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Stone & Wood 2010

Beer Radar

By John Krüger

Stone & Wood

(First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2010)

This month we’re having a closer look at Stone & Wood from Byron Bay. A while back we looked at their Pale Lager, which is a very light, very soft quaffable Munich Helles style lager. We’ve recently had the chance to try two more of their beers fresh on tap recently and can totally understand why there’s so much excitement in the Aussie beer scene at the moment.

Apart from being a great bloke, Brad Rogers the chief brewer for Stone & Wood has a great attitude to making beer; it has to be drinkable. That doesn’t sound like rocket science but so many modern brewers are getting carried away with mega imperial India Pale Ales and the like, they’re hopped beyond belief and are verging on undrinkable. Sure they’re different and powerful, but here in the Beer Radar office we like to have more than one beer before our taste buds have been paralysed and the enamel stripped from our teeth. Quite a few beers in succession over a yarn in a hospitable hotel is still one of life’s simple luxuries.

This is where Stone & Wood have done things just right. Their simple draught ale has a wonderful prominent hop presence, but you could drink it for hours. In fact, we did! It’s a wonderfully fruity ale with Galaxy hops bursting out of the glass thanks to some generous dry hopping. It’s a beer with a delicious hop character and a cleansing dry finish. Perfect balance, yet still a bold modern beer.

The second beer we tried was their Stone Beer. We’ve tried the bottled version before, which we loved, but draught beer is like meeting the movie star in person instead of just seeing them on a screen. Stone beer is a unique project where Brad and his crew go old-school in the beer making process, building a fire and getting appropriate rocks scalding hot before adding them to the unfermented beer wort. In the old days, it was a way of getting it to boil without having to heat a kettle. It sounds like a lot of hassle instead of just lighting a gas burner or turning on a heating element, but the wort caramelises around the hot rock, creating extra toffee flavours and complexity. It’s another very drinkable beer.

The Stone & Wood beers are available at a surprising amount of locations around Australia. Check out their website for an ever growing list of pubs with their beers on tap. They’re great in the bottle, but for us, nothing beats a fresh pint or three.

http://www.stoneandwood.com.au

Real Beer Fans Prefer Brunettes

Beer Radar

By John Krüger

(First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2008)

Real beer fans prefer brunettes.

If we had a visiting team of beer marketers in our office, we’d smack them on the noses with rolled up newspapers and rub their noses in their directionless campaigns and misinformation. One of many irritants in recent beer marketing to us is the label ‘blonde.’ For about a century, ‘blonde’ has been used to describe a lighter coloured beer, and all was well. Now ‘blonde’ is somehow associated with a low carbohydrate content. We’re still to work out the connection.

Doctor Trent Watson from the Australian Institute of Accredited Dieticians says the low-carb option is far from the ideal choice for those consumers watching their energy intake. “Carbohydrates should be 40-50% of our total energy intake, and that the average full strength beer has about as many carbohydrates as half a slice of bread (~7gms)” he says. So it’s like ordering a diet soft-drink to go with a bucket of fried chicken. It’s not the carbo’s in beer that’s the nutritional problem. Most beers are low in residual sugar but it’s the alcohol that’s really the culprit. If you’re like us, you’d prefer to think of alcohol as a handy solvent that happens to make us happy on it’s otherwise ineffectual trip through the body. Unfortunately we’re very much deluded when it comes to nutrition. Our bodies happen to be damn good at metabolising the depressant alcohol which is almost immediately stored as fat in our livers.

A healthier alternative is low or mid strength beers, or our favourite: drink less, but drink well. Considering our preference for bar stools over bicycles, the scariest thing we learned from Dr. Trent is that each full strength beer holds around 600 kilojoules, which takes about 30 minutes of walking to burn off. That’s right, it’d take 3 hours of walking to burn off a 6 pack of beer, or around 2 hours for a 6 pack of light. There’s no way in hell a 6 pack of light beer is ever going to be worth 2 hours of walking in our minds. Maybe it’s time to get a carton of Coopers Birell (0.5%abv) before my WiiFit instructor starts calling me fat again.

