It’s a hot summer afternoon. I’m sitting down on a hot afternoon, with a burger, and a cold beer.
What I’m looking for is something to replace that cold beer with. I want it to be crisp and fresh, but also not sweet. I love tart and bitter flavours. Unfortunately, my options are either cold and sweet, cold and alcoholic or hot and non sweet.
So threadiverse, what alternatives am I missing?
Tereré is great, but it’s a bit of a pain to source in Australia. What else is there?
Unsweetened, iced, mint tea.
Unsweet iced tea
I think Tapache might be a good idea to take a look at.
Non alcoholic beer
On the days when I’m really just hanging out for, and worked a really sweaty, dirty day on the chainsaws, I drink N/A beer. The cheapest I can find. It either hits the spot or it tastes like garbage and turns me off beer again. Either way it averts the craving and lets me stay sober. Most alcos in recovery will frown on N/A beer, but I don’t care, whatever helps me not drink alcohol is fair game.
Gaspacho? At least it is cool and savory…
If you are willing to make it yourself, kvass or ginger beer, those can be dry and sparkling. Water kefir or kombucha. All very, very low in alcohol, not intoxicating. Chinotto soda is something I buy for dry months too.
As someone else said, tonic water has a bitter edge that really hits the spot, I make a sweet non alcoholic cocktail called the Friend Zone, made with strawberry tepache (strawberry fruit kvass), lime, and tonic water, and I swear everyone thinks it’s a boozy cocktail. Too sweet for what you are looking for here but it’s certainly the tonic pulling most of the weight.
Not sure about availability or price in AU, but I like “hoplark” non alcoholic beer. Their IPAs are awesome.
My go-to social drink is a club soda with a twist of lime
It is simple, cheap and has the added benefit of sort of looking like it might be a vodka club or gin and tonic.
80% Unsweetened iced tea, 20% lemonade. Play with the ratios. (the classic Arnold Palmer is 50/50 but that’s too sweet for me.)
Have a shrub. It’s flavor infused apple cider vinegar and sparkling water. You can buy or make the vinegar and just use other flavors and sweetened for the bubbles
Tonic and Angustura on ice, with a splash of lemon. I put a dab of sugar sometimes.
Tonic water is your friend. Works for both low-alcohol options (bitters, preferably citrus bitters but you can experiment) and boozy ones (G&Ts are obviously a classic, whiskey tonics are pretty nice sometimes, herbal liqueurs work very well, etc.)
Often when I’m out and want another drink, but don’t want to keep drinking, plain tonic water is the preferred choice recently. I got 99 problems, but malaria ain’t one 😎.
Beyond that, you can look into the wild world of drinking shrubs.. Haven’t been arsed to try it yet but I like the concept.
Ginger soda. You can use a ginger bug to ferment soda. You can add flavors to make different varieties or you can just do the ginger base.
Its refreshing and good for you. Does have like up to a half percent alcohol… But nothing that will be inebriating.
Rye kvass, Kombucha
I don’t understand what you mean by “not beer”.
