Latest / Brew Tox with Scott & Scott / Episode 6: Alcohol Free vs. Non-Alcoholic — What’s the Difference?
Transcript
- 0:10Welcome to Brutons with Scott Scott.
- 0:13Bruto X lake detox only taste you.
- 0:17I'm Bill Scott. And I'm Scott Smithson.
- 0:20And this is a podcast that celebrates alcohol free beer.
- 0:27Well, I have a question for you, our loyal listeners.
- 0:32What's the difference between alcohol free non alcoholic and
- 0:36de alcohol haze beer? That's a good question.
- 0:40If you don't know, you're not alone, and it really does
- 0:43matter. Yeah, it does matter and I think
- 0:46we have developed a bit of an understanding on the differences
- 0:50between the three. But Even so, there's still lots
- 0:54so much to learn about really. Why is 1 beer called this and
- 0:59another beer is called that? And is it the same thing or is
- 1:03it different and? Yeah.
- 1:04And we've looked at literally dozens of different alcohol free
- 1:08beers now and we've made a choice on our podcast to think
- 1:13of it as alcohol free. But there are many beers that
- 1:16are called the alcohol eyes, many others that are called non
- 1:20alcoholic, and some of them have legal ramifications.
- 1:25And we'll get into some of that. In fact, I think we talked about
- 1:27some of that. In a previous podcast, yeah, I
- 1:29think we have, yeah. Yeah.
- 1:30So I mean, what have you found out about the the readings of
- 1:35the different languaging? Well, it seems that I'm, I was
- 1:38looking at the beers that I had here and I had about a dozen
- 1:42lying around lying around in my fridge.
- 1:45And of the 12 say that I had, I had, there was only two that
- 1:51were alcohol free labeled. There was nine of them, I guess
- 1:56that were non or non alcoholic, and then one was D alcohol
- 2:02lized. So obviously, clearly it leans
- 2:05toward more towards the non alcoholic labeling for a lot of
- 2:09beers. Every single one of those should
- 2:13point out was the, you know, ABV alcohol by volume percentage of
- 2:190.5, right? All of those were yeah.
- 2:22Whereas the alcohol free ones, the two that I had were both
- 2:26were labeled as 0.0 alcohol. So.
- 2:30But that's not necessarily a hard and fast rule.
- 2:32No, and in fact it differs from various jurisdictions.
- 2:36If you go to Europe, as we've discussed in the past, you know
- 2:41it has to be 0.0 to be an alcohol free beer.
- 2:45I thought, I thought that too, but then I looked into it a
- 2:49little bit more and even there it there's confusion.
- 2:53Yeah, it's certain countries. The Netherlands was one in
- 2:56particular. So Netherlands, home of
- 2:58Heineken. Yeah, right.
- 3:00Dutch. So they're, they're very strict
- 3:03about their alcohol free labeling.
- 3:06It has to be 0.1 or less. So that's like that's
- 3:11negligible. That's like no alcohol pretty
- 3:13much. That's a little bit of alcohol
- 3:15vapor in the lines kind of thing.
- 3:16Yeah. And where's, whereas in Germany
- 3:19it's 0.5, but they can label those as alcohol free in
- 3:23Germany. OK.
- 3:24So and of course in Europe, you know, there's free market,
- 3:28people buy, you know, Italian wine in France and Spanish wine
- 3:32in Germany, etcetera. Right.
- 3:33It's all over the place. Yeah, I guess people in
- 3:36Netherlands get kind of upset when they have this alcohol free
- 3:39beer that's actually 0.5 and they're and the Brewers there
- 3:42saying hang on a SEC, why are we under these strict rules and yet
- 3:46you can bring that beer in and it's not really alcohol free
- 3:49according to us. So that's that's there so.
- 3:52And, and to be fair, most of the Canadian beers, in fact, I can't
- 3:56think of a single one I've tried so far that hasn't been 0.5.
