Life Zero

A sideways look at age, Colin McQueen - writer, Getting Older, Humour 3 Minutes
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The more perceptive amongst you might well have already clocked it: since I returned from my mini lay-off, I have begun to write a little more about the true incidents that litter my life.  I have always considered myself to be something of a broad stroke writer; I have always imagined that there is little about the minutiae of my inconsequential life that bears retelling, but then, as I gazed at a navel that requires a much more supple back to look-upon these days, I realised that minutiae is exactly what I have to offer – it is all I have to offer – and so I decided that whatever the import of the incidents that fill my days, they will be the grist of my future outpourings – even when they amount to nothing…

So, today I volunteered to pick up my daughter from a night out with her work colleagues.  It has been – atypically for this summer – a hot day and I decided that I would drink an alcohol free lager in the early evening gloam whilst awaiting notification that she was ready for uplift.  This, you will probably be unsurprised to hear, is something I seldom do.  Zero percent lagers all taste the same to me: zero alcohol, zero lager.  I’m not sure what they do taste of, but it isn’t lager.  I am no stranger to ‘alternative’ flavours.  I’m a veggie, and I do occasionally eat meat substitutes – largely for texture – but I can’t yet quite manage to bounce myself the whole way to veganism because I love cheese and vegan cheese is probably the least cheese-like substance I have ever eaten.  I don’t eat a lot of cheese, but I do like it to taste of cheese.  Alcohol free beers can work (as anyone who has ever drunk a Guinness Zero will tell you) but for some reason when the alcohol is removed from either lager or beer in general, something altogether unpleasant is added in its place.  I don’t think that it’s vegan cheese, but you can never be sure.  I have discovered a less than 1% alcohol cider, that is a brilliant sunny day drink, but if I’m driving, knowing full-well my susceptibility to distraction, I’d sooner have nothing more potent  than a pickled egg in my bloodstream.

As a youth I drank Coke by the gallon.  It was full of sugar, caffeine and God-knows what else – the recipe is a more guarded secret than Joe Biden’s medical records – but today they seem to have changed everything about it.  Diet Coke has an aftertaste that I can only put down to battery acid and I think that Coke Zero is so called because it tastes absolutely nothing like Coke.  I no longer drink Coke in any of its chemical flavoured alternatives.  I should, I know, drink water, but I cannot bring myself to do it when any form of less boring fluid is available.  My driving go-to these days is actually orange squash (called, I think, orange juice syrup in the US) or lime and soda, because neither of them taste as though they have had everything you like forcibly removed from them.

If anybody is in any way interested, the alcohol free lager I have drunk today is Stella Artois, one of very few lagers which, in its fully-loaded incarnation, I can drink.  The neck label says that it is brewed with ‘High Quality Malt’ and ‘Hand Selected Saaz Hops’ and, for anyone who has ever attempted home brewing, it tastes exactly like the stuff that you pour into the bucket before it brews – but with fewer lumps.  A little box on the back label of the bottle says ‘75% recycled glass’.  It certainly tastes like it.

Ah life…

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Published by colinmcqueen

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17 thoughts on “Life Zero”

  3. I must agree with your take on ‘alcohol free’ beers. I bought something spur of the moment at our supermarket, some odd off-brand evil brew from somewhere sourced in Eastern Europe. (Chernobyl perhaps?) It was called Oblomov or Oligarch or something starting with an ‘O.’ Not exactly tasteless- and not in a good way- sadly not odorless either. 500 mls of poorly refined bilge water. I shoulda bypassed my kidneys and liver and just poured it straight down the loo. Even more so when I read the ‘O%’ on the can.

    I’ve never considered non trad cheese. You do make it sound a rare treat though.

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  4. First, I agree with you on the taste of Coke Zero and its ilk – ick. I’ve been a teetotaler for over 35 years and have never tried any kind of non-alcoholic alcoholic beverage because it just sounds kind of pointless and silly, really. I like reading about the minutiae, though.

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  5. I’m not even convinced that alcohol free coffee is a good idea, but I do have two small children so a state of mild inebriation is generally optimal.

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  7. I am a teetotaller so I really can’t relate to the lager part but I understand the Diet Coke! It is “Yuk”. If you don’t want carbs, don’t drink coke. Why torture yourself? 🤣 I would rather drink flavoured water. I had tried adding a drop of rose essence to a bottle of water and a cup of tea. It works beautifully because it makes you forget you are drinking just water! I am more of a juice person though.
    I have tried Red bull and Stinger when I had to go to work after staying up all night. I stayed up the next night too! 🤣

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  8. As for minutiae, I love those. I guess it is a part of getting older that you begin reminiscing the days long gone…but my daughter loves hearing about my life earlier and I loved my grandparents telling stories about their own…small incidents to keep us from running around in the sweltering sun during hot summer days…so I say, go for it!

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  9. I like cider, but I guess alcohol free cider would just be apple juice. Some nonconformist churches were way ahead with the alcohol free trend taking grape juice for communion instead of wine and insisting Jesus turned water into grape juice at the wedding.

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