Talk:Low-alcohol beer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This page is within the scope of WikiProject Beer, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles on Beer on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Beer Portal
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's importance scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

Are they legally considered non-alcoholic? I mean, is it legal for underage people to buy them?

In many areas, it is legal (though not in Pennsylvania, according to a news article I read a while back) to sell non-alcoholic brews to people under the legal drinking age. While they contain a tiny amount of ethanol, you'd have to drink a ridiculous amount in one sitting to become intoxicated. Ralphael 17:14, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

They do contain alcohol so I don't think they can be drunk by underage. The legal part is just what they can legitimately be named.
Says who? This whole business of what is and is not "legal" is entirely dependent upon local jurisdiction. The part of the article which states, "Legally beers can contain up to 0.5 percent alcohol by volume to be called non-alcoholic" needs to be qualified to indicate which legal system is being referenced. (I presume the writer was talking about federal U.S. law, though I don't want to change the article based on a mere presumption.) —Psychonaut 17:34, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)
  • When I have visited counties in the USA where alcoholic beverages cannot be sold on Sundays, I have noted that non-alcoholic beer is included in this prohibition. -- Infrogmation
However, they contain about as much alcohol as Coca-Cola does. A good alcohol removal should get rid of 99.7% of alcohol and with it any chance of getting drunk. Even Coca-Cola's formula still has traces of cocaine (from the coca leaves); the decocanization process leaves non-physioactive traces of ethanol (liquor alcohol) and cocaine.
No. http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/cocaine.htm , near bottom. And what about Bitter Shandies? (ie: proper bitter + lemonade)
This is not true in every state/county. Also the laws about buying NA beer vary greatly from state to state--some states require you to be 18 to purchase it, some allow it to be sold in supermarkets even though beer cannot be, etc. Cazort 21:31, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Does the term "piss water" belong in the non-alcoholic beer article?

Nope. There is almost universal agreement that "non-alcoholic beer" isn't as good as real beer. No point in belaboring the issue.

Contents

[edit] Religious exemption.

There is an overly broad, totally unsourced statement that those who are teetotalers for religious reasons may drink non-alcoholic beer. AFAIK, the main sects that prohibit alcohol would not be okay w/ near beer.

Good examples would be most of the abstaining Baptist denominations, all Muslims, Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists. I honestly don't know about the abstaining Quakers and Methodists.

There may very well be a religion out there that is okay w/ near beer, but not the regular type. Unless there is a verifiable source though, this statement should be dumped. If there is, it should be properly sourced.

FWIW, I am a teetotaling Baptist, and the avoidance of alcohol also includes even the appearance of drinking it (1 Thessalonians 5:22).

Thanks.

[edit] Linking to articles in other languages by other countries defenitions

Case in point: Is this comparable with the swedish lättöl ("lightbeer", less than 2.25%)?. Should it link to that article as the swedish version?

Non-alcohlic beer is beer that has almost no alcohol at all. 2.25% isn't a lot of alcohol IMO, but it's certainly too much to be called non-alcoholic (most N/A beers have about as much alcohol as fruit juice).

In Iceland, 2.25% is regarded as alcohol-free, and was produced and sold as such throughout the prohibition years (1915-1989). Although many restrictions are on the sale of alcohol, any minor can buy 2.25% beer at any cornerstore. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.208.69.56 (talk) 01:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

There are three articles which cover the same concept of low alcohol beer: this one, Small beer and Near beer. It would appear that these would be better served being brought together as one article. The merge page gives this suggestion as to when to merge: "There are two or more pages on related subjects that have a large overlap. Wikipedia is not a dictionary; there does not need to be a separate entry for every concept in the universe. For example, "Flammable" and "Non-flammable" can both be explained in an article on Flammability." As there is an obvious overlap I am proposing a merge of all three articles. SilkTork 16:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with "Near beer" but not with "small beer." Small beer is more of a historical usage -- small beer was drank (Drunk? I never get this right.) instead of water, which was unsafe -- and was made for a totally different reason than Low-alcohol beer. Does that make sense? Wickerpedia 01:52, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Small beer should certainly have a separate entry from the modern terms of "Near beer" and "Low Alcohol beer". To group it with them is misleading and inaccurate.

Small beer should definitely have its own article. It is misleading to have it here. It was not brewed to be low-alcohol, but to be cheap. Commonly beer used to be much stronger than it is today and what was known as small beer back then would have been as strong as many common regular beers today. As I understand it unlike small beer most low-alcohol beers have the alcohol removed after brewing. There is a limit to alcohol content below which it is not possible to brew beer at all. Jooler 16:00, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Light beer

Light beer is obviously something different, it may contain upto something like 3.5% abv. Merge should be turned back. – Ilse@ 00:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The three most popular light beers in the U.S. (Bud Light, Miller Lite, and Coors Light) are 4.2% alcohol, and really don't have anything to do with the concept "Low alcohol beer". Either "light beer" or "American-style light beer" need to be a separate page. RustavoTalk/Contribs 01:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Separate Articles Warranted

I propose creating separate articles for non-alcoholic beer (0-0.5% abv) and low-alcoholic beer. First of all, they're not really the same thing, and I think that lumping them together is inconsistent with the level of detail that wikipedia presents on most topics. Also, there are different laws governing their sale and consumption in most countries, and they also have a fairly different history, culture associated with them. (In particular, with most non-alcoholic beer being more modern). I think there's enough information in this article that it could easily be split into two. What do others think? Cazort 21:30, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:Coorscutter.jpg

Image:Coorscutter.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot 11:45, 26 October 2007 (UTC)