I need a savoury, summery drink as an alternative to beer
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?
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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.
Non alcoholic beer
This right here. Some are very bad, but there are some really good ones around these days. Guinness for example tastes almost identical to real Guinness.
Seconded, non alcoholic Guinness is excellent.
I also like the NA forms of:
Had a few other good ones but can't recall which they were.
I actually think Guinness zero tastes different but in fact way better than the original. There's been times when i was drinking, but would occasionally opt for a zero if it was an option.
Leffe blonde LA (0.5%, i think) is awesome, miles better than most. I find the Guinness LA a bit bland, lacking in the aftertaste and a bit watery.
On the days when I'm really just hanging out for, and worked a really sweaty, dirty day on the chainsaws, I drink N/A beer. The cheapest I can find. It either hits the spot or it tastes like garbage and turns me off beer again. Either way it averts the craving and lets me stay sober. Most alcos in recovery will frown on N/A beer, but I don't care, whatever helps me not drink alcohol is fair game.
Unsweet iced tea
I have been enjoying sparkling water flavored with hops. It's distinctly different from non-alcoholic beer, and much better IMO.
Unsweetened iced tea and cold brew coffee are also standards in my kitchen during summer. My significant other likes kombucha enough to make it at home sometimes, but I never liked the stuff myself.
I just got some of this today! I haven't tried it yet, but the guy at the bottle shop said it's what he has when he feels like a beer, but doesn't want a beer!
how about NA beer? Everything you want and nothing you don't.
Unsweetened buttermilk, or even better, ayran?
Virgin Bloody Mary is really good.
Or just ... alcohol-free beer.
Near beer works great as a shandy, too. The lemon flavor may even lend more to the desired bitterness.
If the alcohol is the problem, there's a lot of non-alcoholic beers available in Australia these days.
Possibly a nitro cold brew? I don't know if you'd consider that a good pairing with a burger, though!
Maybe a switchel, if you make it yourself and don't sweeten it too much, leaving it mostly tart.
Rye kvass, Kombucha
Ice cold Barley tea is the best. I sometimes mix barley tea and iced-tea (black tea).
If you are willing to make it yourself, kvass or ginger beer, those can be dry and sparkling. Water kefir or kombucha. All very, very low in alcohol, not intoxicating. Chinotto soda is something I buy for dry months too.
As someone else said, tonic water has a bitter edge that really hits the spot, I make a sweet non alcoholic cocktail called the Friend Zone, made with strawberry tepache (strawberry fruit kvass), lime, and tonic water, and I swear everyone thinks it's a boozy cocktail. Too sweet for what you are looking for here but it's certainly the tonic pulling most of the weight.
Gaspacho? At least it is cool and savory...
Personally, I like just plain seltzer water. (i.e. just carbonated water with nothing added.) Mixing it with a bit of plain (unsweetened) cranberry juice is good too if you want something more flavorful.
Chilled barley tea is another good hot weather drink. It was a summertime staple when I was in Japan.
In Japan they drink cold unsweetened tea.
Why a Bottle of Japanese Iced Tea is the Ultimate Summer Refresher
All of the Japanese Ice Teas I've found in Australia are SUPER sweet. I might need to check out some specialty stores to see if I can find the unsweetened ones
My go-to social drink is a club soda with a twist of lime
It is simple, cheap and has the added benefit of sort of looking like it might be a vodka club or gin and tonic.
I go with soda and spash of cranberry plus a lime wedge.
Cran adds sweetness, but not too much if you keep the ratio down.
80% Unsweetened iced tea, 20% lemonade. Play with the ratios. (the classic Arnold Palmer is 50/50 but that's too sweet for me.)
There's lots of dry / tart option, especially if you like tonic water and that dry quinine taste. Add a dash of citrus or bitters and it's not much more trouble than a beer. There's also some intresting non alcoholic herbal 'spirits' that bring complex (and often dry / bitter) flavours, and could be used to make something nice with tonic or plain soda water.
Tonic water was going to be my suggestion too, it ticks all OP's boxes.
