Sips, Suds, & Smokes · One Tan Hand Productions

Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing Baby, Or Is It

September 19, 2025·41 min·3 clips

Juliana and Mike discover they mistook the non-alcoholic Asahi for the real beer in a blind tasting.

Hosts Juliana, Mike, and Dave conduct a blind taste test comparing four popular macro lagers to their non-alcoholic counterparts. The episode is part of their "Summer of Questionable Decisions" series, where the hosts humorously explore beverage trends. They sample Asahi Super Dry, Stella Artois, Heineken, and Corona Extra, each paired with its NA version. The hosts attempt to identify the alcoholic beer in each pairing and rate them on a scale from one to five. Juliana knows which is which, but Mike and Dave are tasting blind. For the Asahi pairing, both men incorrectly guess the fuller-bodied glass two is the alcoholic beer, when it is actually the 0.0 version. They discuss how NA brewers might add body to compensate for removed alcohol. With Heineken, the hosts note a skunky quality from the green glass and find the two samples incredibly close in flavor, but again guess incorrectly. The Stella Artois tasting reveals a notably creamy mouthfeel, which surprises them for a lager. Mike incorrectly identifies the NA, while Dave gets it right. The Corona pairing shows a stark color difference, with the NA version having a darker, almost orange hue and a vegetal, bitter finish that both hosts easily identify. A surprising insight is that the hosts are fooled by the Asahi and Heineken NA versions, suggesting significant improvement in production techniques like centrifugation. They reflect on the evolution from early, poor-quality NA beers like O'Doul's to modern offerings driven by market demand. The hosts agree that Athletic Brewing Company succeeds by designing recipes specifically for NA beer, rather than removing alcohol from an existing brew. They conclude that while some craft NA beers are superior, these macro NA options are respectable, crowd-pleasing choices for casual settings. The tone is casual, humorous, and conversational, filled with friendly banter and inside jokes about their "SRM" skin tones. The style is an informal, blind-tasting experiment with educational asides on brewing science. Beer enthusiasts curious about the NA trend and fans of lighthearted, unpretentious beverage reviews will enjoy this episode. Listeners seeking a highly structured, serious critique of beer or those with no interest in macro lagers might want to skip it.

As heard by us

A plain-spoken taste test of how closely the zero-proof matches track the originals.

Sips, Suds, and Smokes lines up Asahi Super Dry, Stella Artois, Heineken, and Corona with their 0.0 or NA versions, and the format works because each pairing gets treated like a real tasting instead of a quick aside. The Heineken segment lands best.

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Why you'd press play

You want a fast, comparative tasting of four beer-and-NA pairs and a real sense of whether the switch could work.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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