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I don’t know where you live but here in the UK and in Europe you can find all sorts of beer from 0 to 5% (and more of course), even in local supermarkets or draft in a pub. And yeah the 0% taste bad, but a 0.5 to 3% can be great, I’m sure you could find some online if you’re willing to, search for “table beer”, “small beer” or just low alcohol beer.

And in terms of non alcoholic beer, “lucky saint” tastes great (0.5%) and is very popular in the UK, lots of pub have it on tap.


In the UK it's common to have 3.4% beer/ale (for ABV >= 3.5% the duty is higher) but there are little options between 3.4% and <=0.5% (alcohol free). I find 3.4% to be a good trade-off between the taste and the alcohol content. I do drink Lucky Saint occasionally but find it less pleasant than various 3.4% ales.

So how come there are so many rowdy drunks inside and outside pubs in London? Perhaps they are just drinking more of that 3.4%.

I like the taste of Heineken 0:0. Not the same but pleasant regardless.

Meanwhile, in the States I see more and more 8/9/10% IPAs from major brewers.


My local Morrisons has a few decent 3.4% ales for £1-£1.25, I am a loyal customer.

I'm not a fan of Morrisons, but they do have a great range of booze.

One of the things I miss the most (on a daily basis the most) about the UK is the beer. What you're suggesting just doesn't exist in the USA. Really and truly doesn't.

(Though, as others in this thread point out, NA beers are more common, and better, than they used to be. They're not the same thing, though.)


i am in Paris, and I don't see much variety. Obviously there is so much more choice in big hypermarkets, but I don't go there daily, unlike my local, 30sqm store next my apartment

The French beer scene has improved over the last 10 years but yeah, it's still quite limited in terms of selection. When I was first visiting there really wasn't much at all outside of Belgian beers, though I've since had a few very good beers from Paris and other parts of the north of the country. Usually only finding them in larger markets, though, as you say.

The UK's beer scene is wildly different to the rest of Europe, and not something that we've managed to export very well. Hell, we could even export cask ale (rare outside of the UK) to Paris without it spoiling these days, yet nobody really does. Whether it's due to taste or the awkwardness of casks I don't know, but I do think it would meet with success in Paris if someone did it properly. Not all beer has to be refrigerated and fizzy. We have so many varieties that you just don't get with fizzy keg beer, and much of it notably weaker in alcohol content. Some examples:

Mild at ~2.5% (made from reusing the materials used to make Bitter), Session at ~3.5%, Bitter at ~4%, Best Bitter at ~5% etc. IPAs are the hot thing even over here now but we get notably more variations in those than most places too.

I'd be curious to know from anyone in Germany if they have equivalents to these sorts of categories, as what we get from Germany over here tends to all be about the same strength.

Due to ADHD meds I do now have to drink less, and the best non-alcoholic beer I've found so far is Guinness 0%. I'm not a massive Guinness drinker, it's alright but there are other stouts I prefer, but the 0% version is surprisingly close to "real" Guinness and has none of those sock-y flavours that most non-alcoholic beer has.


It is indeed a completely different scene, which is genuinely interested in variety.

It's a bit of a cliche but you really can split Europe into "beer country/wine country/spirits country". France, Italy, Spain and Germany west of the Rhine are wine country. Munich is clearly beer country. And Germany has focused on perfecting a very narrow set of light beers, if you want diversity of taste that's all in the wines. Similarly you're not going to get Parisians interested in beer diversity when they have French wine to argue about.

(It is possible that climate change will shift this; England is starting to produce a few pretty good wines)

Guinness 0% is fantastic. Unlike a lot of brewers the Guinness company were very keen to retain their standards rather than slop out an inferior product to tick a box.


If it is 30sqm local store, then get to know the owner and ask them to stock it for you.

get a "Stella 0.0" and tell me it tastes terrible.

Stella - the Belgian equivalent to Budweiser.

In Belgium, Stella is fully accepted, contrary to fe "Cristal" or "Maes". Of course, it's no "Jupiler".

lol that stuff is absolutely awful

It is. Actually the best candidates for 0% seems to be the IPA beers as the bitterness adds this little "punch" classic zero alcohol beers seems to suffer from.

Legally, probably not...?

Whether you may/should feel responsible depends on how the software works, I guess. Did it automatically recommend some drug, somewhat confidently, with gray text on gray background saying "AI sometimes makes mistakes"?

So I think we should behave responsibly when making software, even more now with AI


I prefer the CLI but the remote control with the phone app only works with the phone AFAIK, so that’s the only reason I use it.


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