This Discovery May Change My Unhealthy Habit Forever
I made a discovery.
And it just might change me forever.
Saturday mornings with young kids can be draining.
Especially after celebrating a successful week or putting a difficult week in the past.
A ritual I look forward to every week (good or bad) is enjoying a beer with friends.
I mean, “beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy,” right? (I think Big Ben (Franklin) said that).
But with the good comes the bad.
It turns out alcohol, when broken down by the body, turns into poison (acetaldehyde).
According to Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, alcohol erodes memory, negatively changes the brain’s neural circuits, and increases anxiety.
I’m not going to demonize alcohol because…
I like beer (said with the gusto of Justice Kavanaugh).
But there is an underground trend away from alcohol and its negative effects.
Rockers like Steven Tyler and Ben Harper are walking away from it.
Hard-partying chefs are seeking alternatives.
There are, however, positives to drinking alcohol, or in my case, beer.
I love the social aspect of sharing stories with friends or colleagues.
The good thing is I found a surprising alternative.
And it will likely change my drinking game forever.
The Discovery That Might Change Me Forever
I’ve been experimenting with non-Alcoholic beer (NA).
Or, as I've heard them called near beers.
They have the foamy head and delicious taste of a microbrew but without alcohol.
Near, to a beer, as it gets.
This is not that piss water Odouls.
There are microbreweries dedicated to brewing high-quality NA beer.
The process is simple.
They brew a full-on craft beer and then de-alcohol it.
Traditionally, de-alcoholising beer was to cook off or filter out (osmosis filtering) the alcohol, which removes the flavor.
These specialty NA breweries have designed new methods to de-alcohol the beer that preserve the flavor.
Not only do they taste great, they are also low-calorie (if you’re watching that dad bod, like me).
I found that most were between 60 to 80 calories (half the calories of a regular craft beer).
I’ve tried half a dozen or so varieties, and I found Athletic Brewing and Untitled Art as my favorites.
Note: Forbes article about Athletic Brewing, the 26th fastest-growing company in America.
My fridge is full and I’m considering going mostly or completely NA.
Don’t just take my word for it... here is a review of Well + Good’s top 11 near beers.
So back to our brains and the science. There is hope for our brains.
Professor Huberman’s research shows that after 2 to 6 months of not drinking, the brain returns to normal.
My Takeaway:
NA beer tastes great and is lo-cal.
I still get the social aspect of drinking but without the negative effects of alcohol.
Most bars around me don’t carry tasty NA beer…yet.
But I believe it won’t be long before this underground trend becomes mainstream because of the negative health effects of alcohol.
If you try one, let me know what you think and which is your favorite.
