Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/08/481274.html
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It’s like alcohol free beer. What’s the point?
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Then the War On Drugs happened, and pranking the police became potentially lethal…
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We’ve got some spider flowers in our front yard that smell so much like pot. I have no idea what it would smell like if it was burning, and since I have no desire to draw law enforcement attention, I’m not going to find out.
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I was a ‘head’ in 1974, and the idea of “pranking the police” is ridiculous. The LAST thing I wanted was for some cop to think he smelled dope on me.
And, really, you think “Haha, it’s not really dope, it just SMELLS like dope!” would have saved you? Either they wouldn’t believe you, and bust you anyway, or they would believe you, and run you in for mopery and gawking just for being a smartass.
(And back then, where I lived, a simple-possession conviction was a felony, up to 5 years in the state pen.)
“Prank the police” was about as funny and sensible as “poke the bear.”
And about as safe.
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There is delicious beer and crappy tasting beer. For some reason, all the alcohol-free beer seems to be de-alcoholized crappy tasting beer. If they started with delicious beer and took out the alcohol, there would totally be a point. I might have one with lunch right now.
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we have to know or be pretty well sure that the substance we have to make an arrest for contains an illegal drug.
Awww, that’s adorable.
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Back in the '80s (or late '70s, sorry I forget) R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris did a lot of research on similar products. To this day, when you first light a Marlboro “Red”, it smells exactly like weed for a short while. I don’t recall if the effect from Reds was initially on purpose, but they definitely approved of it in the docs =) .
This came out in the big document hoard concurrent with the (finally successful) tobacco control legislation later on.
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I believe that the de-alcoholization process will always alter the flavor, although that’s maybe the kind of thing where better techniques could mitigate. Basically though, it’s hard to drive off alcohol without driving off other volatile compounds.
Besides that, though, I think there might be some economic factors - delicious beer tends not to be cheap beer, and I believe there’s more of a market for expensive alcoholic drinks than for expensive nonalcoholic beverages.
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I’m high right now.
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It’s the internet. EVERYONE is a stoned, 45-year-old male trucker from Dubuque — wearing a stained wifebeater — until proven otherwise.
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Suprised no one’s mentioned O’Dweeds yet.
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Not currently, close enough, yes, no, close enough, yes, no.
On average, you got me.
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It’s like pot, only it doesn’t get you high, and the smell might have gotten you arrested. What’s not to love? @_@
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The style of beer used is a big factor. Most near-beer seems to be in the lager region, which has a very light taste that relies a lot on volatile compounds (other than alcohol) from the yeast, which are hard to leave in when removing alcohol.
Styles that derive more of their flavour from malt character and hop bitterness (flavours that have already survived a 60 to 90 minute boil before fermentation) seem like better candidates for de-alcoholizing - but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a de-alcoholized scotch ale, chocolate stout, or IPA.
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De alcoholised beer will lose its flavour but not so much its taste. So any kind of hoppy aroma will be gone but more malty beers can survive the process.
I used to drink alkoholfrei weissbier on weekday nights with my curry. Because it tastes great with Asian food. And weissbier, to me at least, tasted much the same. (yes, I know you can get proper small batch unpasteurised unfiltered estery craft weissbier which would not remain intact after losing the alcohol - the banana type odours/flavours would be gone) and made dinner much better.
Then I discovered I was coeliac and alcohol free gluten free beer is genuinely in the why the fuck bother zone!
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At burning man, if you want to mess with the cops you just smoke rollies. But for some reason they didn’t seem to be busting as many people this year.
For a short time, in the seventies, I smoked beedis.
I’d sometimes get a glance from authority figures. But the package has the federal tax stamp on it, so…
Bittering hop additions typically are in the 60-90 minute ranges, flavouring in the 30-15, and aroma generally under 10 minutes. So if you’re boiling the beer to remove the alcohol, the aroma from the aroma hops in the original beer would be lost.
But that seems like a thing you could compensate for without too much trouble - just leave the aroma hops out of the starting recipe, and add them to the de-alcoholizing boil.
