Appropriately. I've Finally Got Around To Trying; "Lost Lager."

From the BrewDog brewery in Ellon, Aberdeenshire.

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/12017/13151872/euro-2024-germany-5-1-scotland-10-player-scots-humiliated-by-hosts-in-opening-match

Back in August 2023 England changed the way it levies alcohol duty. Starting to tax beer and wine according to their alcohol content. Rather than taxing all products in each category equally.

Prior to that Britain's main beers; "Stella Artois," Kronenberg 1664," "Heineken," "Budweiser," "San Miguel" etc were all at or above 5% alcohol.

In response to the change the makers of those beers kept brewing them to the same recipe. Then boiled them to reduce the alcohol content and thus tax payable. With the exception of San Miguel and Heineken 4.6% seems to be the alcohol content they've settled on.

The result is dreadful. As with any other pot you've left on the hob for too long.

With its Lost Lager BrewDog devised a recipe for a lager with a 4.6% alcohol content. Then just stopped there.

Obviously I'm still sampling. However I'm leaning towards the conclusion that despite the alcohol content being the same the results are much better. Despite the slightly rapey, hipster top notes.

It's actually the opposite of what's been happening in the non-alcoholic beer market recently.

For a great many years the only non-alcoholic beer you could buy in Britain was; "Kaliber." Brewed by Guinness in Dublin this is, essentially; "Harp Lager" boiled down to remove all the alcohol.

Let's just say there's a reason why Harp Lager itself is not widely known outside of Ireland.

Then, unprompted by changes in English tax law, it finally occurred to the brewing industry to devise recipes for beers without alcohol in them.

The results are much better than Kaliber.

Not; "Lucky Saint" though.

After all. If you ever take your rapey , hipster top notes into any bar and order any type of unfiltered lager.

Then that's just you using a codephrase. Begging for someone to help introduce you to an IPA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbic07hMWZE&pp (The Nightingale, The Dubliners, Time, Official Audio).

And if you've been following the audio track. There you have it, conclusive proof.

That if you spend any length of time listening to Alex Scott et al talk about football. Then the result is you knowing absolutely f'ck all about football.

Even if your starting point was 15+ years as, essentially, a season ticket holder at not one but two English Premier League clubs.

Including the one that, even back then, was mocked for;

"Just hoof it upfield to John Fashanu!