Water kefir is a great alternative. You can buy it in organic shops or make it at home. The hardest part would be to source grains but once you get them started, as long as you take care of them they last forever.
It's tart, fizzy, refreshing, has flavors reminiscent of some wild fermentation sours, and can be flavored with almost any fruit after transfer (and probably hops too).
Sparkling water with pickle juice. Add bitters if you want different flavors.
A ginger beer, tastes nothing like beer and is a real pickme up.
Ginger beer is tits. It's expensive around here, so sometimes I'll make a fresh ginger syrup (which stays good in the fridge forever) and add a few tablespoons to seltzer water. It's basically the same thing and very refreshing!
Our parents used to make ginger beer when I was a kid. There was a "starter", some kind of yeast? Then a raisin or two in each bottle, and of course ginger. Every now and then you'd hear one of the bottles explode. The surviving bottles were delicious, effervescent and spicy, not too sweet.
The best starter for ginger beer is "ginger bug"
Start with 2 big spoonfuls each of (grated) ginger and sugar in 2 cups of water. Stir it twice daily and feed it once a day, alternating
Day 1, spoonful of sugar
Day 2, spoonful of sugar and spoonful of grated ginger.
Here it gets active in a couple of days but better to keep feeding and stirring for a week. Use a cup of the liquid to ferment a gallon of ginger beer and save another cup tightly covered in a refrigerator to start your next batch, so it will go faster.
You can make it with yeast but it doesn't taste as good and is fussier.
Thank you!! I might try that one day...
Oh, a note - in the US I have to use organic ginger for ginger beer, all the rest of it must have been irradiated or had some hotshot anti-everything spray because only organic ferments.
Not for any other ferment I make is this true, only ginger. Tepache, fruit kvass, sourdough, I use conventionally grown stuff. I'm not sure this holds true everywhere but if it doesn't work, get organic ginger.
What about a kind of cocktail with at most 20% red wine filled with sparkling water?
It sounds weird, I agree, but it has few calories, is refreshing, is tasty and may remain cheap enough as you do not need a great wine for it.
I thought I was the only one who did this omg! Do not use good wine for this, it will just make it taste oxidized.
If you want to make it yourself, try Tepache
That sounds absolutely amazing!
I think trying this out will be a summer project for me!
It’s a great drink and a good entry point to fermentation. I hope you’ll like it!
Yes, very nearly the easiest fermented drink I've made. There is a vegetable and fruits shop near that slices up pineapples when you buy. He was very happy to give away the rinds and peels in a bag. I just gave it a wash and put it in a large glass jar (around 3 litres) of water with a stick of cinnamon and half a kilo of jaggery. It was done in 4 days and was a hit with my friends at the office. Now three of them are fermenting some of their own. But the weather is mild where I am. I'm not sure it'll be as easy to ferment in summers without temperature control.
ice tea?
Alas, I'm allergic to black tea :\
Other teas taste nice, but I've yet to find one that has a strong enough taste for me.
you should give barley tea a shot.
hot vs cold are two different flavors.
Hibiscus tea is amazing! Agua de Jamaica
Very good on a summer day with strong flavors
"This delicious and refreshing hibiscus tea is a staple Mexican agua fresca (it’s right up there with horchata and agua de tamarindo), loved for its tart, slightly sweet flavor and stunning color."
Kombucha of Jamaica/hibiscus. Its excellent.
Herbal ones are options too. I could definitely do away with some iced chamomile or chrysanthemum tea. Just make sure it's completely herbal and it won't have real tea in it.
This is my thought, just get (or make) the unsweetened variety
If you want a savory drink, I recommend soup broth.
chinotto
Oh, yes, also cold black tea (no ice, no lemon, just nice slightly bitter taste. Also nice because the taste is not really fighting with the taste of whatever you eat
Malt beer or even better Kvass
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!
I think Tapache might be a good idea to take a look at.
Unsweetened, iced, mint tea.
Kombucha
Cold fruit teas sound like they could be good for ya
Michellada
Try Nimbu Pani! It's an Indian drink that hits the tart and slightly savory points. May be annoying to get black salt though.