- 4:00Yeah, yeah. And yet there are thought of as,
- 4:04as you know, non alcoholic or the alcohol used.
- 4:07I don't know if any of them have been.
- 4:09Have you seen any of them that have been called alcohol?
- 4:11Free or alcohol free? Yeah, yeah, no, if any of them
- 4:15had alcohol. Free, I don't think so.
- 4:17I think it's it's almost always the alcohol free ones seem to be
- 4:22foreign beers like non Canadian ones and not even North American
- 4:25beers like like European beers or Japanese beers.
- 4:29Right, will be alcohol free. Yeah, de alcoholic sized.
- 4:33I've I've only seen one and I just recently saw that when I
- 4:37was up in Penticton. That was a D alcohol lized 1.
- 4:41So yeah, definitely or non alcoholic.
- 4:45Is it? It's it's funny though, because
- 4:48like you had mentioned Bill, we chose to kind of go with the
- 4:51term alcohol free. Yeah, yeah, I do think
- 4:54languaging has an important piece to all of this.
- 4:57I mean, you know, if you have a de alcoholic sized beer, it's,
- 5:02you know, you've taken something out of it, right?
- 5:04Yeah, it feels like you're missing something.
- 5:07Whereas with alcohol free beer, my perception of it anyway is
- 5:12that we're making a choice to move towards something, moving
- 5:16towards a beer that is healthy, healthier, you know, definitely
- 5:22more in keeping with, you know, Wellness and mindfulness and and
- 5:27all of those kinds of factors that are becoming more and more
- 5:29mainstream. I don't know too many people in
- 5:31our generation who aren't aware of, you know, the fact that they
- 5:36need to do certain things in order to stay, you know, healthy
- 5:39in their older age, Right? Yeah.
- 5:41So they yeah, they alcohol free part of it kind of lends itself
- 5:46to that way of thinking versus the non alcoholic beer similar
- 5:51to D alcoholic sized. Yeah, not it's it's not
- 5:56something it's not alcohol. So it's kind of like, I mean, I,
- 6:01I know it seems almost like, come on, you know, potatoes,
- 6:04patatas type thing, right, tomatoes.
- 6:06Yeah, some semantics. To it a little bit, but I think
- 6:09it is important. I don't know if there's a legal
- 6:12reason I have look that one up, whether in Canada you can call
- 6:17it alcohol free. Yeah, in their marketing,
- 6:20marketing will come out and they will talk about things being
- 6:23alcohol free, athletic brewing from the States.
- 6:26And we had one of those, you know, a non-alcoholic brewery,
- 6:30you know, there's are labeled non alcoholic, yet they're
- 6:33marketing talks about alcohol free.
- 6:34Yeah. So it's kind of like, hmm, what
- 6:37is it? Well, and I think part of it
- 6:39comes down to the legal definition too, right?
- 6:41You can get away with a lot more in marketing than you can when
- 6:45you're labeling things too. So, yeah, I mean that is one of
- 6:49the key elements relative to what people call things is that
- 6:54there are some legal ramifications relative to the
- 6:58amount of alcohol that can appear in an alcohol free beer,
- 7:02for instance. Yeah.
- 7:03So I mean, I think that's something that we want to kind
- 7:06of do a little more kind of digging into and perhaps share
- 7:10what we find with the listeners. Too.
- 7:12I'm wondering if it's also, you know, akin to where on labels
- 7:17they have to say may contain nuts or may contain milk.
- 7:20You know, it probably doesn't, but it's in a facility where
- 7:24they also make peanuts or whatever the the product is that
- 7:27we're eating. Like the, like the dill pickle
- 7:29pretzels we have on the side here.
- 7:31Yeah. Which are very good, by the way.
- 7:33Get them at Costco. Yeah, so like, you know, does it
- 7:36say may contain nuts, may contain milk.
- 7:39So maybe the alcohol, the non alcoholic beer, I can't use it
- 7:45non alcoholic beer. Do they have a 0.5?
