One of the hot trends of the past 10 years or so has been the growth and consumption of drinks known as alcopops.  Basically, they’re like beer, except that they’re heavily flavored and usually strive to look as little like beer as possible.  They’re usually citrusy yellow or fruity red, and they’re incredibly sweet if you’re used to drinking real barley and hops brews.  Think Zima, Smirnoff Ice, Bacardi Breezers, those kind of things.  Well, it was only a matter of time before someone decided to take the alcopop formula and remove the actual alcohol.  Unicorn Brewery, in Cheshire, has become England’s first brewer of ‘soft brews,’ or the near-beer of the alcopop world.

Maybe I’m crazy, but isn’t an alcohol-free alcopop just a normal soft drink with a slightly different ingredient list?  I mean, couldn’t you just ask for an actual lemonade, or some fruit punch, and get some citrus soda tossed in for flavor and have the same thing.  I mean, I understand that the only real difference between a soft brew and an alcopop is lack of fermentation, but if you throw some ice and an umbrella into a tumbler of Hawaiian Punch, it looks like a mixed drink!

Alcopops barely qualify as alcohol to begin with; maybe I’m just a beer snob, but soft brews seem like the dumbest invention in the history of dumb inventions.  They don’t taste or look like alcohol to begin with, and now you want to take away the only selling point by making it so you can’t get drunk off of them?  Sigh.

Knowing how people shop, these will be the biggest thing ever.

Tags: alcohol, malt beverages, alcopops, Cheshire, England, Unicorn Brewery, Marks & Spencer, alcohol-free alcopops, soft brews, beverages

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