Tonic and Angustura on ice, with a splash of lemon. I put a dab of sugar sometimes.
Tonic water is your friend. Works for both low-alcohol options (bitters, preferably citrus bitters but you can experiment) and boozy ones (G&Ts are obviously a classic, whiskey tonics are pretty nice sometimes, herbal liqueurs work very well, etc.)
Often when I'm out and want another drink, but don't want to keep drinking, plain tonic water is the preferred choice recently. I got 99 problems, but malaria ain't one 😎.
Beyond that, you can look into the wild world of drinking shrubs.. Haven't been arsed to try it yet but I like the concept.
I tried switching to gin and tonics at one point, and they are good, but I ended up looking up how many calories I might be saving, and realized a g/t had the same amount of calories as a rum and coke.
I hadn't realized there was sugar content like that in tonic. But I did get a nice dance with a friendly brunette while drinking a g/t. Come to think of it that may be the only reason I was drinking g/t's...
Guinness Zero is the "closest tasting to the original" non-alcoholic beer I've found so far. Don't know if its available in Oz but its worth a try.
Sekanjabin is an Iranian vinegar-based drink that's easy to make and stays good in the fridge as a concentrate for a long time.
My favorite kind is made with strawberries, honey, and apple cider vinegar.
Refreshing, sweet, and sour. Water it down to taste when serving.
in a similar vein, look up shrubs
Club soda
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.
Sugar free ginger ale
Ginger soda. You can use a ginger bug to ferment soda. You can add flavors to make different varieties or you can just do the ginger base.
Its refreshing and good for you. Does have like up to a half percent alcohol... But nothing that will be inebriating.
Not sure about availability or price in AU, but I like "hoplark" non alcoholic beer. Their IPAs are awesome.
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
I’m a huge iced tea fan.
Schwepes bitter lemon?
Both? Basically, I'm looking for nice refreshing drinks I can drink over summer that aren't predominantly sweet.
Nothing wrong with alcoholic drinks, but they're a "sometimes" drink, not an "all the time" drink :)
I don’t know if you can get it in Australia but I like Spindrift seltzer/sparkling water when I want a beer substitute. Obviously it doesn’t taste like beer. I was someone who hated seltzer for a long time, none of it tasted right and too fruity but also somehow not enough since its just sparkling water. Someone recommended Spindrift since they use real fruit so it has some real flavor but it’s still low in calories. I’m partial to the grapefruit flavor because it’s the most tart/crisp.
Along the same lines, I think, I don't know what Spindrift is, but when my hubs went sober, he started drinking 100% grapefruit juice with Seltzer (usually grapefruit flavored seltzer) on ice. He says it tastes just like IPA with it's bitter notes. Probably a 1:2 ratio of juice:seltzer
So if you can't get Spindrift, you can still make something similar!
Spindrift is the brand but it’s basically what you described, unsweetened fruit juice with sparkling water. I think the ratio is a little different but exact same idea. I like the flavor of beer but I just need the tartness and the bubbles to be happy.
Have you tried a Shandy? It's beer mixed with lemonade or orange juice. It's delicious.
Tonic water and lime is probably my favorite combo. Sometimes, I'll even add gin.
The classic margarita. Tequila, Cointreau, lime juice, and just a little bit of sweetener to take the edge off the acidity, or omit it altogether. Serve over ice.
Hits the spot especially with fatty foods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayran
I don't understand what you mean by "not beer".
Have a shrub. It's flavor infused apple cider vinegar and sparkling water. You can buy or make the vinegar and just use other flavors and sweetened for the bubbles
Non alcoholic radler? (Beer diluted with soda lemon - it is said that a brewery in munchen had too many cyclists one day and not enough beer to serve everyone, so in order to maximize profits and avoid leaving money on the table he decided to scam them by diluting the beer with lemon juice and saying "it's less alcoholic so it's perfect for you cyclists 😉" - and somehow they liked it instead of getting pissed)
Subcontinental:
For a non-alcoholic drink, suerta:
Aperol Spritz?
Guinness 0% and you might be onto something. It is really good.