This is it–the final day of Dry January. Well, mine’s been mostly dry. I had a cheat weekend away with Michelle and had a few drinks when we visited her parents at the beginning of the month. But, that’s it.
So, before we launch into normal February tomorrow, I figured we’d look at my old reliable NA beer: Old Milwaukee Non-Alcoholic.
The nose on my can smells like malted barley. It’s wet, biscuity, caramely, and sweet. A return waft doesn’t give me much more than that. I like it but poor Purrl doesn’t; she refused to stick her sniffer anywhere near the stuff.
Non-Alocholic’s palate isn’t as sweet as its bouquet made it out to be. There’s a bit of dry riciness on the fore that lingers and is watered down as the beer develops. This eventually turns to the sweetness I noted on the nose. This lingers with a bit of rice into the finish. It’s not a complex NA beer, but it’s serviceable, at least!
On the mouthfeel front, my can’s fine. It’s a wash of bubbles that expand and dissipate pretty quickly, leaving a somewhat deflated beer in its place. But, I’m not really holding this long enough to let that bother me–it’s a drinking pretty quick type of thing.
This reminds me of summer (that’s when I started drinking it last year). Get in from cutting the grass, grab a can out of the fridge, pour half in a glass and fill the rest of said glass with lemonade. Settle in with some golf on the TV and turn off your brain for a bit. Yeah, that’s what this is for.
Look, Old Milwaukee Non-Alcoholic isn’t a great NA beer. But, it’s a pretty good NA beer, and great for making an NA shandy. The price of a twelve-pack is $7 or $8 depending on where you can find it. At that price point, I’m not about to complain much. Taking all this into consideration, it’s an 8.0/10. Should that price be higher, the rating would dip significantly.
