We have no idea why anybody would drink nonalcoholic beer. Perhaps you're recovering from an illness and your doctor has suggested you lay off the sauce for a while or maybe ? um, there must be other reasons.

We can sympathize with the feeling you get as you reach for a beer missing one of its main ingredients. It was probably one of the most embarrassing moments of our Drinking Buddies lives to walk out of the store with an armful of no alcoholic brew. Everyone was snickering at us (or at least they should have been). Anyway, should you be so unfortunate as to need to purchase nonalcoholic beer, we're here to tell you what's what.

O'Doul's Amber

Whereas many light beers are described as watery, this beer actually tastes as if someone spiked it with water before serving it. It is, in fact, amber in color, living up to its name. But unlike the bottle's promise, "rich and flavorful," it is neither. It seemed to extract its flavor from bad coffee and Natural Ice. This is the first beer we tasted, and let us tell you, it did not leave us looking forward to what came next.

O'Doul's

This is the normal O'Doul's, if you can call it normal.

After the Amber, you can imagine we were raring to drink this fine beer. Unfortunately, the serious stench of what can only be described as "throw-up" kept us at bay for several minutes. It was a smell that reached out to form an offensive little border around our glasses. This must be what they use to secure our nation's borders, miles and miles of tiny pints of O'Doul's to create an impenetrable stinky fortress. Surprisingly, the taste didn't match the stink. That's not to say it tasted good; its flavor was extremely similar to the Amber, which is to say it was watery and disgusting.

Labatt Nordic

The smell of this "brew" was surprising in a strangely different way. It smelled of raw hops, the kind you buy at the home-brewing store. We disagreed on whether the flavor matched the taste, but we agreed it tasted as if we botched a batch of home brew. Actually, that is insulting to the effort we put toward our home brew, so let's just say it tastes like butt.

Labatt includes a number where you can ask questions, so we called them with the intent of asking them why, after a lifetime of quality Canadian beer, they would put their name on such a shady product. They were conveniently unavailable to take our call. Don't worry though, Matt has unlimited night and weekend minutes and no life.

Sharp's

Not to be left out, Miller has also thrown its hat into the no alcoholic beer market. Sadly, it has become another grand achievement in terrible beer. Sharp's taste is similar to Labatt Nordic, but with the slight upside that it has virtually no aftertaste. We enjoyed that extra second of not having to taste this beer.

Clausthaler

We saved this German import for last, hoping that because they took the time to ship it all the way here, it must have some redeeming qualities. Matt thought its aroma had a slightly German quality, like St. Pauli Girl, if she were in her later, less glamorous years. Ryan thought it smelled exactly like the Sharp's and Nordic. Then again, Ryan also thought this beer "attacked the back of his tongue." Seriously though, it activated taste receptors he wasn't aware existed - and not in a good way. At least it's fun to say.

By this time, we were on our knees asking - no, begging - to be done with these "beers." No kidding, we would rather be drinking with forties of Steel Reserve in both hands, than make our palettes suffer again. To review, if you're looking for a tasty nonalcoholic beer, you should consider root beer.

We've got 20 bottles of leftover "beer." If you want them, or if you have questions, e-mail us at drinkingbuddies@beer.com.