Big Brown Creatures and Little White Rabbits

Beer Radar

By John Krüger

Big brown Creatures and little White Rabbits

(First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2010)

When a large cardboard box arrived at the Beer Radar office recently we were all in a tizzy. Especially when we realised it was from Little Creatures and White Rabbit. It’s not every day that we get a few beers in the post from Australia’s brewing rock stars. They’re not the kind of breweries that knock out a new beer every week, so we guess that these beers will be well thought out and executed.

First up, a big brown bottle of limited release Brown Ale from Little Creatures. It’ll be a solid, yet hoppy beer, we know that before we’ve chilled and opened it. What we got was power, balance and restraint. Powerful aromas in an American style but not in an ‘old-ladies’ perfume’ kind of powerful. There’s a solid blend of malts including a hint of spicy rye. Rye is rarely seen in Australian brewed beers and it adds a unique nutty spice and a little oilyness that suits darker beers. Each malt in the Little Creatures brown ale stands out instead of a forming a mish-mash of flavours and we’re guessing this beer has been through as much refining as a race-car does before it’s been released because it’s spot on. Kegs and open fires please.

White Rabbit had sent us a little potion sized bottle of their White Ale. We’d also tried it recently on tap at our local and while the draught version seemed a little light-on for us, the bottled version, maybe because of the small amount of yeast in each bottle, seems to have a lot more oomph for what’s still a pretty light kind of beer. There’s a hint of spice, the classic orange peel and coriander but again, very restrained. Belgian Wit is a fantastic style and so well suited to our hot summers, here’s hoping some venues cotton on to a little White Rabbit this coming summer.

*Mentioned beers were supplied by the breweries

Weizens 2012

Beer Radar

By John Krüger

“Weetbeers – Like Weetbix, but breakfast for grownups.” (First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2012)

OK, that may not get past the officials, and Moa got in trouble with the NZ officials after they released a cherry wheat beer and suggested it’d make an awesome breakfast beer; and it does. For those of you who aren’t too seedy on a Sunday morning, wheat beers with a pan-fried breakfast are perfect matches. Gentle acidity, a little soft sweetness, carbonation and refreshment, all go with bacon and eggs on sourdough toast. Try a half litre of fresh Schöfferhofer Hefeweizen, swirled so the yeast is incorporated into the correct tall weizen glass. Add a slice of lemon if it’s stinking hot weather. Serve next to a barbequed slice of Jagerbraten with all of the trimmings, it’s wunderbar!

Ground breaking Spanish chef Ferran Adrià teamed up with Estrella to produce Estrella Inedit. It’s a Belgian style wheat beer that includes the usual coriander and orange zest, but also a hint of liquorice. It’s subtle enough to add complexity without tasting like Liquorice All-Sorts. It’s a stunningly packaged 750ml beer, which can be purchased around the $10 mark, surprisingly. It’s more of a dinner party wheat rather than a breakfast beer. Ferran is known for pioneering amazing molecular gastronomic creations, so many fans were surprised that this beer is so restrained.

For an Aussie option, the classic – bacon, origin-unknown snag, baked beans and egg goes well with a variety of local wheat beers. Here’s some Aussie options:

Cascade Blonde – The Germans would call it a Kristalweizen because there’s no yeast so it’s clear. It’s a good entry level wheat beer. Nothing too offensive, which is what Cascade does best. It’s clean and clear while still having a sweet wheat aroma.

McLaren Vale has a bubbling collection of craft brewers at the moment and there’s a handful of good wheat beers to be found there too.

Swell Wheat Beer –Swell Beer Company co-founder Dan Wright also loves a good wheat beer. His version has a lean towards a Belgian style with a hint of orange peel and delivers aromatic esters while still being an easy drinker. You’ve got to love the 500ml bottles too.

Goodieson’s Wheat Beer – It’s had a brewer’s loving touch for ester production. Head brewer Jeff Goodieson has the passion and know-how to really make German wheat beer yeasts sing, and it shows. It also picked up the Ecolab Trophy for Champion Wheat Beer at the 2012 Royal Adelaide Beer Awards in a close competition.

McLaren Vale Beer Company Wit – Another Belgian style wheat beer. Limited production means that it’s only occasionally available in kegs. This beer reminds me of a young crowd at the Vale Inn Taphouse on a sunny day, lamb on the spit and large plastic cups of cold beer. Head brewer Jeff Wright says there should be some fresh Wit pouring at the Taphouse around Christmas time.

Wahoo?

