For a long time, I’ve been tempted to set up a social experiment: Invite a bunch of people over to a keg party, make them think they’re drinking “real” beer, when in reality all they are drinking is O’Douls. How many people would act drunk off of a placebo? It would be fun to watch.
This was done already as an episode of Freaks and Geeks.
Seems to me that experienced beer drinkers would be able to taste the difference. I know that when I was drinking a lot of beer, I could identify an O’Douls by taste.
I suppose you could use inexperienced drinkers.
It would have to be done with people who weren’t beer lovers, because O’Doul’s doesn’t taste like real beer.
That said, I think quite a few people use alcohol as an excuse to act silly or obnoxious, and would act drunk even without the alcohol present.
Labatt has a nonalcoholic beer… I almost bought a six pack of it by mistake before looking closer at the label. I havn’t tried it so I can’t tell you if its similar in taste to the real stuff. In any case, there’s more than one out there and I’m sure some are better at imitation than others.
It was also a very special episode of Clone High.
I bought a 6-pack of O’Douls at the grocery store once as an experiment. They stayed in my parents fridge for years, and I wouldn’t even use them for cooking.
Why don’t you serve “Rum” & Cokes or something? That sounds easier to fake.
Because people expect to be able to mix their own rum-and-cokes to spec - and a lot will make them strong enough that there’s a very strong rum taste. It’s actually a lot harder to fake.
With a keg, on the other hand - well, if it’s in a keg, it’s beer, right? And who’d be crazy enough to drop that kind of cash on non-alcoholic beer?
Yeah rum and coke would be much harder to fake.
I think beer pretty much tastes like piss no matter the brand, so if you gave me an unlabeled O’Douls and told me it was beer, I’d be none the wiser. A perfect victim for your social experiment, I’d be.
Easiest thing I’d say is to make very very strong fruit punch or something like that, make it look like jungle juice, lots of random bits of fruit or whatever in there… Use LOTS of cranberry juice… masks the smell and taste of alcohol great so even people that would quickly give it a sniff and catch on might be fooled.
Put it in a giant bowl so that even if a full bottle were dumped in there’s so much that the concentration would be expected to not burn on the way down.
Consider putting in mint extract, it’ll confuse people by putting in one more taste that’s strong (that and mint is, in a way, very strong on the nose like pure alcohol).
Get two large empty bottles of vodka… Different kinds but not the cheapest stuff… That stuff would DEFINITELY burn in any concentration. Leave about 4 shots in the bottom of one and fill the other with distilled water… Not chlorinated. If someone were to smell the bottle after tap water were in it you’d definitely just smell the bit of chlorine.
Invite the people over and act a bit buzzed… you’ve had a few shots already. They will want to be like you. Point out that the one bottle with four shots left in it was about half full but you saved the end of it for shots because its better quality.
The other have half full with the water. Dump it in while talking it up. “ohh… man… this’ll be good.” They’ll assume there’s about one full large bottle of vodka in a large container of fruit punch. Not enough to burn, but definitely enough to get you quite buzzed. Make sure the ratio wouldn’t be off in the direction of where it should really taste strong but doesn’t.
Have a shot of the real stuff with them… One shot won’t do more than make you feel lightly buzzed… if that. They’ll have had the taste of alcohol and enough to have a slight feel of it… but it should wear off quickly.
Then start chugging it down. Talk about lots of other things to distract them. After a few squint your eyes slightly and act more jolly.
Then watch.
I think there have actually been psychological experiments conducted along these lines, although I don’t have any cites.
I do have a secondhand anecdote, though. 
A good friend of mine, “Katie”, once told me about her “Sweet 16” party, which included virgin margaritas for the 15/16 year old guests. One of the girls in attendance quickly started stumbling around, laughing loudly, etc. Katie’s father pulled Katie aside and said “Honey, you’d better tell that girl those drinks are non-alcoholic before she makes a fool of herself.”
When comparing American with Canadian beer, the question becomes moot.
The world of beers has evolved greatly in the last , oh… 20 years. There are great American beers and shitty Canadian beers with a wide latitude of alcohol percentages in the spectrum. This old, tired cliche is no longer valid: if it ever was originally.
(Video of O’Doul’s kegger.)
Have done this for real some years ago.
We were in Gibraltar where the local drink of choice was either a Tom Collins or a John Collins,cant remember which,but was as I recall Gin,bitters and fruit juice.
It actually only tasted of fruit squash.
We were all quite heavy drinkers.
One day we were having a bit of a celebration and as a joke every time we bought a round of drinks we included a Collins sans Gin which we made sure one particular mate got each and every time and never gave him the chance to buy a round himself.
He got pissed as a rat and wasn’t faking it because he felt a right idiot when we told him.
Whether this would induce the same reaction in everyone I couldn’t say but I’m doubtful myself.
It would probably be a more effective prank with a bunch of young kids who don’t have a lot of experience drinking and generally act half retarded anyway even when sober.
Adults generally tend to try to not act moronic when they drink, so I imagine that they would notice that it is a lot easier to keep their shit together.
There might be a psychosomatic reaction where they feel a bit more relaxed and uninhibited, but I’m pretty sure most people wouldn’t be falling down stupid.
Seriously. Catch up, Muffin. Without even leaving city limits, I’ll put Anchor, Speakeasy, or Magnolia up against anything you can bring. (I’d say Russian River but I’d like to keep things interesting.)
Why is American beer like making love in a canoe?
Because it’s fucking close to water!!
Uh huh, cute. Tell that to Fred. I wouldn’t advise asking him more than twice, however, on account of you’d be a bit on your ass.
Fred is not as scary as Doggie Claws, though. That’ll mess you up some.
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Posting from my phone, so no linkage, but I’ll throw out Dogfish Head (out of Delaware) with, among others, a