We went out last Friday without the kids. This in itself was so amazing that I was really ready to enjoy the hell out of whatever happened that evening. We were headed to a comedy show, and we began with the questionable decision to eat at what our friends dubbed an “off-brand Applebees” for dinner beforehand because it was close to the club. I didn’t have high hopes for finding a non-alcoholic option, but Bitburger Drive was buried in the beer list, so in the spirit of the evening, I tried it.

Bitburger Drive is a pilsner lager. I rarely drank lagers when I was drinking alcohol, so the first taste of this beer transported me back to being a confused 18-year-old in a bar in Milwaukee, grabbing a German pilsner out of the beer fridge without any idea of what I would find inside the bottle.

Flashbacks to my youth notwithstanding, I really enjoyed this beer. It was light, floral, hoppy, slightly bitter. It didn’t have the flat, watery monotone of the lesser NA beers. I couldn’t tell it was non-alcoholic, which is my benchmark for whether an NA beer is drinkable. It tasted great with my burger, and I was happy.

Yay, date night!