Beer Radar

By John Krüger

Wahoo? (First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2011)

We’ve recently seen the only significant difference in beer packaging since we spotted aluminium Heineken bottles during a pub crawl through Lan Kwai Fong in Hong Kong back in 2004. Gage Roads have released its Wahoo Ale in a new Vortex bottle made by the high profile American owned glass company O-I in Sydney. The inside of the bottle neck has large smooth grooves twisting around almost like rifling in a gun barrel, while the outside of the bottle remains normal. Miller Lite in the States has been doing the same thing for a while. Not surprisingly, everyone has asked “why?” and the only reason we can think of is chugging a beer could possibly happen ever so slightly faster, not that there’s any mention of accelerated consumption in the Miller Lite or Gage Roads press-releases and marketing. So it’s basically a point of difference in the glass packaging that Gage Roads are hoping will give them an edge in a very crowded market. We couldn’t tell any difference to the flow of the beer from the bottle but we swear the Wahoo tasted hoppier than it did the last time we tried it, even though Gage Roads assured us that the recipe hasn’t changed since its first release.

A family lunch at the Adelaide German Club recently was even better than usual when we realised that Hofbräu Maibock was on tap. Traditionally, in Munich, the first barrel of Maibock is tapped in the last week of April in readiness for the month of May. Hofbräu Maibock is Munich’s oldest bock (strong beer), which dates all the way back to 1614. Now that’s brewing heritage! The Maibock is darker than the Hofbräu Original and has a very rich malt flavour with a high alcohol level of 7.2%. After three or four 500ml steins, you certainly realise that this is no ordinary beer. Hofbräu 500ml bottles are available at most good bottle shops. We rate their beers highly.

Transitional Beers

Beer Radar

By John Krüger

Transitional Beers. (First published in Wine Business Magazine in 2010)

We’ve covered some of the darker beers a few months ago in Beer Radar, and we’re leaving the stouts until they’re really needed. This month we look at a selection we hope could be transitional beers. The ones you could feed to your your Dad in the hope that at last he’ll give up his nasty generic beer in a can.

Matilda Bay – Fat Yak: Reeking of hops. Truck full of citrus crashes into a cheap perfume stall. Might smell too scary for Dad. Background aromas of malty goodness. Resiny bitterness backed up with a light malt sweetness and thin body. Almost a little watery at the end, fading away.

Coopers – Sparkling Ale: classic Aussie Pride of Ringwood hop flavour so Dad will recognise something familiar, but also bready yeast complexity and toffee. We’d call it Mother’s Milk but milk has never been this good. Like a good radio station, the hits we love but also something a bit different.

Mildura Brewery – Mallee Bull Heavy: A malty amber style ale. Loads of dense malty goodness without being overly sweet. Subtle bitterness and all round well balanced beer. Good soft intro into decent drinking. Could have a few of these.

Barons Brewing – Black Wattle Original Ale: Sweet, nutty and rich but it’s not as heavy as it smells, so you can drink more than one. Creeping bitterness. A gutsy amber ale with roasted black wattle seeds giving a seedy nutty twist to the usual chocolate and coffee flavours associated with winter ales. Looks too good to drink from the bottle, should be in longnecks or growlers.

Cascade – First Harvest 2010: Malty for a Cascade, still bright and clear but with a hint of colour. The bitterness units might be up there but the Fat Yak slayed this beer in regards to hop presence. Dad friendly beer. The bitterness might start Dad up on the old Southwark Bitter “green death” rant again so better not risk it.

A Cidery Start and a Hidden Beer Finish.

Beer Radar

By John Krüger

A cidery start and a hidden beer finish.

(First published by Wine Business Magazine in 2011)

It doesn’t take a short fuzzy mandolin player to tell you that cider is a big thing at the moment. Even Perry is making its way back onto the shelves. We’ve braved the meagre 4 days of heat during the recent summer and have downed a few great ciders including Adelaide Hills Cider on tap which has been a revelation. It’s all that we love about artisan cider; a hint of natural spontaneous ferment sourness, real apple flavour, and no nasty saccharine or other artificial flavours. Lobo Cider from Lobethal, also in the Adelaide Hills was a bridge-too-far for my sister-in-law who pronounced “this is off!” and left the rest for us to down faster than a dog eats dropped snags at a BBQ. Some people prefer their cider without the rustic charm and a little more 20^th century. One cider we’ve sampled recently from our other favourite spot in the world, the Yarra Valley, is Coldstream Cider. It’s made by brewers so it doesn’t have any funk, but it does taste like real apples and is a damn site better than the artificial ciders popular with the alcho-pop brigade. It’s also thankfully lacking in the massive hit of sulpher that’s prominent in some of the imported ciders and sits somewhere between sweet and dry on the residual sugar. We copped a lot of flak from the UK expats about adding ice to our cider but we’re not in cardigan and long socks country anymore are we? We’re that impressed with the cider, we’re keen to try what else Coldstream are doing.