- 7:48Does it actually have probably doesn't have 0.5% alcohol in it,
- 7:52But do they have to set piece because it's made in a facility
- 7:55that shares a facility with alcohol?
- 7:57Yeah. Maybe, I don't know.
- 7:59Probably does. You know the other, the other
- 8:02piece of this is I think that marketing evolves, right.
- 8:05I mean they've evolved with consumer taste.
- 8:07They evolve with what it is that they perceive the market to be
- 8:12looking for. And I think that, you know,
- 8:14there you were getting past that kind of near beer stigma, you
- 8:17know? Like Oh yeah, for sure.
- 8:19And, and you and I have talked about this in the past where
- 8:21we've had friends who, you know, we've sat down and we've been a
- 8:25little bit, you know, kind of anxious about what they would
- 8:27think about us having a alcohol free beer as opposed to regular
- 8:32beer. And, and we've been pleasantly
- 8:34surprised. That, yeah, we have been.
- 8:36It's not been a big deal. I mean, you know, if that's what
- 8:39you want to drink, go ahead and drink it.
- 8:40And I think that that's something that really has come
- 8:43up in the last little bit now. I mean, it's one of those cart
- 8:46or horse kind of things. Did you know the marketing
- 8:50change because the beer got better, or did the beer get
- 8:53better because of the marketing? Yeah, exactly.
- 8:55Right. Yeah.
- 8:56But I mean, that's that's one way to look at some of the
- 9:00evolution, if you will, because you really are looking at a lot
- 9:05of people seeing alcohol free beers as being part of their
- 9:08Wellness. Plan totally.
- 9:10Yeah, the whole the whole idea of what I'm going to, I'm going
- 9:13to switch it out. I'm going to have maybe I'll
- 9:15have a beer, a regular beer or a regular drink and then I'll have
- 9:18a non alcoholic one. Yeah, I just did that last
- 9:21night. Dorothy and I went out for
- 9:23dinner and I had a Caesar to start, right with alcohol in it,
- 9:28which I kind of like a Caesar if I go out.
- 9:30And then as a follow up, I had a alcohol free Heineken, right,
- 9:34which it was just normal. Like it didn't seem strange.
- 9:37It was just, well, you. Know, I mean, that is part of it
- 9:40too, right? I mean, if you go out for an
- 9:42evening for dinner and I know you guys went away from where
- 9:45you live and so now you have to drive home.
- 9:47And you know, not too long ago you would drive home after
- 9:52having a couple of glasses of wine with dinner or you know,
- 9:55God forbid more. But you know, now there's
- 9:59definitely a stronger sense that that's not OK yes.
- 10:03And as a result, if you want to have that kind of the flavor
- 10:08little beer, but you don't want the alcohol, I mean it makes
- 10:11sense to go and look for an alcohol free.
- 10:13Beer. Yeah, exactly.
- 10:14Well, all this talk of beer and it's making me think that we
- 10:19probably. Are getting thirsty.
- 10:20Need to have to have a drink to go with to go with these
- 10:23pretzels again just to mention them.
- 10:26OK, so I'll go. I've got a good one here.
- 10:29OK, I have a an alcohol free one, one of the two alcohol free
- 10:37beers that I had. OK, so should I get that?
- 10:40Yeah, OK. You're going to tell me which
- 10:43one it is, right? Yeah, I will tell you that.
- 10:45Here we go. So why don't you read that one
- 10:49while I get a couple frosty glasses?
- 10:52Of course we. Can't have a beer without frosty
- 10:54glasses. OK so this is Sapporo and as you
- 10:58all know Sapporo makes a very fine beer and this is they call
- 11:03it their alcohol free Sapporo Premium.
- 11:06It's 0.0. It comes in a 12 ounce can and
- 11:12it has 60 calories. And one of the things that Scott
- 11:17and I've discovered is that alcohol free beers have a lot
- 11:21less calories in them. Normally you would see this at
- 11:24about maybe 1/3 of what a regular kind of brewery would
- 11:28put a Bureau. That's probably Sapporo's.
