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Why are alcohol-free drinks so expensive? Some fake spirits cost over £25 a bottle!
(www.theguardian.com)
Vote with your wallet. Just don’t buy them.
this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2025
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Yeah, I'm quite into Lucky Saints, Erdinger Blue, Guinness Zero, and I think even Peroni have an alcohol free variety.
- Me at 15: I hate beer, it tastes awful, I just drink it to look cool to my friends
- Me at 25: I don't mind beer, it's still pretty awful, but it does help in social situations
- Me at 35: I fricking love the taste of beer, but I do get drunk easy and don't want this to turn into a habit.
Alcohol free beer really nicely hits that spot where you're sitting in the garden, incinerating something or other, and want a nice cool bitter something to chase away the evening without the risk of getting plastered.
Wish they were cheaper. 7 quid for a 6 pack of glass bottles is a joke
Scale, and there's an additional process to remove the alcohol.
Because it costs producers money to create an alternate sku that very few people buy. I never understood NA beer/wine/champaign. I drink to get buzzed, not because I like the taste. If it didn’t have alcohol, I sure as fuck wouldn’t be drinking yeast water.
With that said, NA cocktails are pretty great. Shirley temples, phony Negronis, all the virgin daiquiris. The more tiny umbrellas the better.
For some people, myself included, drinking is about the ritual and the social aspect, rather than necessarily getting drunk. When I go to a pub, I want to have a beer, but I don't always want to deal with a hangover the next day, particularly during the working week.
In some ways it's not that different from people who have decaffeinated coffee. It's not any cheaper, but you still get to enjoy the experience of drinking coffee.
Honest question about the taste, peer pressure, and ritual.
Do you like the taste of beer/wine/champaign?
If yes, is your favorable opinion of the taste part of the ritual?
In your social circle, are you afraid of your mates making fun of you for ordering a coke?
I apologize in advance. I find the taste of beer/wine/champaign/coffee to be repugnant, so I’m super curious about your experience.
Thanks for asking. I do enjoy the taste of beer and wine, and prefer it over the taste of soft drink. Having tried lots of alcohol free beers, I do think they're very good these days, and I'm a big fan of Botivo.
Alcohol-free wine still has a way to go, I sometimes grab a bottle from the supermarket, and find it quite reasonably priced. It doesn't taste quite like wine, but for me it tastes better than soft drinks.
Obviously this doesn’t have to apply to you, I enjoy the bitter flavour, but the main reason I love NA beer is that drinks traditionally fall into 4 camps: water, hot bitter caffeine, cold bitter alcohol, or sweet sugar drinks.
If you don’t want to get drunk or stay awake for 6 hours, basically the choices left are water (love it, but nice to have something else sometimes), or just excessive sweetness, I can stand a coke every now and again, but 2 in a row would leave me feeling sick.
Na beer lets me drink something that feels like it wasn’t designed for 12 year olds without having to worry about dropping my baby or crashing my car.
Unsweetened herbal tea?
Also a great option, especially on colder days