Earlier this fall, I attended an event that 28-year-old me would have scoffed at: a non-alcoholic Oktoberfest. Sponsored by Dray, Boston’s first non-alcoholic (NA) bottle shop, the event had all the traditions you’d expect — pretzels, sausages, lederhosen — but not a drop of booze in sight. As I sipped my Kölsch-style NA beer from Best Day Brewing, I thought about how 48-year-old me ended up here, toasting an alcohol-free Oktoberfest.
It goes back to March 2020. To drink, or not to drink. That was the question I was asking myself as the COVID lockdown began. I rarely hesitated to have a little something to take the edge off, but we were now talking about a very big edge, and I worried that “a little something” could become “a lot of something,” depending on how long we were stuck at home.
Substance abuse is not uncommon in my family — I’d seen several cousins and uncles struggle with it for much of my life. I worried that my recreational drinking could quickly evolve into self-medication to get through those hard times.
On top of that, I’d recently had my annual physical, and my doctor was not happy. I was the heaviest I’d ever been. I knew from my sister, a licensed nutritionist, that the emptiest calories came from sugar and alcohol. Since I’ve never had much of a sweet tooth, alcohol became the obvious target. The fact that my middle-aged body just didn’t recover from drinking like it used to led me to give teetotaling a try.
In some ways, 2020 was the best time to cut back. Without restaurants, parties, or trips to the package store, alcohol just wasn’t in my orbit. I found different ways to take that edge off: exercise, cooking, and video games all helped. But I still missed the ritual of grabbing a beer after work, even if “work” was a day full of Zoom meetings at home.
One day at the grocery store, I saw someone take a can of “Hoplark” off the iced tea shelf and add it to their cart. Tea with hops sounded weird — I’d never really understood the point of nonalcoholic beer, and this sounded even stranger. But I hadn’t enjoyed that bitter tang of hops in months, so I gave it a try.
Four years later, I’m getting a monthly shipment of Hoplark straight from the (tea) brewery. I also regularly drop by Art’s Specialties here in Belmont, which usually carries Best Day, Hoplark, and another recent favorite NA option, White Widow Cider. Many breweries have NA options these days, including Boston’s own Sam Adams, but for my money, the breweries that exclusively offer NA “beers,” like Athletic or Partake, taste the best.
Art’s also has a wide selection of NA spirits. So far, I haven’t been impressed with NA replacements for rum or gin, but botanical spirits that were not designed to mimic something else, such as those made by Seedlip, are pretty tasty!
I didn’t stop drinking completely. I like a nice glass of wine now and then (I’ve yet to find a nonalcoholic wine that’s truly palatable). And as the holiday season kicks off, I don’t begrudge anyone who enjoys some holiday cheer. But my friends know I’ll probably show up at their door with an NA beverage. I’ll leave the holiday hangovers to the ghost of Christmas past.
Eric J. Perkins writes about Gen X for The Belmont Voice, and is the Director of Transformation at Addgene, a life sciences nonprofit in Watertown.