Some interesting trends here that I wasn’t aware of. Eg: “Alcohol consumption in Ireland is now less than the United Kingdom and most other European countries, including Spain, France, and Germany.”
After years of not bothering with alcohol I tried some of the alcohol-free versions of those drinks and the difference was negligible but the next morning was a lot more pleasant.
The original article title is “Off-license consumption fuelling rise in non-alcoholic drinks as demand for 0.0% alternative sees post-pandemic surge”, but I took an interesting quote from the article for the title of this post.
I’d forgotten all about Erdinger and Franziskaner - you’re right, they were the first I remember here in the late 90s / early 00s. I think there was another one that wasn’t German, but it was very hard to find.
My local supermarket has 0% gin as well which opens up a lot of options for mocktails. But they charge the same price as a bottle of alcoholic gin.