You know non-alcoholic beers have hit the minivan mainstream when even the local Costco warehouse carries multiple varieties at once.
This week, one of the available brands was a non-alcoholic version of Blue Moon, a Belgian-inspired megabrew from Molson Coors that seemed like an interesting choice to get the non-alcoholic treatment. Colour me intrigued.
Blue Moon calls itself a Belgian White, but it’s important to flag that this is the style, not where the beer was brewed. The fine print on the can says it was brewed by Molson Coors Canada, the product of a giant international brewing company, not some idealized monk-filled abbey where men in robes peel oranges and stir vats of hot grain with wooden paddles. As in all things beer marketing, it’s best to never take anything at face value. Even the beer I most associate with leading the Belgian White revival, Hoegaarden, has been under the umbrella of rival megabrewer Anheuser-Busch InBev for ages.
If we can move past the questions of marketing and ownership and who can legitimately call themselves a Belgian beer, it’s a wonder to me that we have arrived at the stage of non-alcoholic beer’s mainstreaming that it’s even possible to find a non-alcoholic Belgian white at all. The style is more precisely known as witbier, a variety of wheat beer that has a hazy cast to it when cold, and has come to be associated with the addition of citrus and spices during the brewing process – typically orange peel and coriander. Between the unique taste that comes from using wheat as a base malt and the other flavourings, it’s a beer style I love, and that I kept coming back to for years – that is, before I went dry.
Now that I’m sticking to non-alcoholic beers, it’s a blessing to have a beer in this style available at all. And to a certain extent, I don’t mind if it’s made by a huge brewery or a local micro or a gaggle of monks in a monastery. That it’s even an option at the local Costco delights me.
How’s it taste?
The beer pours a hazy golden in the glass, with an aroma of sweet orange and, of course, no whiff of alcohol. There’s lots of foamy head, which is common with wheat beers, so I had to stop the pour midway to let the head settle. There’s also sediment at the bottom of the can, which is true to style but also unexpected in a NA beer.
The copy on the can says it’s brewed with Valencia orange peel, but the orange notes in the nose don’t carry as predominantly into the taste. If anything, thanks to the light bitterness and lack of sweetness, the citrus taste leans more into grapefruit. If that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends on your citrus preferences. It’s got a good fizz to it, the wheat is very forward, and the overall mouthfeel is surprisingly rich. Some NA beers can be quite thin, but not this one. I don’t taste a lot of coriander, oddly.
I’m never sure what to make of “natural flavours” in an ingredients panel, but there’s nothing immediately unnatural about the taste.
If you feel fancy, by all means serve it with a wedge of orange on the side of the glass, and squeeze in some of that goodness before you take a sip. I enjoy a bit more sweetness and fruit to my witbiers, and a splash of fresh orange does the trick.
The Details
Price: $28.99 for a 24-pack of 355 mL cans at Costco in Edmonton.
Value for Money: At about $1.21 per can, that’s pretty good for a quality NA beer. But that’s also the Costco price. Not sure what a six-pack would run you at Safeway, if you can find one that stocks it.
Availability: Kinda limited, at least based on my regular grocery store rounds. While other NA beers have become easier to find, Blue Moon’s NA variety isn’t super common on shelves in this corner of the world. While Costco had some this week, who knows if it’ll be around much longer. Such is the Costco way. (Crosses self.)
Calories: 80 kcal per 355 mL can. For a standard-sized can of NA beer, that seems a bit high. The less watery mouthfeel comes at a calorie price, I’d imagine.
Verdict: A nice alternative when you want a non-alcoholic beer that’s more than a standard pale lager. A nice summer sipper, for sure.
