Europe’s first-ever dedicated non-alcoholic craft beer festival has kicked off in Warsaw, placing Poland on the frontier of the fast-growing alcohol-free beer market while also spotlighting the nation’s wider shift towards mindful drinking.
Cool. Given that no level of alcohol consumption is safe for our health, this seems like a meaningful step.
I feel the English language is in need of an update; while the article does mention NoLo Beers to describe the beers of festival, the two most used words in English are alcohol-free and non-alcoholic - both suggest all these drinks belong to only one category: the 0.0000% category. De-alcoholized drinks are never entirely free of alcohol. This festival celebrates both, which I am totally fine with; so this is not a comment about one being good and the other being bad - this is a comment to vent my dislike the fact that English language lacks a word for ‘(very) low in alcohol <0.5%’ and just uses the (imo false) words that already exists for products that never had any alcohol in it. Imo alcohol-free / non-alcoholic drinks are soda’s, not de-alcoholized beer, wine, etc.
I think it’s generally pretty well understood that they contain a small amount, like decaf coffee. But perhaps non-intoxicating would be a good label.
Decaf is quite a good example. If you order decafinated coffee, the menu doesn’t say non-cafenic or cafeine-free.
The problem isn’t with the words for alcohol-free beer, or non-alocholic but for the ‘containing a little bit of alchohol’. It doesn’t matter to everyone, but for people who don’t drink for religious or (mental-) health reasons they do care. And often the label says it, that’s not the problem. The problem is they’re both described (in English) by the same word, while they’re not the same thing to those people.
Also in my county I notice a significant shift away from alcohol. In 10 or 20 years, I expect it will be viewed similarly to smoking today. An unhealthy habit from a time when people didn’t know better
The world is losing its fun. 😔
No more cigarettes, no more substances, I can’t even name them without being afraid, no more alcohol, no more dancing cuz we’re getting recorded, no more casual hook ups, no more socialising. Only rotting in bed on short video formats. I feel alien sometimes striking up a zippo to light a cigarette.
It was noticed that fights didn’t break out anywhere!
I hate beer, so with non-alcoholic beer, I just don’t see the point at all. Tastes like crap, and doesn’t even give you a little buzz. 😅
Do you like non-sweet cold drinks that are not water? Non-alcoholic beers tend to be the only option in that regard (and even then most are too malty for my taste).
I can’t think of many non-sweet cold drinks that aren’t water lol. Maybe ice tea? I like that. But I never drink that tbh. I mostly like refreshing fruity beverages like juices and lemonade and stuff like that. I do like alcohol-free ginger beer, that’s nice.
On occasion, must, as well.
If I go American, root beer and cream soda are probably my two that I can drink from that region. 😅 But those are obviously sweet.
Yeah self-made iced tea (industrial iced tea is usually chockfull of sugar) is great, too, but is not as readily available as a bottled drink unfortunately. A sugary drink on a hot day just makes me feel more dehydrated than before.
Corona Cero might be my favourite. Non-Cero is already a rather light corn beer, but Cero is the perfect summer drink.
Wish I could go. Most NA’s served in the US are basically budweiser. Boring, flavorless, thin. I know alcohol removal plays sole part in that, but I have genuinely had some very good NA’s. Unfortunatley they’re the exception. Overseas have very good NA choices. I’ve had draft German NA beer that I pertty much could not tell the difference between it and normal beer. Perfect for a hot day after hiking around. Spain has some really good ones too. The US? It’s mostly all Athletic brand stuff which has nothing distinctive about it, or crappy sweet stuff like Odoul’s.
“Mindful drinking” is no drinking
This kind of black-and-white thinking is holding back so much positive change in the world.
Yes, any amount of alcohol is worse for your health than none, but being mindful of your consumption is still better than getting plastered every weekend.Nope. This is just straight evidence.
I do drink alcohol. But the healthiest thing is to drink no alcohol at all. (German Article)
Not 1 glass of wine a day. Not half a beer. Thr healthiest is none at all.
Yes, but at some point people can fuck off.
We live in a world where a lot of very useful medicine is bad because of the bullshit idea that they’re evil addictive drugs, where cannabis is shown as so terrifying and a marker of criminality, where rich people casually consume cocaine on a regular basis, where cigarette is literally killing people for money, and where alcohol is basically the biggest avoidable cause of death.
I’m sick of having to pretend like people are tiny stupid babies that are going to cry if I don’t let them put their fingers in the electrical socket.
Alcohol is a big problem, is extremely costly for society, kills people (and not just the ones that drink it), and supports an immoral industry that fuels a lot of shitty people.
Yes, drinking less is better than drinking more. But at some point, enough is enough. I was basically forced socially to drink alcohol until I grew enough will to accept the “shame” of not drinking, because society is extremely heavily in favour of alcoholism. I don’t see why it’s fine for alcoholics to pressure others into drinking, but pressuring people into not drinking is too harsh and needs to be done progressively.
Also, it’s not like this progressive “grey” thinking has been doing much, since alcohol and cigarettes have been known to he 100% harmful with no real benefit for decades and decades, and yet are still here. What is the end goal, to stop these 200 years after we know for sure that they’re bad?
So yeah, rant aside, I get your point, but I think it’s the kind of soft thinking that keeps us in this same situation. A bit like with politics, when you try to be a centrist in a context where the dominant side is immoral and actively trying to self-propagate, you just end up playing for their side unknowingly.
I see your post doesn’t attract a positive like-ratio but let me just say to you as an ex-alcoholic, I really like your choice of words and it was a good read.
