Tuesday 16 July 2019

Alcohol-Free Beer Story

So I tried to make sense out of this two-line story in today's news:

Malaysia (mostly a Muslim country in the Pacific) gave out this warning to Malaysian breweries....NOT to sell/produce alcohol-free beer.  Reason?  The very hint of this....confuses Muslims about whether they can drink it.

I sat there pondering.

Alcohol-free beer, which I've consumed probably two in my life....has ZERO alcohol content.  Yes, it kinda tastes like regular beer, but it's more like a wheat-like taste (maybe like taking wheat bread and throwing it into a blender with a cup of water). 

Calorie-wise?  Most will fall between 40 and 60 calories per bottle (12 ounce). 

Is it totally alcohol-free?  People tend to argue about this point.  Rather than the standard 3-percent alcohol....a fair number of the alcohol-free beers will have .1 to .3 percent alcohol in them.  But lets be honest....a overly ripe banana will have about the same percentage of alcohol (.1 to .3 percent).

So why this warning?  I think it's mostly because some government folks like to worry about you and your morals.