The paragraph:
This was the first time when I thought: has science gone too far? Has non-alcoholic Helles been optimised so much in an attempt to make it as clean-tasting as possible, that it has actually lost some of its character as a beer? It still tastes like a beer, don’t get me wrong, but I do wonder whether the non-alcoholic version could just be a bit more characterful. I also wonder whether this is simply down to the base beer, and I don’t know whether this is just a dealcoholised version of their regular Helles, or whether more tweaking was done that caused the beer character to become less and less.
The footnote:
Not long after Russian River Brewing moved into its spanking new brewery in 2018, co-owner Vinnie Cilurzo talked about the impact of the brewhouse on Russian River beers. “Although it’s cleaner here, it’s cleaner in a good way. But I’ve I’ve seen a lot of breweries when you switch to a German brewhouse they’re just like so ultra clean,” he said. “The beers are a little too clean.” He spent the next five minutes describing what he was doing to assure beers such as Blind Pig still have the body and mouthfeel drinkers expect.