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All Time Low: Exploring Low ABV Beers
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Low ABV beers are trending hard right now and there are a few bottles on our radar that are spectacularly low in alcohol without being too "easy drinking," veering toward the more complex.
All Time Low: Exploring Low ABV Beers
.jpg)
Low ABV beers are trending hard right now, and it’s easy to figure out why. There are plenty of occasions when a beer is in order but a heady buzz not so much: a lunch date with half a workday to get through, barbecuing with the in-laws, anytime you might have to hold an infant. The session-able beers we’ve been reading about lately are easy drinking standards bottled up or on draft at neighborhood bars: pilsners, pale ales and English style sippers that limbo under the 5% bar. Great beers, but nothing too geeky. And really, even a couple rounds of 4% or 4.5% beers might still get on top of you, depending on your tolerance and what you had for dinner.
But there are a few bottles on our radar that are spectacularly low in alcohol without being too “easy drinking,” veering toward the more complex. This contradiction makes our nerd-dar tingle.
Pretty Things ¡Magnifico! (find it at the Foodery 324 South 10th St.), reads like a much bigger beer than its 3.4%ABV: hoppy, malty, with a stank fluffy white head on the pour. A 750ml bottle is nice to share with a pal, but a squat glass or two might just be enough.
Vanberg and deWulf, an importer from Chicago, offers Lambrucha, a 3.5% ABV blend of lambic and kombucha, custom brewed and blended in Belgium. This wild yeast two-fer is “as geeky as it gets,” according to our trusted beer bros at the Local 44 Bottle Shop (4333 Spruce St.). Indeed, this confounding concoction will make even the most seasoned beer drinker in your crew furrow a brow and exclaim, “This tastes like pickles!” It’s weird and wonderful, with hints of the pantry, the ocean and the garden all at once.
Jester King from Austin, TX joins in on the fun with Le Petit Prince, one of its flagship beers. An “organic farmhouse table beer,” this little guy is hopped like a pilsner but brewed like a saison, and only whispers of booze at 2.9%. Low as it goes, the Prince has nothing in common with any standard light beer, his only potential companion here in the under 3% ABV category.
Badass as it is to conquer a 9 or 10% imperial IPA or beefy Belgian, walking home from the bar stumble-free is awesome, too. Booziness will never go out of style, but here’s to hoping that brewers will keep rolling out beers that are gentler on the liver but still challenging to the taste buds.
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