Tag Archives: wellbeing

settling in with my NA beer choices

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i haven’t much felt like sampling new beers lately. i still have a few from that last delivery from NAbrews that i haven’t gotten to (the raspberry limbo from mikkeller and brew dog’s wake up call), but most of the time when i open the fridge to grab a beer, i find myself just wanting the ones i already know i love. so after about six months of intense NA beer sampling my rotation has come down to this short list at the moment, in no particular order:

i do really enjoy dark beers but so far i have to admit to not really being satisfied with many of the NA options i’ve tried. many of them are ok, not awful, but i don’t find myself craving them in the same way that i do the lighter and brighter beers. i think they just don’t hit the same “i’m drinking a beer” feeling that the lighter NA brews do – many of them just make me feel like i’m drinking a sweet malty chocolate soda. maybe there’s a dark NA out there for me yet but for now, especially since it is summer, i’m happy with the lighter options i’ve got. and at least athletic’s upside dawn, ceria’s grainwave, and wellbeing’s amber can be bought locally at total wine so i don’t have to wait a week to have it shipped if i run out.

(i did join the athletic subscription club and have received a few monthly shipments but am re-evaluating that since i mostly want upside dawn and it’s cheaper locally. but since i can pause my membership, i will do that for a little while until i see if it’s worth it to get the cerveza or other limited run beers occasionally.)

there are still many brews i haven’t sampled yet that i’m interested in trying but i’m not going out of my way to find them now and i’m definitely not paying crazy money to get them delivered anymore, including:

if any of these should find their way to me or for some reason go on some kinda great sale i can’t refuse, then maybe. but until then i will be happy keeping my faves stocked at home and might even try an alcoholic beer sometime soon to see how it makes me feel. i don’t envision ever keeping real beer in my fridge anymore but would like to feel like i can have one or two occasionally out with friends. though honestly, if athletic or one of my other NA faves was available at bars or restaurants locally, i probably wouldn’t ever drink alcoholic beer again.

all this being said, i should mention that i did sample the heineken 0.0 last week. i figured since it was likely to be one of the only options on bar/restaurant menus locally, i should know what it tastes like and if it could work for me in a pinch. but sadly, it was awful and i could only drink a few mouthfuls before pouring it out. the first whiff took me back to my childhood, to smelling my dad’s and uncle’s cans of some kinda shit beer i can’t remember. it was slightly sweet and malty but just really unappealing to me, in the same way that penn’s best was. i never liked regular heineken so this isn’t surprising to me but i do like to try to keep an open mind about the macros. but so far i haven’t found one i can make due with. i guess i’m just a craft beer snob at heart.

wellbeing hellraiser amber + surreal brewing 17 mile porter

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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

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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!

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.

wellbeing brewing – intrepid traveler coffee cream brew

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copied over from my instagram:

tonight’s NA beer indulgence was this delicious coffee cream stout from wellbeing brewing. i drank a little bit so i’d know what it tasted like – my kinda stout, exactly as described, creamy, coffee-y, good mouthfeel – but then decided what i really wanted was dessert. so i turned it into an ice cream float, which was really delicious!

this was right before the spoon fell down into the glass, causing an eruption of foam which spilled out all over the place, wasting perfectly good beer and ice cream and making quite a mess! too bad the second one of these from the sample pack had a can defect and leaked in the packaging, making it not drinkable. (they did refund me for it, though.) will have to wait til i can procure a six pack to drink anymore. but i will definitely have this one again!

wellbeing brewing – victory citrus wheat + electrolytes

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copied over from my instagram:

my NA beer tasting from the sample pack from wellbeing brewing continues with this delightful wheat that’s billed as a “sports brew” due to some added electrolytes. but it’s DELICIOUS! light, crisp with a hint of orange. this one doesn’t quite have the mouthfeel that i’m usually looking for in a beer – it’s a bit thin. it’s kind of like if beer was a soda. something about the carbonation i can’t quite put my finger on. i can tell it’s not a real beer, but i don’t care! it hit the spot and scratches the itch that i feel when i want a beer. and it went great with my pasta dinner. i can see how this would be a great choice after a workout or playing sports. might come in handy this summer! 

wellbeing brewing – heavenly body golden wheat

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copied over from my instagram:

i had a second NA beer from my wellbeing brewing dry january sample pack – their golden wheat – and it was just as good as the first one! went down incredibly smooth and tasted like a real wheat beer! and this morning, no icky hangover feeling and my head isn’t throbbing! yay! 

(side note post script: i really love the can artwork from this brewery!)