My wife has been looking through this forum since before our son was born and I rather enjoy it myself so I'm going to post something that has me torn.
- Before you destroy me, please note that I HAVE NOT knowingly allowed my son to consume ANY alcoholic beverage. Yeah... that's right I AM a perfect parent (Please note the sarcasm).
So... I have allowed my son a good couple of swigs of non-alcoholic beer. I have to admit, it felt naughty to allow him both times; The first time I guess I was just curious to see if he enjoyed it. The second time, quickly after the first, when he actually reached out to grab the bottle out of my hand and lift it to his mouth made my wife and I chuckle (He'd never done anything like that before), the third time we pulled it away and responded with the old "No, I think that's quite enough there little man ...before it goes to your head".
but it got me thinking... It can't be any worse to give a child of any age a glass of non-alcoholic beer over say... everybody's favourite Cola variant; take for instance the ingredients.
General Cola variant ingredients (sourced from about.com):
carbonated water
sugar (which can be sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup)
caffeine
phosphoric acid v. caramel (E150d)
natural flavourings (which include coca leaf extract)
Non-alcoholic beer ingredients:
Water
(and the following mixed in various quantities and dependent on the beer, might not appear at all)
Barley,
Malt,
Wheat,
Hops
I find it a little more re-assuring as a parent that I can identify all the ingredients in the beer, I guess I don't really understand what the phosphoric acid is for in the coke, probably adds the flavour, but I'm also especially re-assured that the beer doesn't have any fructose (a corn-syrup that is slowly gaining prominence as a potential cause for diabetes and obesity). The Sucrose I'm not so interested in as it's just diluted table-sugar. Most kids have it in there breakfast, bread, squash, you name it it's in it.
What the beer doesn't say it has is Sugar but for anybody who doesn't understand how beer is made, very simply, the sugar in beer (lager, ale, stout, wine etc.) is fermented into alcohol, which means non-alcoholic beer contains all the same sugar that they would usually add for the process whilst still getting the sweet hoppy flavour.
So there is sugar in both, but they're going to appear in different quantities right. Quick math later comparing my brand of coke to my brand of non-alcoholic beer and ... they're both around 10 grams per 100 ml. So they're both going to rot your teeth.
But hey, at least one doesn't have an addictive substance in it; caffeine.
So I guess my own feelings are swayed by public opinion... do I feel wrong giving my son a swig of a brew whose alcoholic uncle is responsible for drunken pub brawls, trips to casualty, vandalism, bad sex, and massive NHS costs and shouldn't I feel just as bad about giving my son a beverage responsible for Father Christmas and a centuries worth of seasonal commercialism, obesity, tooth decay and at least 8 years of hyperactive children at nephews parties. Parties I didn't enjoy.
Non-alcoholic beer hasn't caused any problem has it?