ago, so i could sample a bunch of different NA beers without having to buy full six packs in case i didn’t like it. and bravus’ oatmeal stout was one of them.

my experience drinking it then was a great one. i thought it tasted remarkably like a “real” stout, was full bodied, slightly sweet, and didn’t have any kind of weird aroma or aftertaste, as some NA brews do. “a little chocolatey, a hint of coffee and lots of creamy dark goodness,” i said in my IG review in the moment. i thought i’d found a winner!

i then spent the next several weeks trying to find more of it to purchase to have on hand in the fridge to drink, but total wine was out of stock and nowhere else in town had it. (i will make a whole ‘nother post about my retail adventures seeking out NA beer and talking to beer managers here in new orleans.) i contemplated purchasing online but bravus only gives free shipping if you buy a case and i wasn’t convinced i liked enough of their beers to mix and match a case; i really wanted to try their peanut butter stout but prefer to get a single to sample it before investing in a lot of it. and purchasing less than a case at a time means paying crazy shipping charges, making the beer very expensive. so i just kept holding off on the mail order, hoping the oatmeal stout would come back in stock at total wine.

yesterday was my lucky day – i drove out after work in the mid afternoon on a whim. they hadn’t restocked everything i wanted (wellbeing brews, aside from their IPA, were still out of stock and my total wine doesn’t carry big drop or ceria or any of the other new breweries i want to sample), but the bravus oatmeal and raspberry gose which i also had liked were back in stock. so i got 2 four-packs of the oatmeal stout and one of the gose, plus a few more random singles to test out.

i had one of the goses as soon as it cooled down in the fridge – it wasn’t ice cold like i like it but it wasn’t warm either; it was sufficiently cold for drinking. this time the aroma was more overpowering than i remembered and the extremeness of both the sweet and the tart were magnified, making me enjoy it a little less than i had before. it almost felt like i was drinking a kombucha! i still drank it and i think i will enjoy drinking the others in the right circumstances, but it’s not an everyday kinda brew.

later in the evening, after i’d had some food (though the taste of the gose was still on my palette a bit i have to admit), i cracked open one of the oatmeal stouts. i let it sit for a while to warm up and air out, and for my food to digest a bit more. but when i finally went in for a taste, the aroma really overwhelmed me! i’m not great at identifying smells with much specificity but it was a weird off-putting smell. someone in one of my facebook groups described it as sour or beets/vegetables, and i can’t say i disagree with that. it was definitely not what i was expecting – for an oatmeal stout i expect something more sweet or at least malty or grainy. and i couldn’t taste any of the chocolate or nuttiness i had previously with this beer. i kept drinking it thinking it would get better but it did not. the taste was tainted by the overpowering smell and i can’t say i enjoyed it all that much.

i will give it another shot perhaps with a clean palette and a glass that i don’t have to stick my nose down into to drink. (i was dog sitting so had to use the glassware on hand instead of a regular pint glass, which i usually use.) and maybe i just have to accept more inconsistency with batches of the non-alcoholic brews, because without alcohol as a preservative, i imagine it’s much harder to keep things consistent. i dunno. i’ll report back next time i try it. but i’m pretty bummed since i still have 7 of these to get through.

lesson learned, i guess.