- 11:30Regular 1 is probably closer to 170 or 180, something like that.
- 11:35Well, so so. Oh wait, you know we missed.
- 11:38We missed a dad joke. I had one all lined up and
- 11:41everything OK. Alright, OK.
- 11:43Here we go. I was hoping.
- 11:44You were you. I was.
- 11:45OK this time. OK, so what's the best kind of
- 11:49humor to use when you're having an alcohol free drink?
- 11:54I'm. Afraid to ask, but what is the
- 11:57best kind of humor to use when you're having an alcohol free
- 12:00drink? A.
- 12:00Little dry wit. With that, let's put this beer,
- 12:06OK? Oh I love the sound of the
- 12:10sounds. Good.
- 12:11Alright. OK, so we've got a little
- 12:13glasses. These are these are like flight
- 12:16glasses, Yeah. But they're nice and frosty.
- 12:19They are nice. And Frosty, look at the.
- 12:21Hell on there. Yeah, it's.
- 12:21Pretty good, huh? Yeah.
- 12:23And like supporto, it's very light beer.
- 12:27Yeah, very, very, almost yellow. Yeah, yeah.
- 12:30Just gonna. Say golden, golden colour.
- 12:33OK, looks. Yeah, OK, Cheers.
- 12:35Cheers. And we'll.
- 12:36Try this out here see what? It's like OK.
- 12:39You don't? Yeah.
- 12:42It's so funny. Temperature plays such a huge
- 12:45role in beer. You know, if if I just taken get
- 12:49out of the cupboard and we poured it in, just regular
- 12:52glasses would be going, oh, God knows this stuff.
- 12:55Yeah, right. But you have it cold.
- 12:57You have it in a cold glass. Yeah.
- 12:59You know, even. Oh, duels might be good.
- 13:02Yeah. Right.
- 13:03Well, let's. Yeah, let's not, OK?
- 13:06Well, it's a very nice beer to the the head comes down pretty
- 13:12quickly. It does.
- 13:13Yeah, and that's. True of most of the alcohol free
- 13:15beers, yeah. That we've had, yeah.
- 13:17Is it because the head on an alcohol free beer is carbonated
- 13:23like because of it's got CO2 in it so they artificially make the
- 13:28head of the beer versus an alcohol regular beer has the has
- 13:33the head on it for a different reason?
- 13:35Yeah, I'm not sure. Yeah, that's a.
- 13:37Really good question. I mean, when we, when we get a
- 13:40brewmaster on here and we have one coming up in the next little
- 13:43while, there are some of the things I want to ask about
- 13:46because I am curious about, you know, because it does pour with
- 13:51the head and then it goes down pretty quickly.
- 13:53I mean, we've only been drinking this for less than a minute, I
- 13:56would think. And we're both, you know,
- 13:58there's no head left on it at all.
- 14:00And I'm thinking if it was a regular support there would be
- 14:04head left on it I think. Even though Sapporo is a
- 14:07relatively late like beer, but this one is really quite.
- 14:12Funny, had tasted 2 beers side by side and we've done that a
- 14:17couple times, you know, with the Budweiser, we've done that.
- 14:21I did it with my parents, with the Canadians.
- 14:23Right. Or that was the Molson.
- 14:25Sorry. You know, I'm drinking this and
- 14:27I'm thinking I think it tastes just like a Sapporo, like a
- 14:30regular Sapporo, but I don't have the alcohol version right
- 14:33beside me. So I'm thinking maybe it doesn't
- 14:36because it doesn't have sort of that that harshness that I find
- 14:42when I drink a lager. Yeah, that this is a lager,
- 14:45right? I would, yeah.
- 14:46Yeah. Yeah.
- 14:46I mean that's pretty scores, but the interesting thing is the
- 14:50cans been open for a while. Can you poured that and you got
- 14:54a little bit ahead again still? A little bit, yeah.
