Again, I'm on call frequently and can't drink. I like beer. I like the taste of it. More importantly, I enjoy the ritual of having a beer, with a neighbor just shooting the ****, after mowing the lawn, while cooking on the grill, or just enjoying some sun outside I find a good NA beer very satisfying in those situations, almost as good as the real stuff. I also find it refreshing and a nice break after I have been drinking too many triple IPAs.
As someone who worked on call 24/7/365 for years, in an industry that regularly tests for drugs and alcohol, I get this. We would get breath tested and drug tested frequently on arrival at work and we could not register even .02, which is the low threshold for most testers. A single test hot and it was minimum 9 months off without pay, and required to be admitted to a detox facility for several months in another part of the country (usually Tennessee or Utah.) You then would give permission to be randomly tested at any time, even at home on a day off, for 10 years. A second hot test for the rest of your career was immediate termination.
But I still never had the desire to drink anything N/A. When not able to drink I just drink something else. If I cant have the real thing then I have no desire to drink it. Especially when most of it is so bad, I would much rather drink something else.
I look at it like this, I can drink my favorite soda, or an N/A beer that doesnt taste nearly as good as my beer of choice, just to say Im drinking beer.....kind of. (or at least look like I am) And everyone understood when I couldnt drink due to being on call, that I didnt need to drink N/A beer just for the sake of it.
I get it if you really like it, but it just never has made sense to me. But, so many people that do drink it claim it isnt good, so it just doesnt make sense to drink something you dont like just to drink "beer".
And I love beer, and whiskey, by the way. But to date I have never drank an N/A beer.