Game Day Beers
Wine and other mocktails are generally more in my area of expertise, but I wanted to do a blog post about non-alcoholic beers in honor of the NFL playoffs (How ‘bout those Chiefs!). There are a few situations or occasions in life where it seems like you have to drink beer – the most important of those being GAME DAY.
Lucky for us non-drinkers or dry/damp January participants, all of our favorite beer brands have created a non-alcoholic version! And non-alcoholic brands (like Gruvi, Athletic Brewing, So Beer, etc.) also make beer, so we have EVEN MORE options to choose from! So many options!
Overall, I’ve found that beer is probably the non-alcoholic option that’s closest to the real thing. I’ve tried a fair amount of the options available and you can see my favorites on the Brews - Power Rankings tab. To recap, my favorite is Corona (which may be a bit biased because Corona is my favorite beer in general), with Stella Artois Liberte and Heineken 0.0 following closely behind, and Athletic Brewing and Guinness 0 Non-alcoholic Draught rounding out the top 5. I also recently tried Blue Moon Non-Alcoholic and Dos Equis Lime & Salt Zero Non-Alcoholic and was very impressed (formal review in progress and updated power rankings to come)!
Warning: For any beer lovers living in denial and who want to continue to do so, there is a calorie count coming, so stop reading now (but please consider trying one of the NA beer options)!
One of the major benefits of non-alcoholic beer is the dramatic decrease in calories. Let’s use my beloved Corona as an example. A Corona Extra has 148 calories per bottle, a Corona Light has 99 calories, and a Corona Premier (the new low-cal option) has 90 calories. This makes the light and premier option sound a lot better, right? Well, what if I told you that the non-alcoholic version only has 60 calories?
Let’s break that down a little further using some ‘frat boy math.' That means you can have 2.5 NA Coronas for the same amount of calories as Corona Extra, 1.7 NA Coronas for light, and 1.5 NA Coronas for premier. I know some of you are probably thinking “hmmm… okay Liv, but there’s no alcohol in it…” That’s a fair point, but all alcoholic Coronas have between 4 to 4.6% ABV. That’s A LOT of calories to get a buzz is all I’m saying. Not to mention, the average football game is 3 hours…
So, to summarize, if you love beer but you’re trying to watch your figure, give these non-alcoholic options a try. You can’t go wrong with any for your game day beer! Happy playoffs and Go Chiefs!!