Armed with recommendations from friends for great tasting non-alcoholic beers, I recently visited the beer case at my local grocery store. No luck–they didn’t carry a single one of the recommended beers. I guess I’ll need to hit a proper liquor store. . .

But I did stumble across a beverage called “Hop” made by local brewery Lagunitas. (Well, “local” until they were bought by Heineken.) Described as “IPA inspired,” it’s basically hop-flavored sparkling water. It’s definitely not trying to be non-alcoholic beer.

Thoughts on Hop? I like it! While I enjoy the various fruit-flavored sparkling waters, sometimes I want a change of pace. This fits the bill. It’s not fruity, it’s not sweet. It’s got a mildly hoppy, yeasty flavor. It sort of feels like drinking a beer when you swig it from the bottle, but it’s very refreshing. I’ll be keeping this on hand in the fridge from now on.