Prague. With the Czech Republic being the home of the pilsner beer, it's not too surprising that they've been experimenting with non-alcoholic beers. We've been impressed at the number you can find here. Today, we found a couple of imported n.a. beers to try (interestingly enough, at a hospital convenient store). First, one we'd never seen before: Oranjeboom ("orange tree"), from a Dutch brewery, which originated back as far as 1671 in one form or another, and is now owned by InBev. This has the lowest alcohol of anything we've seen: 0.1%. They call it a "non-alcoholic malt beverage." The word "beer" appears nowhere on the label. Excitement rose as it poured: beautiful, rich, golden color, and frothy head. The look of this n.a. beer would fool anybody. As expected, no aroma to speak of. The taste? Hard to place. It has hints of caramel and...orange, believe it or not. The faintest of beer taste lingering in there somewhere. It's a chimera on the tongue, very hard to place. But, good mouth feel and very refreshing and drinkable. We'll definitely pick this one up again for a taste. Next, we picked up a big name: Clausthaler "Extra Herb". This is probably the granddaddy of n.a. brews, dating back to 1979! Ok: it pours well, with a tall head, and the color is really light. It's got the aroma of a light beer. And the taste and mouthfeel? Light beer. Maybe we picked up really fresh bottles but, man, we'd be hard pressed to distinguish this from a real, light American beer. It's got a tiny tangy finish that might give it away, but a blindfold taste-test might fool us. If you like light American beers, this is a great alternative for you. The company says it uses a special yeast in a patented process that doesn't produce as much fermentable sugar (maltose), rather than the other methods of n.a production. They even offer 5 other varieties of n.a. beers!

NEW YORK -- It’s been a rainy spring in the Northeast recently and I felt the need the other night to warm up with a few pints of German beer. I selected two beers -- a Schwelmer Pils and a Holzar Bier.

Schwelm is a city in Germany situated in the southeast of the industrial Ruhr area that was founded in 1496. It is home to the "Brauerei Schwelm", the Schwelm Brewery established in 1830 by Haarmann & Kathagen – in other words, fairly young by European standards. I don’t know if this is a good thing or not, but the private brewery was one of the first to switch from wooden to metal storage containers. Its original administration building, built in 1701, is still in use today.The beer is faithfully brewed according to the Reinheitsgebotor Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, which set forth standards still in use today for the sale and composition of beer.

This background information is all very nice – but how does it taste? Schwelmer Pils is a classic pilsner –that when poured– offers a light, fluffy head, pale straw color and mild carbonation. It has “mad” hops that rush over the palate but somehow with less bitterness than normal for a pilsner – probably because it’s balanced out by a touch of malt. Each time you bring your nose down to the glass for a gulp reveals a fruity apricot smell. It makes for a good, summer beer.

The Holzar Bier is a dark lager, almostale-ish in color with a medium head that dissolves quickly. On the palate, it has a clean, crisp initial sweetness that gives way to a burnt sugar taste. There’s a lingering grassiness taste after a few sips. All in all, I thought the Holzar Bier lacked complexity and depth.