NA Pumpkin Spice Beers

Intro – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

An interlude, as I still have Untitled Art (and some Athletic Brewery Sours AND new Wellbeing Brews) to discuss, but tis the season. I am happy to report I’ve found THREE pumpkin spiced NA Beers, and want to tell you about them.

Fall doesn’t feel the same without a pumpkin spiced, well, SOMETHING, and glad to find that NA Breweries are stepping up. Bravus Brewery won this round, but really is there a way to lose with pumpkin spice?

Dark & Gourdy (> 0.5%) – Athletic Brewing

A limited release from Athletic Brewing. Well spiced and balanced, it is a light, but pleasant taste. It is a dark beer for Athletic Brewing, but as with their others, thinner than their counterparts. Order here while you can.

Pumpkin Ale (> 0.5%) – Wellbeing Brewing

This one is a slight disappointment. I had commented before finding this that what I wanted was Wellbeing’s Hellraiser Dark Amber but with pumpkin spice. Well… that is ALMOST what this is. It is clearly the same style as Hellraiser, but the beer and the spice are seemingly two independent flavors that didn’t mix in the brewing. It isn’t bad, but no where near what it could have been. They don’t seem to be selling it this year, but hopefully a tweaked recipe comes back next year.

Pumpkin Dark (> 0.5%) – Bravus Brewery

This one is good. It is a dark beer, so more akin to a porter or light stout than the usual pumpkin spiced lagers you’ll find. Still the darkness does it well, and the spice is well balanced. This is my favorite of the three. Again, limited release, get it here.

On Horror, Fear and Being Afraid

I spent last Thursday in an animal hospital. The waiting room of which is surprisingly similar to a human emergency room, with triage meeting those coming in the door and people with lost expressions sitting, waiting. Waiting.

Too much waiting.

I was waiting. Waiting for the doctor to come out with the results of tests and imaging, to hear what she had to say about my puppy. He’s had a fever for two weeks at this point, and his regular vet is out of ideas.

I’d been waiting for a while when she comes out to see me. I’m 3/4 the way through my book, down to 20% on my phone, praying the litany against fear and have been doing my best to be stoic. When she sits, I pray it is something we can treat. Something we can literally throw money at to fix, because at this moment I will empty my bank account, I will throw card after card down if it will make him ok. I will say ‘yes’ to whatever Doc says needs to happen next to make him better.

Because I am afraid.

Really and truly afraid.

Horror is a genre of fear. Doug Winter famously said “Horror is not a genre, it is an emotion.”

H.P. Lovecraft talks about fear of the unknown being the greatest of fears. Stephen King talks about the three kinds of horror: gross out, horror and terror.

But in the end, they are all talking about the boogeyman. The monster under your bed. The noise in the darkness.

They are not talking about this fear I have now. It is too ordinary, too mundane, to be called horror. A story about a man waiting for the doctor to come out to give a prognosis on a dog would be rejected by horror magazines. Instead we would label it “drama” or “literary fiction,” perhaps “tragedy” depending on the outcome.

Because horror doesn’t want this fear, even though it is real. This is not what horror is trying to invoke. It is not fear of losing your job or home. It is not the fear of a car crash. It is not 10 days of insulin and 14 days until you get paid.

It is not the fear of a puppy with a fever and no answers.

Fear in horror assumes that these fears, these real fears, are things we all have, and so it demands something grander, larger. It can’t be a broken pipe in the basement that will force you to chose between repairs and groceries. It is the fear that the sound in the basement was something darker than that, a daemon, a monster, something that would invoke a fear greater than a real fear.

Because horror may be an emotion, but it is not just an emotion. How we arrive at that fear is just as much a part of what it means to be horror as the fear itself. The fear I felt, feel, about my dog is real. It is not the fear I try to invoke in horror. It is not the fear that horror tries to invoke in any of us. It is not the kind of fear that horror readers and viewers want. These fears, these events retold do not turn into horror stories.

This is not to say horror strays from the mundane. Horror is, more than almost any other genre, a contemporary genre, dealing with the here and now. Horror is for the most part about normal people with normal lives doing extraordinary things in the face of their fears.

Could you have a historical horror story with kings and queens? Politics and witches and ghosts? Sure. They are called *Hamlet* and *MacBeth.* But they are the exception.

So we fall into metaphor. Afraid of capitalism? you mean zombies! Fascists? Alien invasions! Economic uncertainties? Ghosts! and it works because of empathy. Horror relies on empathy, of relating to these characters, to their lives and struggles. It is these normal fears that link us to these extraordinary situations. Without it, without empathy, there is nothing to be afraid of.

When I got home with a bottle of pills, follow on appointments and a worn out corgi I sat on the couch with him next to me and watched a horror movie.

