Near-Beer, a product U.S. alcohol prohibition, is a malt brew with .5 percent alcohol by volume (ABV), generally lager style.

When the federal government first lifted Prohibition, 3.2 percent beer was the first bevvie allowed, and some people called this beer-with-training-wheels brew "near beer" as well.

Near-beers are manufactured to taste like beer.

At least living in the dc area I can hop state lines with ease when one of them raises taxes on things. Almost makes up for not having congressional representation.

Couple of side notes: 1) the young age skew of these drinks may be because older adults haven’t really been introduced by them as the drinks are a relatively new thing. My parents didn’t really know about mikes hard lemonade till this summer when my girlfriend introduced them to it. (Now my mother keeps a pack in her fridge). I don’t think they still know about Smirnoff.

2) Does anyone actually think raising the tax on booze will make teenagers who have access to it suddenly stop buying/drinking it? If you raise it on just one type you might just shift a small amount of kids to some other drink, not abstain from drinking. End result of such a tax might be kids buying cheap tequila instead since its the same price and there will be greater problems rather than less.