The Best Non-Alcoholic Beers

Not that long ago, non-alcoholic beers were the purview of former drinkers who had a problem. But with the rise of run clubs, increased focus on the importance of sleep, and Gen Z drinking less, the industry has boomed. NA beer sales were up more than 20 percent last alone, and the options have expanded dramatically across price ranges and styles.But non-alcoholic beers don’t fit into one category — they divide into more camps than traditional beers. There are two main camps: beers optimized to be as low-calorie as possible while still tasting like beer, and beers optimized to taste as close to the real, boozy thing as possible.These are the ones to buy:The Almost-No-Calorie OptionsIf you’re on a diet or doing a cut and need to keep calories down but still want a refreshing drink at the end of the day, this category is for you. The trade-off is that these beers don’t have a lasting taste in your mouth. The initial sip may be similar to a proper beer, but the flavor is fleeting.A good example of this problem is in BrewDog’s alcohol-free, or “AF,” range. Their Punk AF and Hazy AF are tasty and only have about 20 calories per can, but they just taste weak. You get a initial hit of hops and then it vanishes.So, if you’re shopping for this category, I’d recommend Athletic Brewing’s Athletic Lite instead. At 25 calories a can, it’s in the same ballpark as BrewDog, but the flavor is noticeably more sustained. Athletic has become the dominant player in NA craft beer for a reason — they were the first American brewery fully devoted to non-alcoholic beer, and their attention to the brewing process shows. The Lite is crisp and clean without that hollow aftertaste that plagues most ultra-low-calorie options.The Beers That Actually Taste Like BeerIf you’re happy to drink more calories, these have one goal: to taste as close to real beer as possible. These range from about 50 to 125 calories per serving, which is still far below a regular beer, but the priority here is flavor and mouthfeel.A word of caution: some brands in this space lean too hard into “complex and interesting flavors,” which usually means fruit additions that make the beer taste like juice. Spiderman actor Tom Holland’s BERO falls into this trap. The Edge Hill Hazy IPA and Kingston Golden Pils both have an artificial fruitiness that overwhelms any beer character, and you might like the taste, but it certainly isn’t mistakable for an alcoholic beer — or at least not a normal one. For it’s premium price, I wasn’t impressed.For this category, my recommendations split by style:For a daily lager: Lucky Saint has been my go-to non-alcoholic beer for years. The Unfiltered Lager is refreshing, with a clean malt character, subtle bitterness, and a slightly cloudy appearance that signals it hasn’t been stripped of flavor. It’s become Britain’s best-selling dedicated alcohol-free brand for good reason. At 53 calories per 330ml bottle, it’s diet-friendly and simply tastes like a great lager. If I could only drink one non-alcoholic beer, it would be this.For a light European beer: Erdinger Alkoholfrei is inexpensive — about $12 for a six-pack — and almost indistinguishable from a regular wheat beer. The banana and clove notes are there, the body is right, and it’s just extremely refreshing. At about 125 calories per 500ml bottle, it’s got more than some others, but the taste justifies it.For an IPA: My favorite IPA — alcoholic ones included — is Brooklyn Brewery’s Special Effects Hoppy Amber. It’s shockingly flavorful, with a bold, forward hop character that you would swear contains alcohol. If you don’t like IPAs, this won’t change your mind but that’s even more credit to it. About 100 calories for a can.For a stout: Guinness 0.0 doesn’t have quite the same body and depth of flavor as a standard Guinness, but it’s close. By using nitrogen for the bubbles like the original, you get a more solid, creamy head than any other non-alcoholic beer, and it’s extremely flavorful, relatively inexpensive, and doesn’t have too many calories, with 75 per can.

The Best Non-Alcoholic Beers

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