Summer's not over (yet); a conversation with Germany's 'Dr. Beer'

Dr. Marc Rauschmann, with hops plants.

     The second half of August, already? Geez, that was fast. Summer, still, but also one of those moments when you find yourself teetering at the top of that first steep hill on the roller coaster. You can see the entire amusement park spread out around you. Take a good look, because it's a quick plunge, a few rises and falls, a few hard turns, until we come to a jarring stop at autumn.
     Did you have a good summer? I detailed the highlight of mine on Wednesday — my older son's wedding. Otherwise, mostly work, trips to the Botanic Garden and the YMCA. Gardening was a disaster, again. My tomatoes are little hard green balls of shame.
     At least there was the comfort of cherries. Great this year, if pricey. The Northwest Cherry Growers credit perfect weather.
     What else? I did indulge in light summertime reading, racing through the last few volumes in Robert Galbraith's C.B. Strike mystery series. My wife is a big mystery fan, and after years of touting the books, written by J.K. Rowling under a pen name, I dove in, warming immediately to one-legged shamus Cormoran Strike and his resourceful sidekick Robin Ellacott. The author of the Harry Potter books certainly can write, and these books are also a window into her psyche. Rowling spends her days decrying trans women on X, and they appear as some of the more loathsome characters in the Strike novels.
     Strike is a classic noir detective — hard-drinking, fast with his fists. But in the later books he goes on a diet and starts drinking NA beer, which has been booming in recent years. NA beer can be seen as reaching a new level of acceptability when fictional detectives start drinking it.
     Once, the choice was O'Doul's or nothing. Now there's half an aisle of NA beer at Binny's. When I was in Boston, my cousin's wife brought me a Woodland Farms Brewery Pointer Non-Alcoholic IPA that was so delicious I looked into having the stuff shipped. Though honestly Clausthaler is good enough for me.
     The Radeberger Gruppe, which launched Clausthaler in 1979 and claims it is the first NA beer (a distinction I'd give Prohibition era near beer), dangled their brewmaster at me. I bit.
     What does Clausthaler taste like?
     "It's full-bodied beer," said Dr. Marc Rauschmann, on a Zoom call from Germany. "A slight sweetness from the malt, from the sugar. We have a moderate bitterness, a good bitterness."
     I told him that a moderate, good bitterness is exactly what I strive for.
     "We have a higher bitterness, but because of the sweetness it's a very good balanced beer," he continued. "You don't taste a very aggressive bitterness. You taste the bitterness, but it's very pleasant."
     This is because it's brewed to be no alcohol, he said, while other NAs remove the alcohol later, leading to "empty tasting, low bodied" beers.
     Speaking of Heineken 0.0, that leads to what I know is the central puzzlement among regular beer drinkers regarding NA beer: If you don't get a buzz, why bother? Several reasons. To me, it tastes good, it's better than a glass of water and fewer calories than soda. It approximates the beer experience, and nobody ever regrets drinking NA beer.

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