- 14:57What I what I find interesting about this is that there's not a
- 15:00lot of, you know, after, you know, how beer can hang around
- 15:03for awhile And this one, you know, I mean, there's a bit of
- 15:07that, but not anywhere near as much as I would have expected.
- 15:11That's for. Sure.
- 15:12This isn't the first time I've had this because I bought it,
- 15:15did buy a six pack of this and I think, I think I've got a couple
- 15:19in the fridge. So I have had a couple and I
- 15:22didn't like them as much before. Right now I I poured the whole
- 15:26thing into a larger glass. So maybe by the time I got near
- 15:31the bottom it had kind of warmed up again a bit.
- 15:34I don't know. And I didn't, I found myself not
- 15:36enjoying it as much as I have been enjoying.
- 15:40Non alcoholic once. Yeah.
- 15:41Lately, Yeah. Or alcohol free.
- 15:43See there, there I go. Back and forth.
- 15:44Yeah. Absolutely right I'm.
- 15:46Jumping back and forth between the. 2 terminals.
- 15:48Between the two terms, yeah, yeah.
- 15:50So I don't know what would you think on our rating scale?
- 15:55Yeah. I mean, I'm also, as you know,
- 15:57I'm a big fan of more complex beers.
- 15:59Yeah, and this one's a pretty straightforward kind of lugger,
- 16:03ish. Not.
- 16:04Much to it. No, it's just.
- 16:07Yeah, it's a beer, you know, I mean.
- 16:09I think the interesting thing is, is Cindy often says to me
- 16:12that many of these alcohol free beers are really good summer
- 16:16beer right getting out on the. Pad, right?
- 16:18Yeah. And I.
- 16:20Can see that with this support as well.
- 16:23I would say on our scale, it's probably one that I would
- 16:26definitely would drink it, but I'm not necessarily going to go
- 16:29out and pick it over some others.
- 16:31If I wanted an alcohol free beer and and my choices were limited,
- 16:36I would definitely get it, yes. So that sounds like a three on
- 16:39our scale, right? I.
- 16:41Would agree. Yeah, I think so too.
- 16:42Like it's fine. I've got, like I said, I think I
- 16:46have another one in the fridge. I'll drink it, but I probably, I
- 16:51probably wouldn't go and buy another just because of because
- 16:54the options are growing. There's a lot more out there
- 16:57that you can that you can get now, interestingly.
- 17:00Enough I have 1:00 left in my fridge because I too have had
- 17:04this looks back end of this before.
- 17:06And my mother who's 91 was over the other day and I was talking
- 17:12to her about alcohol free beer because she's curious about our
- 17:15podcast and she took one of them home with her and she says she's
- 17:20going to try it with Clamato juice.
- 17:22Oh so I'm waiting to hear the story about how the alcohol free
- 17:27beer worked with the climatologies compared to when
- 17:30she used to or Clamato juice and her regular beer.
- 17:33Because that's how she drinks beer.
- 17:36Called a clami. Yeah, Red eye Clami, I think.
- 17:40Yeah, I'm. Allergic to clams so I don't
- 17:42know anyway. OK, well, OK, So yeah, I I3 on
- 17:48our scale, 3:00-ish. Yeah, yeah.
- 17:51Leanings a bit further, but definitely if I had to I would
- 17:57and there were no other options that I wanted to have a alcohol
- 17:59free beer, I'd buy it. But for the most part, you know
- 18:03there would be others I choose over it.
- 18:05Well. Listeners, if you, if you have
- 18:07an opinion on Sapporo, if you've tried it yourselves, you know,
- 18:11leave us a leave us a comment because you can leave comments
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- 18:18Yeah, we're on Apple Podcasts. We're now on Amazon, Amazon
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- 18:26So we're on the four main platforms that are out there and
- 18:30you can leave comments. We've recently found out.
- 18:35Yeah. So that's kind of cool and you
- 18:36can. Also rate the show and help us
- 18:39out that way and let others know about where they can listen to
- 18:44the podcast so we would appreciate your support.