Our favourite surfy brewers from Byron Bay, Stone and Wood, have intelligently renamed their deliciously fruity ale. Previously called Draught Ale (Draught means “drawn from the tap” a fresh beer) certainly makes sense on tap, but the term “draught” in relation to packaged beer has always irritated us. It’s like bottled water, but in a can. Anyway, their beer is still great fresh from the tap or bottle as we’ve reported before, but now to avoid more confusion (we’re looking at you West End and Carlton) Stone and Wood have renamed their excellent beer “Pacific Ale”. Why “Pacific”? Buggered if we know but it makes more sense.

As the nights cool down, it’s time to work out which sock drawer you’ve stashed the Coopers Vintage Ale. Initially we couldn’t stand the previous vintage fresh from the brewery. It seemed all marshmallow weed and cheap lollies, but given time to mature the 2009 has really come up a treat. We’ve even stashed bottles in various locations so we don’t knock them off all in one go. Young and foolish beer nerds dismiss the ale quoting the term “oxidised” and go back to their Fat Yacks, but hey “dudes”, great matured bevvies that have a bit of oxygen under their belts flourish with new and complex flavours. Don’t ask us for proof, ask Seppelts 100 year old port for example. The 2009 Coopers Vintage Ale will be our sneaky brandy balloon tipple during the coming colder months until we stop finding all of the hidden stubbies.

2013 News

Beer Radar for November 2013 WBM

By John Krüger

A few new beers have popped up on the radar and they’ll certainly get a hammering over the warmer weather.

The first is a new beer from Pikes in Clare. They already have a very drinkable stout and a cracker of a floral hoppy pilsener. Now they’ve added a Sparkling Ale to their line up. It’s a nice middle of the road beer, which could be sipped on a cool night or enjoyed by the pint on a warm day. It has a nice malty dry biscuit flavour and a lingering bitterness. It’s a medium bodied, nicely balanced ale with a clean yeast profile which really adds to the drinkability. It’s already available at multiple venues including the Kings Hotel in Adelaide as well as Leftbank Melbourne and Vic on the Park in Sydney.

The second new beer is from Mismatch Brewing Co. Aptly named Ewan Brewerton is heading up a small proactive group of “gypsy brewers” who have released their first beer, Archie’s Red Ale. It reminds me of a Little Creatures creation, it’s very well balanced while still delivering the goods. It leans slightly on the sweeter side but chock full of citrus hop flavour, complex malt character and mouth feel. It’s quite a big beer on the flavour delivery while still weighing in at only 5% alcohol. I’ve really enjoyed pouring Archie’s Red into a tulip glass and enjoying it as an after dinner beer. Giving credit where credit is due; Ewan insists on transparency to the point of even naming where the beer was brewed and ingredients used in press releases. Archie’s Red Ale isn’t available outside of South Australia just yet, but inside SA they’ve done a great job getting it in all the cool bars like Udaberri and craft beer friendly bottle shops like The Highway hotel.

The third beer to pop up is a new ale from James Squire. The Constable is described as a Copper Ale. I’m not sure if there’s a pun intended there or not but the people at Lion seem pretty happy with it. Samples weren’t available by deadline but an insider has smuggled some info out to me via SMS with the descriptors: English, floral, citrus, earthy, and an AVB of only 3.4%. This could join Little Creatures Rogers and Birbeck’s The Captain as lower alcohol alternatives that still have a decent whack of flavour. Just in time for the office Christmas party where you really should keep your pants on this year.

