It’s a hot summer afternoon. I’m sitting down on a hot afternoon, with a burger, and a cold beer.
What I’m looking for is something to replace that cold beer with. I want it to be crisp and fresh, but also not sweet. I love tart and bitter flavours. Unfortunately, my options are either cold and sweet, cold and alcoholic or hot and non sweet.
So threadiverse, what alternatives am I missing?
Tereré is great, but it’s a bit of a pain to source in Australia. What else is there?
how about NA beer? Everything you want and nothing you don’t.
Everyone is recommending just stuff that’s not sweet, but you asked for savory.
Beef Fizz Search YouTube for videos of it.
Beef broth, mmmm savory!
Cold fruit teas sound like they could be good for ya
Try Nimbu Pani! It’s an Indian drink that hits the tart and slightly savory points. May be annoying to get black salt though.
Michellada
Sugar free ginger ale
Hop water
I haven’t seen it mentioned in here, but switchel is a favorite of mine. Water, Apple cider vinegar, some kind of sweetener (molasses is traditional), and ginger. Pretty easy to make a pitcher of during the summer. Tart, and hits the spot in the summer. You can also utilize a shrub for some NA mocktails.
My go-to fave is Peroni 0.0%
Not sure it’s available in Australia, but it’s really good NA beer imo. Someone else mentioned hop water. It’s more like soda, at least to me, but similarly bright and v fizzy
Tonic water and lime is probably my favorite combo. Sometimes, I’ll even add gin.
Aperol Spritz?
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Guinness 0% and you might be onto something. It is really good.
There isn’t really anything that tastes like beer other than beer. As others have said, the non-alcoholic versions have gotten pretty good over the last few years.
I’m also quite partial to unsweetened iced tea. Just make a very strong tea and pour it over ice and chill, optionally add lemon juice to taste.
Cold brew coffee is also quite nice, but personally, I prefer that one as a sweet drink mixed with sweetened condensed milk.
Unsweetened ice tea is great. If you want to drink a lot of it you can brew a pot and leave it in the fridge overnight for the next day with two containers you can just swap them out whenever one gets empty.
You also don’t need to brew hot tea. I prefer cold brewing, using about 8 tea bags per gallon. Just refrigerate for about 12 hours, or longer to taste if you like it stronger. I’ve done this with black teas (I love Red Rose for iced tea), sencha green tea, and oolong (my favorite).
For some additional context, hot brewing is really only needed for sweet iced l tea. More sugar dissolves into hot liquid than cold, so you put more sugar in it when it’s hot so it’s extra sweet.
Oh this process reminds me there is also sun tea!
Kombucha
Would also highly recommend kombucha.
Cold, fizzy, relatively healthy as it’s mostly tea by default with probiotics, and you can change up the flavor. The default is kinda tart and vinegary, but then you add (or buy) fruit or herb flavors and you can really find what you personally love.
This. There’s a passion fruit and hop kombucha that is great for me. I don’t drink during the week and that’s my go to ‘treat’.
I mainlt drink carbonized water with a bit of citron juice.