- 18:47And you can follow us on Spotify.
- 18:50And we were pleased to find out that, you know, we have double
- 18:55digit over double digit followers now, so we're pretty
- 18:58excited about that. Oh, and I just dumped all the
- 19:02pretzels. Oh, no, that's all right.
- 19:04OK. Well, I guess, you know we're at
- 19:08that point, Scott, where we probably want to share an
- 19:12interesting factoid with our listeners in our 0 proof full
- 19:18Truth Segment 0. Proof, full proof.
- 19:22OK, well, I well, I have one. OK, here's a question for you.
- 19:26OK, where was the where was the first alcohol free or at least
- 19:33very low alcohol beer produced? Like where and when was it?
- 19:39Oh my. Do you want me to give you some
- 19:40like multiple choices like who wants to be a millionaire or.
- 19:43Yeah. Yeah, let me kind of phone a
- 19:45friend. Yeah, yeah.
- 19:47OK, Scott, exactly. I'll tell you there.
- 19:51OK, I'll tell. I'll just tell you please.
- 19:53So the very first low alcohol beers were made in the Middle
- 19:58Ages in England really. And they were called small
- 20:02beers. Small being weak I guess was the
- 20:06kind of feeling there. And they were beat about 1%.
- 20:11And they were brewed and they were, they were pretty, pretty
- 20:15thick, almost like porridge like I've heard.
- 20:18And they would drink them for breakfast.
- 20:21It would be like a start of the day.
- 20:23And they didn't drink them because people thought that beer
- 20:26was drank. Way back when, because the water
- 20:29was dangerous, but but it was more it was ranked four the
- 20:33energy because it had more calories than just having water,
- 20:38right. So they were going out.
- 20:39They were, you know, hard labour.
- 20:41So before the day started, they would have a small beer that was
- 20:46brewed at home by the ale wifes or wives or something after we
- 20:51get what their name was. But that was so in the Middle
- 20:53Ages and the whole family would happen.
- 20:55Kids too, would have a would have a small beer.
- 20:57Yeah, kind of cool. Yeah, it.
- 20:59Is, I mean, that's the tradition it seems that the the Brits have
- 21:02carried on. That's because you can go into a
- 21:06pub and buy beer at a very young age, OK?
- 21:11OK. Yeah.
- 21:12And have it whenever, yeah. Maybe it's continuation of that.
- 21:15That's really cool. I think that's kind.
- 21:17Of cool and small beer. I've never heard of that
- 21:20particular phrase before. So there's another one to add to
- 21:23our small beer near beer, non alcoholic beer, alcohol free de
- 21:30alcohol used fear all the all the terms and stuff.
- 21:32There's just so there's so many different terms that are coming
- 21:37up within the alcohol free movement and we've we've
- 21:40mentioned things before. Well, it's also, you know, I
- 21:44mean, beyond just beer, of course.
- 21:47I mean, as you pointed out in the past, you know, you had
- 21:49things like mocktails and dry January and, you know, this
- 21:55movement away from, you know, excessive amounts of alcohol in
- 21:59our diet, particularly when we found that the health
- 22:03connections to, you know, heart disease and cancer or what have
- 22:06you. I mean, it makes sense that
- 22:08people would want to reduce. Well, I hope you've enjoyed
- 22:13listening as much as we've enjoyed bringing all this to
- 22:17you. Come back next time because
- 22:20we'll always have a beer to try and a story to tell after.
- 22:24All this is rude talks. The Japanese beer we reviewed
- 22:30today was Sapporo Premium 0.0 brewed in Guelph, ON and the
- 22:34pretzels we had were Twigs Craft pretzels made by Refresh
- 22:39Ventures in Calgary, AB. Original music composed by Zach
- 22:43Wong. Original graphics by Shelby
- 22:45Smithson. Britax is produced and edited by
- 22:49Scott and Scott.