When did people stop being drunk all the time?

Re:When did people stop being drunk all the time? by aftoprokrustes on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @02:59AM (#36873994)

Actually, my impression is that the main driver of that "alcohol free beer taste" is the absence of the taste of alcohol. I kind of want to test this hypthesis by adding pure alcohol to an alcohol free beer, but pure alcohol is not really something you find in the supermarket. Germany has a non-alcoholic drink called "Malzbier" (malt beer), which is basically the liquid you would ferment to make beer. It is _insanely_ sweet. So I would expect that a lightly fermented beer would be much closer to a sweet drink than to what we expect under the name "beer".

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Re:When did people stop being drunk all the time? by avar on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @03:51AM (#36874359)

I have an experiment for you, pour e.g. a 0.5L Erdinger Weißen upside down and observe the resulting mess, then do the same with the 0.5% version of the same beer.

There's much less foam in low alcohol beers, so it's not just the alcohol content (unless that affect it directly in some way I don't know about).

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Re:When did people stop being drunk all the time? by aftoprokrustes on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @03:57AM (#36874425)

As far as I understand a Hefeweizen is put into the bottle with live yeast, which continue the fermentation and create the characteristic thick foam. So indeed, in that case, you cannot have that effect without alcoholic fermentation.

But I am more of a Pilsener guy, and there are a few good alcohol free Pils which I am convinced would taste like the "real deal" with the added taste of alcohol.

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Re:When did people stop being drunk all the time? by OkayPhysicist on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @01:39PM (#36881662)

All beer, historically, was bottled with live yeast. That's how you got the carbonation. Some times we cheat today.

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Re:When did people stop being drunk all the time? by ouchjars on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @07:10AM (#36875731)

Alcohol does change the surface tension so foaming will be different. Ever seen a security guard shake someone's water bottle to check if it's really water?

The thing that makes beer foam stay there is the protein content. Yeast contributes some, but it's also in the grain. The foam should be less different if you compared something filtered like Heineken and Heineken 0.0.

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Re:When did people stop being drunk all the time? by brewdad on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @04:04AM (#36874473)

I can buy grain alcohol that’s 95% pure alcohol at my local liquor store. It might be kept behind the counter where I have to ask for it, but it is available.

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Re:When did people stop being drunk all the time? by rrrrrrrrrrrryan on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @01:13PM (#36881198)

Grain alcohol is illegal in many states. California restricts alcohol to 60%, for example, so you won't be able to find it in any corporate place, though you can occasionally luck out and find a bottle in a small liquor store that doesn't mind selling pseudo-legal things.

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Re:When did people stop being drunk all the time? by fsckboy on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @04:10AM (#36874522)

> So I would expect that a lightly fermented beer would be much closer to a sweet drink than to what we expect under the name "beer"

this is not a good expectation. Yeast will consume all available sugar till the alcohol %age gets too high for them (depends on the yeast but even the hardiest cultured strains poop out at around 16%. But they can only consume what sugar is in there, so if you ferment starting with something with little sugar, it will not arrive at a high alcohol level.

Our ancestors did not have access to lots of sugar, even their fruits (therefore juices) were less sweet.

to your point about insanely sweet starter, wine grapes are also insanely sweet, so sweet we don't want to eat them. Table grapes like you buy at the grocery, sweet as they are, are much less sweet than wine grapes. So, starting from the ultra sweet grapejuice, average wine gets to 12% alcohol.

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Re:When did people stop being drunk all the time? by gniv on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @04:10AM (#36874528)

> Actually, my impression is that the main driver of that "alcohol free beer taste" is the absence of the taste of alcohol.

I think it depends on the style. For hoppy ales Athletic Brewing in the US makes really good beers, you can hardly tell there is no alcohol. As far as I heard they don't really remove alcohol, but I don't know how they brew it. (Might be a secret process.)

Regarding German beers, this is also what I find near me now, and they are all decent, but you can definitely tell they don't have alcohol.

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Re:When did people stop being drunk all the time? by matwood on Wednesday July 26, 2023 @07:15AM (#36875782)

Athletic brewing is easily the best non-alcoholic beer I've had. They have less than .5% alcohol which makes me wonder if that little bit helps keeps the flavor profile correct.

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