by Aaron Brussat

Call me a stodgy, rain loving hermit, a reactionary good ol' boy, a Scrooge, poo-pooer or shlub. Hard seltzer can take a hike. Somehow, this combination of Zima and La Croix has dazzled demographics into thinking it's cool, and forced craft brewers to produce their own in order to lasso wandering customers, lured off the range by meme-able cans of no-count fizzy hooch. Don't be fooled: none of these brewers would do it if they didn't feel the pressure. 

The allure of the magic number "100 calories" and its appeal to Instagram-bod culture - young people are drinking less overall than their predecessors - along with viral secondary marketing - "Ain't no laws when you're drinkin' Claws," though untrue, was a terrible catchphrase of 2019 - propelled hard seltzer into the limelight, so to speak, more voraciously than any other beverage. The magic of White Claw and Truly - the two most popular hard seltzer brands - is their ability to obscure buyers' ethics. 

Truly is owned by Boston Beer Co., still dubiously a member of the Brewers Association even though it's a publicly traded company (the fact that founder Jim Koch puts his left thumb into each batch is irrelevant (and not entirely accurate)). In this case "craft" beer is eating itself, and traps ol' Sam Adams in a web of irony. 

White Claw is produced by the company, Mark Anthony Brands, that makes Mike's Hard Lemonade. I may not need to continue, but I will. For several cycles of sports seasons, Mikes' bottles-o'-hangover filled coolers with just-manly-enough fruitiness. Don't get fooled again, folks, it's the same old story. Marketing companies like these want to tell you how to feel. 

Obviously, this venue is biased in favor of beverages produced by non-macro-owned companies with whole food ingredients (you know, food that doesn't require a bunch of parentheses). But we understand the yen to consume alcohol without gaining weight (get the #gains, instead. Or the #grains. Whatever.) and want to provide you with some options that don't require your dollars to travel so far afield. 

Da Shootz!, the recent release from Deschutes Brewery, is a pale lager with a measly 99 calories per 12oz can. A little higher up, Pelican's Five Fin West Coast Pilsner has 158. When you're just craving hops, opt for a session IPA or American pale ale; the classic Sierra Nevada Pale has 175 calories per 12 ounces. Of course, we're creeping up here. Let's not break the calorie budget. 

Cider offers a great opportunity to reduce calories without ingesting lab-produced flavorings. For the carb-conscious, the dryer the cider is, the better; Double Mountain's Dry Cider is a good bet, and Seattle Dry Cider is 180 for a pint (equivalent to 135 for 12oz). Most of 2 Towns flagship offerings hover in the 150 range, and are off-dry to semi-sweet. Keep in mind that alcohol provides calories, too.

Enough of this gerrymandering. Hard seltzer is the strawberry-bubblegum vape of the beverage industry, an ineffectual candy, an insult to humanity cleverly disguised in the worst mask of pop culture. To brewers, it is a scourge. Grocery store shelves were tight before hard seltzer came along, what with the "-Ritas" and, you know, other fad drinks. Marketing companies that produce alcoholic beverages (and this includes AB-InBev; without Super Bowl commercials and billboards, where would it be anymore?) play a serious mind game by making us forget how quickly the last thing went out of style. Again: don't be fooled! You know what hasn't gone out of style in thousands of years? Beer. Good, old fashioned (like me!) beer.