In other news, a surprising move; Owen Johnston, well known head brewer for MooBrew has taken up a position with HPA (Hop Products Australia) as Sales and Marketing Manager. For such a high profile brewer to take up a non-brewing role was certainly unexpected but Owen seems excited about his new job. “My role is definitely part travelling sales goon, but more importantly I should be able to provide brewers with a conduit to the technical information they need to get the best the character from our hops. Whether that is analytical information or advice on application in the brewery, I will be able to help brewers.” He says. The hop industry seems to be the fastest changing facet of beer at the moment. Although different varieties of barley are slowly being developed, new varieties of hybrid hops are popping up like pimples on a greasy teenager. Owen adds, “In terms of new hop varieties coming from our extensive breeding program, I look forward to sticking my nose into ‘farm business’. It is definitely an area that generates a lot of interest from brewers as they search for the next point of difference for their beers.” We’re looking forward to hearing more from HPA and hopefully having the chance to brew with some of the latest new-age hybrid hops ourselves. Owen’s hoping he’ll still get a chance to pull on the steel-caps and knock out a batch of beer with brewing friends at some stage in the future.

Aussie Winter Warmers

Beer Radar for WBM June 2013

(First published in Wine Business Magazine in 2013)

By John Krüger

Aussie Winter Warmers

A big Shiraz or a shot of whiskey certainly help make a chilly night better, but a cold beer still rocks on a cold night. The beers don’t have to be icy cold, just lightly chilled is fine. A mate of mine Tony Yale runs a Real Ale pub called the Prince Rupert in Newark, Nottinghamshire in the UK. They only serve real ale at a cellar temperature of 12C and they’ve won a CAMRA award for their diligence at serving the perfect pint. The wonderful flavours in beer are muted by serving a beer too cold. Knocking back icy cold beers will always have an important place in Australians hearts but it’s not a blanket rule for everything beery. This month I’ve dug out some great Aussie dark beers that are beautiful drinking at any time of the year but especially warm the heart in cold weather. Pour them into a big glass like a tulip or Nonic and let them warm up for a little while to really enjoy them.

Moo Brew – Dark What a great beer. It’s based on a American Brown Ale but it’s a beautiful dark ruby red with more roasty flavours. It’s so balanced and smooth that it’ll take a few sips to lock on to the generous hop flavour. It’s nice to see a clean finished beer without secondary fermentation yeast floating in the beer. Easy and very enjoyable drinking with a dark roast finish.

Stone and Wood – 2013 Stone Beer This years version is darker. Going from last year’s rich red ale to a black beer. The extra chocolate wheat malt in the grist has added dry cocoa and coffee layer of flavour and made this beer a definite addition to the winter list. It’s still got a good whack of hops which turns a black ale into something interesting. You can also buy this year’s Stone Beer in their popular 500ml ceramic swing-top bottle from their online store www.stoneandwood.com.au

Prancing Pony – Black Ale It’s turning into a very popular beer. De-husked roasted malt avoids some of the acrid character associated with really dark beers. This is smooth and sweet with loads of coffee, a hint of liquorice, dry chocolate and a sweet malty body. It’s not too alcoholic so it’s still nice easy drinking. I prefer a dryer finish but the Pony range tend to lean towards sweeter maltier style of beers, which might explain why their Black Ale is so popular.

Murray’s – Heart of Darkness Now it gets weird, this is a Belgian Imperial Stout. It’s hard to miss the cool 1950’s horror movie style label artwork. Spicy Belgian yeast esters explode out of the glass before you even try to smell it. It’s a thick Chinotto tasting stout weighing in at 9.6%abv. It has a load of weight in the mouth but still finishes surprisingly dry with a lingering spicy chocolate finish. Give one a try. It’s a meal in a glass.

Kooinda – Black IPA Black Rock n’ Roll IPA in a glass. It’s a well balanced, yet resinous hoppy India Pale Ale (well, not pale) hidden in a smooth black stout. The two styles meld beautifully. The hops are added late in the boil and dry hopped as well, so there’s no doubt it’ll make hop heads happy. The hop flavours range from earthy and spicy to pine resin and grassy. There’s a hint of dry chocolate and coffee coming from the roasted malts and an enjoyable medium body.

Southwark – Old Stout Such an under-the-radar stout but everyone should try it. I think it’s the finest beer to come out of Lion’s Thebarton brewery. It’s rich, balanced, still traditional with a hint of smoke and sweet dark toffee. Drink it wearing a beanie and think of home. At a recent beer dinner, Technical Brewer Karli Small from Lion’s West End brewery portrayed the subtle smokey character as akin to Barossa Mettwurst, which nails the description perfectly.

