Beer Report

I have a friend (http://www.barenada.com/) who in his blog has a regularly recurring post, his Friday Beer Report. He tells of his evening(s) but mentions the beers he drank, with special notes or reviews on new beers.

So in parody--er, homage--I post the following.

With my condition I was left with few options in the beer world, and knowing this I narrowed my choices down by country, figuring surely a German non-alcoholic beer would be better than any where else, since German's have an old history of pilners and lagers, which is the style of all the non-alcoholics I've ever seen.

Clausthaler
Although labeled a non-alcoholic, it does contain (like pretty much all non-alcoholic beers) some alcohol, this one ringing it at a fairly high o.5 percent. However, this was still too little alcohol to prevent it spoiling. It tasted precisely like an Old Milwaukee with hints of skunkiness.

For those who know me, you understand that although I've drank many ounces of many types of many beers from many countries, I've never tried any of the 'non-alcoholics' before. But, I'm preggers, and was in my favorite beer-drinking spot. To perfect the irony, Rich-o's was in the middle of its annual Gravity Head festival (high gravity gives high alcohol for those who've not enjoyed this festival before.)

I plan next time I try such a beer to try an O'douls Amber, in hopes the caramel coloring will give it a hint of hoppiness.

It all reminds me of something that happened a couple of years ago. I worked with an Irishman named Bill, who'd been in America for about 4 years at that time. We were at work and he was stuck in line behind me at the computer where we enter orders.
"Hurry up, there." He teases me while poking me in the back.
"Hey, gimme a break!" I yell still scanning the menus on-screen, "I've never entered this thing before."
"What are you looking for?" He asks, willing to help.
"O'douls."
"what the bloody hell is that?"
"It's a non-alcoholic beer." I answer.
"What?" he says completely incredulous.
"Yeah, some American non-alcoholic beer called O'douls." I repeat. "Ah, here it is." I finish up and send the order to the bar.
Bill rushes over to the bar and picks up the bottle as the bartender sends it over. He looks at it closely, trying to believe what he's seeing.
I finally take it to put it on my tray, but Bill turns to face me with an expression I'd never seen on his face before. It was a mix of disgust, disbelief, and definitely insulted indignance.
"They make a NON-ALCOHOLIC beer? And name it O'DOULS! I tell you NO Irishman would ever make such a thing!"

I still laugh about this. He didn't like the idea of run of the mill American swill, and even less taking the one thing away that gave it any value, the alcohol, but putting an Irish name on it was a personal--nay, a national--insult tantamount to a call to war.

Ah, I miss working with my favorite angry Irishman.