Beer for Simon!

I present to you a bottle of Krombacher Alkoholfrei 0.0% Pils, labeled "isotonisch." I bought a six-pack whilst we were in Germany last month, and was intrigued that it labelled itself "isotonic" as I've only ever seen that on exercise drinks. I'd had an alcohol free pils in a restaurant the evening before and it tasted just like beer, so of course curiosity meant I had to buy it.

Isotonic means the drink has a similar concentration of dissolved particles (electrolytes and carbohydrates) as human blood plasma, so it more or less matches the body's fluid concentration. What this means is that because the fluid's osmotic pressure matches your blood, it passes through your stomach into your bloodstream quickly.

This appears to be a fairly common category in Germany, but I've never seen it anywhere else. Alcohol-free beers marketed this way typically contain added or naturally-occurring sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium. All of these are minerals you lose through sweat during exercise. Apparently, alcohol-free "isotonic" pils is marketed almost like a sports drink alternative, often sold in gyms or after races, rather than purely as a beer substitute. This started in the 1990's, which means they've had plenty of time to get it tasting like beer, unlike some of the more recent efforts to come to market.

Krombacher wasn't the only alcohol free isotonic beer I drank as most restaurants and bierkellers also stock it. This is another bottle I remembered to photograph, although my original photo wasn't properly in focus and I AI corrected it.

The history of non-alcoholic beer in Germany goes back much further than 1990, but the modern version started in 1972 in East Germany. The brewer Ulrich Wappler developed Aubi, a motorist's beer, to give drivers a safe option in a country which had a 0.0% blood alcohol level since 1956.

Motorist's beer. Now there's a concept