Christmas 2013

Beer Radar for WBM Dec2013/Jan2014

(First published in Wine Business Magazine in 2014)

By John Krüger

This summer’s the perfect time to skip the usual beer you buy every time and branch out a little. Head into your favourite bottle shop and grab a few stubbies of each of the following beers and do some research. Find out what you like best before you lash out on a few cartons. This year I’ve put together a list of summer guzzlers. Chill these beers down icy cold or even better, keep a separate esky full of beers on ice. You’ll have more room in the fridge for ham and Pavlova, which makes everyone in the house happy. Whichever beers you ultimately choose, try to find fresh stock, chill them down well ahead of time, and rejoice in the finest hot weather beverage known to man (if you don’t count Clare Riesling).

Pikes – Pilsener

A floral light bodied Pilsener that has a wonderful restrained floral hoppy character. It has a really nice malt/bitterness balance and a light easy drinking body. The carbonation is spot on, so this kind of beer is perfect served icy cold and guzzled out of the bottle on a hot day. A great fresh Aussie made pilsner.

Croucher – Pilsner

The Kiwi’s do craft beer really well and although this one can be hard to find in mainstream bottle shops, it’s worth tracking down. This is a true Pilsner style beer with sharper more intense bitterness while still being refreshing and totally enjoyable. Nice big 500ml bottles to pour into a chilled glass. Once you find them, it’ll be hard to go past. A favourite Kiwi.

Cascade – Bright Ale

You know if it’s from Cascade, it’s going to be clean and crisp. Their revamped line of beers includes a Bright Ale which is mouth-wateringly refreshing, crisp and clean. The Bright Ale utilises one of my favourite finishing combinations of Galaxy and Cascade hops, which give it a great waft of fresh tropical fruit aromas. Kudos for the redesigned, yet still value-for-money 375ml bottle, so it still feels like a big stubbie of beer in your hand. Thankfully lacking a screw-cap. Classy.

Budĕjovický Budvar

A perfect lager from the Czech Republic. Classic Czech flavours of clean straw malt characters with spicy noble Saaz hops. When this is fresh, it’s the essence of what clean lagers are all about. It’s like pouring chilled crisp liquid gold down your neck. This is where it all started and it still stands as a classic example of the beer style. Green bottles aren’t a great defence against sunlight so try to buy a fresh sealed carton. Little green bottles of pure joy.

McLaren Vale Beer Co – Vale Lager

A “new world” lager, it’s got more guts than the typical Aussie lager. More floral and citrus hop characters and a hint of light Munich malt to give it some malt flavour and backbone. It’s a gutsy, full-bodied lager with the flavour cranked up, but still only 4.5%. Gutsy and crafty.

Stone and Wood – Pacific Ale

It’s light in body with only a subtle sweetness. As soon as you remove the cap it’s got passionfruit and citrus hop aromas leaping out of the bottle. There’s that beautiful Galaxy hop again. This beer is turning into an Aussie icon that some are starting to imitate. Such clean easy drinking with abundant hop joy, without feeling like you’re chewing through the contents of the grass catcher from the lawn mower. Summer drinking so good, I wish I could ride a surfboard properly. Drink it wearing board shorts.

Brooklyn Brewery – Summer Ale

Made with 100% British malts, they’ve toned the hops down and made a classic UK style summer ale ale, but it’s still 5% alcohol. It’s got a hint of caramel, a slight refreshing wheaty twang, and the classic UK generous real malt flavour. If you’re not after US hop explosions or crisp lagers, Brooklyn Brewery’s Summer Ale might be what you’re looking for. An easy-going ale without any sediment.

North Coast Brewing Co – Blue Star Wheat Beer

This is a very non-offensive American Wheat beer. It’s soft and nice. It’s smooth sailing with a laid back slightly sweet wheat flavour and minimal bitterness. Try it with a slice of lemon, which is perfectly acceptable behaviour with wheat beers. It’s very refreshing and the lemon accentuates the hint of wheat tartness. The soft yet tasty option, without having to resort to watered down low-carb or low-alc alternatives. Knock a few of these down with lemon while you battle the BBQ.