Because a giant shark can be seen. It can be fought. And in the end, no matter the resolution of the story, I can turn it off and banish the monster.

And that is what horror really gives us.

Craft NA Beers, Part One

Intro – Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Athletic Brewing

It was winter of 2020, and I was sipping on an Lagunitas IPNA (NAY) and visiting with friends on Zoom for a virtual happy hour when it occurred to me to check if there were craft non-alcoholic beers.

Craft beer has exploded over the US in the last decade bring delicious experimentation with it. Why not, I thought, experiment with NA?

A name came up a few times in my search, and because they were easy to order, were my first fore into craft NA beers: Athletic Brewing Company.

Most of the different NA beers I’ve had over the last two years have been from them, and there are two important reasons for this:

They are easy to order from. Direct from their site, free shipping on two six packs, boom, beer at my house.
They are tasty, which causes me to drink them and then go back to step one.

The ordering thing is such an important aspect, I want to mention it again. Despite being NA, most of the commercial stuff from the first post has to be bought from a store (and yes sometimes, Amazon), and despite being NA, most stores won’t ship beer to my state.

Athletic Brewing, Bravus, Partake, Wellbeing all let you order and ship direct. Easily. And while I’ve been lucky to find them in stores around the area (and even a local pub), that ease of ordering is why I keep going back.

We’ll get to the others next go. This post is going to be all about Athletic Brewing.

When I started, they had four staples, and would add on with lower run batches, either seasonal or experimental. There are six staples now, and the experimentation has continued. While that means most of the beer on this list is not currently available, it should show the variety that they brewery produced throughout the year.

I’ll start with the staples, you’ll be able to get them anytime. From there, onto seasonals and pilot programs. I’ll also start by saying that all of these beers are best described as light. I hesitate to say “thin” as that seems to have a specific connotation, but it also works. These are lower calorie beers designed with an active lifestyle in mind. That doesn’t mean they are lacking in taste.

That lightness works well for most of these, but not all.

All of these are <0.5% beer.

Staples

These brews should be available all the time. There are two new ones as well, but I have not tried them: the Athletic Light; and Free Wave, a hazy IPA.

Run Wild IPA

This is a light IPA, hoppy but not overtly so. My first of all of these, good to drink, but I found other flavors I liked more.

Upside Dawn Golden

This has a similar hop level as the Run Wild, but adds in the golden flavor to smooth it out some. All for 45 calories.

All Out Dark

This is their stout-like beer. Here the ‘lightness’ of the beers is a hindrance. It doesn’t taste bad… but doesn’t succeed quite either.

Cerveza Atletica Lager

This is supposed to be reminiscent of a Dos Equis type beer. But I found the copper taste a bit too much for myself. I did not mind drinking it, but did not seek out more of it.

Seasonal / Limited Edition

These beers had a full label on the can, so my assumption is they are in some rotation at the brewery, tho not always available. I will be certainly getting most of them again should they return.

Irish Red

Ah, this one wins. It is the Killian’s type red, malty and light to drink.

Soul Sour

Made for Black History Month by guest brewer, this sour was fantastic, and I ended up getting a second batch.

Trailblazer

Described as a hoppy helles, and I agree, it has a pleasant amount of hops with a slight peach flavor. This is what I was drinking when I posted this article.

Wit’s Peak

A witbier with some citrus, light and pleasant. They didn’t last long.

Stump Jump Brown

A nice English style brown ale. I quite liked this one. The malt and nut flavors were well balanced.

Lodge Life Fireside

A darker beer, this one has a slightly smokey taste that finishes with a hint of marshmallows. The goal is to have you think of smores around the fire, and it succeeded.

First Ride

A malty beer made with coffee? Yes please! It did have caffeine, so I only really had these during the afternoon. I suppose I could have had one for breakfast…

Pilot Program

The pilot program seems to be what it sounds like, as they brewery is trying out new and … interesting things. They are a risk (to both groups, brewer and drinker), but have had some interesting rewards.

I do not know if you’ll ever be able to buy any of these again, so this list may be more to interest you in future brews.

Brut IPA

This is easily my least favorite of any NA Beer I’ve had. It was an interesting idea, a brut type IPA, but the result of stripping all the sweetness out of the beer is just the bitterness of the hops. Even some fresh grapefruit slices did not help…

Lost in the Redwoods

A maltier red than the Irish Red, and quite tasty.

Athletic Hefeweissan

A light Hef with great taste.

Irish Dry Stout

While similar to the All Out Dark, this one has a much better flavor and succeeds in invoking a stout where the other doesn’t quite make it.

Next Time

More breweries, like Bravus, Wellness and Untitled Art!