Summer barbecues and beer, without the alcohol

Alcohol-free Heineken fails to put fire in the belly of Pat Fitzpatrick, who thirsts after that ‘I’m going to be bold’ feeling that only a real beer, or two, can deliver.

You know the way it can happen on an evening, this time of year. The sun isn’t just out, it’s out out. There is a sense that you’re not in Ireland any more, but that could change in a downpour.

You fling on your shorts, light the BBQ and think this would feel like being on holidays if I only had a beer. You flip one open, take a sip and there he is, the little pisshead in your mind, saying ‘ah go on, sure didn’t we have an awful winter’.

You put down the bottle and drive to the supermarket before you go over the limit, where you buy more beer than you could possibly drink in one night. It turns out you are wrong about this. The next day is long, harsh and cranky and full of regret.

That was me 10 years ago. Every now and again I’d have a mid-summer, mid-week blow-out in the back garden, because there was nothing to stop me. Then our kids came along.

You need to choose your blow-outs carefully with those little killjoys, one hangover a month is around about my limit. (Particularly now that I’m an old man and hangovers last until Christmas.)

This is a shame, because cold beer equals holidays and freedom in my head. The first thing most of us do when we reach the Mediterranean is sit outside with a cold one (or seven), just because we can.

And then I heard that Heineken had brought a new alcohol-free beer. It’s called 0.0, which is the amount of fun you can expect to have after drinking one. (I’ll make the obvious joke, so you don’t have to.) To be honest, I come from a generation of Irish people who see alcohol-free beer as an act of treason — anyone seen with a bottle of Kaliber back in the day was immediately written off as being an agent of a foreign power.

That said, it has been a long winter, and if the taste of beer in my mouth on a Tuesday can invoke Barcelona in early June, I’m willing to give it a go. I buy a four pack of Heineken 0.0, because it’s not like I’m going to go wild and drink 10 of them.

I check the weather forecast to make sure we get a sunny evening for the photograph to go with this piece. I buy swordfish and tuna for the barbecue, so people will think that I’m posh.

It rains. Not lashing rain, more one of those weird showers you get in the back garden, while it stays dry in the front of the house. (And no, this isn’t my way of suggesting I live in a giant house on the Blackrock Road.)

But the photographer is here, the kids are hungry and swordfish will stink up the house if I cook it inside. I crack open a Heineken 0.0 and the sun suddenly comes out, in a way that would make you wonder if large drinks companies have figured out a way to control the weather.

I take a sip. The first thing I’d say is, it tastes just like Heineken, as I remember it. Like most people of my age, I tried it in the late 1980s, when it was Heino, a sign that you were on the waiting list for the Royal Cork Yacht Club even though you barely owned a rubber dinghy.

I take another sip. It’s definitely refreshing, with a slight saltiness that whispers seaside and time-off. I stand there, bottle in hand, flipping the fish, thinking this could be the start of a beautiful relationship.

It doesn’t work out. There was no single moment when I decided this isn’t for me. It’s just that a couple of hours later, when I was cleaning up the BBQ for the night, I noticed my unfinished bottle of beer, looking pretty unloved on the table. This isn’t me, I usually finish my beer.

In the interest of science and balance, I try the same thing the next night with an alcoholic beer, one of those small 25ml bottles that Spanish people drink for breakfast. (Or does it just seem that way to me?)

It doesn’t taste any better or worse than the alcohol-free Heino I tried the night before. But somewhere around sip three I get the tingle, that warm feeling in my stomach, suggesting that if I keep going like this I could be king of the world. I open another one, but leave it at that. After 35 years of drinking I’ve finally established the link between drinking too much and feeling like shite the following day.

In fairness to Heineken 0.0, it was more me than you. It’s a perfectly nice beer, a proper option if you need to drive afterwards and just fancy the feel of a beer bottle in your hand on a hot Friday. (It’s also only 76 calories per 330ml, for those of you hoping to pick up a lover on the beach this summer.)

If people call over to my house and ask for an alcohol-free option, I’ll gladly offer them one of the three bottles I didn’t open. (My wife won’t drink them either — she says the taste of beer makes her feel half-pissed anyway, and she wouldn’t feel that comfortable driving after a 0.0.) In the end, most of this is in my mind.

I reckon there is more to beer than just taste and refreshment. A quick bottle or two is a short break from the everyday routine. Our two kids don’t just mean I can’t hack a hangover any more; they also mean endless rounds of washing, cooking and cleaning.

I need something more than a hint of beer to break out of that rut on an afternoon in June. I need, in these Please Drink Responsibly days, to do something just a tiny bit bold. Not to put too fine a point on it, I need alcohol.