Tag Archives: surreal

wellbeing hellraiser amber + surreal brewing 17 mile porter

i have a habit of compulsively checking the total wine app for non-alcoholic beer at my local metairie store, to see if they have added anything new, and yesterday i saw surreal brewing’s 17 mile porter and a few other new things pop up so i decided it was time to trek out to the burbs again to check it out. (i hadn’t been out there in many weeks.)

and sure enough, they did have the 17 mile porter in stock. the other things i’d seen on their app with “limited quantities” – ceria grainwave and wellbeing victory wheat, both beers i like a lot and would have bought – were not there and there wasn’t even a shelf tag for either of them so i realized those were probably just errors on the website. but i was able to snag a single of the 17 mile porter to test it out and picked up a 6 pack of wellbeing’s hellraiser amber, one of my favorites that i was out of at home, so it wasn’t a wasted trip at all.

(pic below is from last night after they’d gotten cold enough to enjoy. i think i realized it is probably my most “perfect” NA beer i’ve tried so far, the one that most closely mimics the experience of drinking an alcoholic beer and like those i enjoy drinking, as ambers are usually my favorite. i really wish i could go out to a bar and drink this somewhere in new orleans. so good!)

i also finally met the assistant manager of that total wine store who happens to be the NA beer buyer and was able to ask her to order ceria’s beers as well as a few other things. she gave me her card so i later emailed her a much longer list of craft NA brews i really want to try and that i’ve seen being carried at other total wine stores around the country. we’ll see if she can get any of them, as distribution down here really sucks for craft NA beer. but she seemed happy to look them up and try so i’m hopeful.

i am at my pet sit for the weekend and am just now cracking the 17 mile porter open while i enjoy some netflix with the pets. i didn’t really have high hopes for this one as i recognize (and from prior experience with their beers) that surreal is one of the “diet” NA beer companies, like partake and grüvi – their beers tend to be lighter, thinner and have much lower calorie and carb content than many of the other NA breweries. not that that is necessarily a bad thing, and i have liked some of those breweries’ beers, but i’m finding for my own palate, i prefer a fuller body and flavor experience than what i’ve tasted from them so far. but lots of folks in my NA beer facebook groups have raved about the 17 mile porter and i don’t have a lot of darker beers in my regular rotation so i was interested to try it.

it pours a very dark brown with a pretty good tan-colored head, though that dissipates fairly quickly. the first aroma i get is dark chocolate and a roasty nuttiness and a little coffee. it is as i suspected fairly thin but has a good mouthfeel nonetheless, due to tight uniform carbination. sadly i don’t taste as much of the chocolate and roastiness that i smelled. flavor is fairly subtle but it does go down easily with a dry finish. for 50 calories and 10g carbs, i’d say it’s pretty good. i like it a little better than grüvi‘s stout though i can’t quite put my finger on why. but they are definitely in the same general ballpark. i like this fine but probably won’t buy it again.

i think my search for my go-to dark beer continues. so far athletic’s all out stout is probably the one i like the most, in terms of non-coffee darks. there are several more on my wishlist to try though, so i’m holding out hope that the perfect NA dark beer for me exists.

current faves

yes this is my fridge!

i’ve been doing this NA beer thing since november so have drunk a LOT of it by now – 33 different kinds, to be exact! (good thing NAs tend to have a lot fewer calories/carbs than regular beer!)

i thought maybe a top 10 list was in order. i am finding that my opinion of some of these brews changes over time and upon repeated consumption, perhaps differing greatly from my first impression. i’m making this list for my own purposes, to refer to when restocking once i drink through all that i already have. and of course, there’s still so much i have NOT sampled – this is just a “faves so far” list.

i’m offering these in no particular order. i like different beers for different reasons at different times and though i might really LOVE a particular beer, it might not be the style that i want to drink a lot of or often. or conversely, the beer i grab most often might not be the one i think is the absolute best beer, it’s just the easiest to drink or the one that fits more moods/situations. for right now, from all i have tasted, this would be my top 10:

  • rightside – citrus wheat
  • athletic – trailblazer (hoppy lager)
  • bravus – oatmeal stout
  • wellbeing – hellraiser dark amber
  • ceria – grainwave (belgian white)
  • athletic – all out stout
  • partake – pale
  • athletic – irish red
  • athletic – upside dawn (golden ale)
  • bravus – peanut butter stout

we’ll see how these hold up over time. i mean, the trailblazer and irish red are not always available, so that might limit my ability to keep drinking them. and i might break down and order some samples from some of the breweries i’ve yet to try, so next list might be totally different.

here’s my top current wants that i haven’t tried yet:

  • big drop – galactic extra dark (stout)
  • barrel brothers – dark sarcasm (porter)
  • untitled art – stout
  • deschutes – irish dark (they only ship to OR and DC so i won’t get this anytime soon but i still want to try it.)
  • surreal – 17 mile porter/pastry porter

there are a few others on the want list as new NAs keep appearing in the wild, but i’m pretty happy with what i’ve been able to sample so far. i sure hope when things return to more “normal” times that i can find some of this deliciousness on local bar/restaurant menus so i can stop stockpiling them at home – i only feel compelled to do so since they are all so hard to find. or maybe one (or more) of my local craft breweries will jump into the NA game. a girl can dream!

first batch of singles!

copied over from my instagram:

well my tasting adventure with the nine new single NA beers that i got yesterday started off rather disappointingly last night. during my weekly friday night zoom happy hour i decided to randomly pick a few of my new stash to try.

first was the hairless dog black ale. i’ve seen a lot of bad reviews but i wanted to try it for myself because i’ll never learn what i like and what i don’t like if i don’t sample things. but apparently all those people who hated on this brew were right! this was gross and i think the wording i used while drinking it was “garbage water.” 😂 it had a really pungent overpowering foul smell that was not in anyway enticing and sadly the taste was not much better. i had a few sips and let it sit for a while, and then came back to it but it was still bad. i couldn’t drink it so i poured that one out. (80 calories, no yeast used, basically an unfermented wort, if i’m understanding the criticisms i’m reading about it.)

next i figured i would try the surreal brewing kolsch, thinking it would be a good palate cleanser. i had read some good reviews and the brewery definitely has its fans in the facebook groups i’m in. it has an interesting but strange nose to it, some kind of subtle fruit smell. it says honeydew melon on the can but i’m not sure that’s what i was smelling. it’s not offensive but a little weird. good mouthfeel, it felt like i had a real beer in my mouth, but sadly the taste was just sort of not there. like not much taste at all. i felt like i was drinking air. i ended up drinking that one and it was fine but i’m not sure i really want another. but i guess if you are a fan of really light beer, maybe you would like this. (17 calories!!! and there is yeast in this one though i’m not exactly sure of their process.)

after that one i was really hoping partake brewing’s stout would end my evening on a high note. wah-wah. this canadian brewery has a lot of fans in the groups i’m in and maybe i was just primed for disappointment but this one didn’t work for me either. thin and fairly flat in carbonation. wasn’t offensive but as the third attempt in the evening to have a satisfying brew, it just did not deliver what i was looking for. i don’t even remember now what the flavor profile was but it was enough to make me pour it out. i would maybe give this one another try another time but definitely without much expectation. this one has 30 calories and also does use yeast.

so it was an unsatisfying evening all around. three down, six to go. hopefully some of the others are better. but at least now i know!