It wasn’t all that long ago that if you wanted a nonalcoholic beer, you had next-to-no choices. Now there are so many, it almost feels like too many. Which is a nice problem to have! More bars, restaurants and markets are stocking (and selling!) NA beer, when they used to not bother with it at all. But still, it’s overwhelming, especially when you’ve been out of the beer-drinking game for a good long while, like I have.
I don’t want to harshly criticize the nonalcoholic beers of the past (looking at you, O’Doul’s), because they were there for me when no one else was. However, as someone who’s enjoyed hundreds, if not thousands of NA beers while on the road to recovery, I can objectively say that they were not very good. At best, they were passable, but even if they didn’t blow my mind, I was grateful they existed. Now I’m sitting on an embarrassment of riches, and it’s hard to know where to start.
Even better, the nonalcoholic beer market has actually gotten so good, it’s no longer niche. NA beer is for everyone, and there are just as many approaches to consuming it as there are brands. There are craft beer connoisseurs who are cutting back on their drinking. There are designated drivers who are sick of sticking to soda. There are the sober curious, who have realized you don’t always need alcohol to socialize, and then there are those who still love a good beer, but don’t always feel like courting a brutal hangover.
To make sense of the newer NA beer masses, we conducted a blind taste test. We assembled a crackerjack panel featuring many of the above styles of drinkers. If this had been a traditional beer tasting, we might have leaned entirely on experts, but in this instance, we felt it important to consider the many reasons people might be consuming nonalcoholic beer. Different approaches lead to different opinions, and when it comes to something as serious as sobriety, everyone is welcome, and everybody matters.
As for the beers we tried: It was by no means an exhaustive selection of everything on the market, but it does represent the range of mostly national and international brands that we were easily able to acquire in the Washington, D.C., area. We divided the beers into four categories. Pilsners, lagers and golden ales were grouped together for the first round, and nonalcoholic beers from major international breweries for the second. Next was a round for classic and West Coast-style IPAs, and lastly, a smaller group for hazy IPAs.
Advertisement
Each beer was tasted blind, served in small glasses that had been numbered with marker and masking tape. Testers scored each beer on a scale of 1-10, considering appearance, flavor and overall appeal.
While we sipped, we snacked on popcorn and pretzels to keep our palates cleansed and prevent ourselves from becoming so overwhelmed with hops that nothing tasted distinct. We also had a brief intermission between each round to reset our taste buds, and to physically recover from all the carbonation we’d ingested. Taste testing beer is hard work, but by golly, we were willing to put it all on the line.
Considering the variety of people on our panel, and the multitude of flavors and brewing styles, it’s not surprising that we had wildly different opinions on the majority of contenders. However, there were a few brews that everyone agreed were excellent, whether they were looking for a beer to enjoy at a bar, on the beach or in their backyard. Here are the results:
Advertisement
Do you have a favorite nonalcoholic beer that wasn’t included in this taste test? Share your recommendations in the comments.
Pilsners, lagers and golden ales
Return to menuWinner: Best Day Kolsch
Kolsch is meant to be a highly drinkable, crowd-pleasing beer, and this brew from Best Day nailed the assignment. All taste tasters described it as crisp and clean, praising its effervescence, smooth finish and complete absence of off-flavors. One described it as “a good summer quaff,” and the rest of the room wholeheartedly agreed.
Runner-up: Untitled Art Italian-Style Pils
This entry was pleasantly bitter, featuring an abundance of grapefruit hop notes without being super-aggressive. Bright, crisp and citrusy with a dry finish, it’s an easy-to-love nonalcoholic pilsner that checks off all the biggest boxes.
Also recommended: Grüvi Golden Lager
Advertisement
One tester wrote it “barely registers on the Hop-O-Meter compared to the others,” but when we looked back on it after we progressed through a bevy of hop-heavy brews, we realized this quibble could be a good thing. It’s what I personally describe as a “Hank Hill beer”: very light, very mild and perfect for drinking all day long beneath a scorching sun.
Brooklyn Brewery Special Effects Pils: Our panel’s two most seasoned beer experts described this as “licking sulfur,” and something you could “clean a drain with.”
Athletic Upside Dawn Golden: “Not particularly flavorful,” “Yawn,” “No ‘oomph.'” Ouch.
Sierra Nevada Trail Pass Golden: Not a ton of flavor in this one, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your mood. Our testers described this as “drinkable” and “fine.”
Established European brands
Return to menuWinner: Heineken 0.0
Advertisement
This beer was beloved by everybody, with our tasters noting its gorgeous light-straw color, refreshing crispness and gentle sweetness. One described it as “very slammable”; another noted they’d “crush a six-pack of this on a beach.” I wholeheartedly concur on its excellence, but as the only person on the panel in recovery, I feel it’s important to mention the following: The good news is that it tastes exactly like Heineken; the bad news is that it tastes exactly like Heineken.
Share this articleShareRunner-up: Guinness 0
Even though we were tasting beers blind, there was no mistaking this dark brown brew as anything other than Guinness. Every taster called that fact out in their notes, and while its nonalcoholic nature made it a bit thinner than a traditional Irish stout, we appreciated its malty, roasty, nutty and creamy notes all the same.
Advertisement
Stella Artois Liberté: This was a polarizing beer, with some liking its skunky notes, and others likening it to a green-bottled beer that’s been left out too long in the sun. As one tester succinctly noted: “It’s not bad, but it’s also not good.”
Return to menuWinner (tie): WellBeing Intentional IPA
Half our tasters found this beer to be middling, while the others (myself included) thought it was the best beer of the day. Noting its bright, sweet, almost tropical flavor, one panelist described it as “a liquid, bubbly gumball,” with another writing that in the field of 18 nonalcoholic beers, it tasted the “most real.”
Winner (tie): Brooklyn Brewery Special Effects IPA
While Brooklyn’s Pils was one of our panel’s most hated beers of the day, the brewery’s Special Effects IPA stood out as one of the best, with testers citing its “good body,” “nice level of bitterness,” and “decent hop character.”
Advertisement
Runner-up: Sober Carpenter Non-Alcoholic IPA
This beer was very, very good, but just shy of excellent. As one taster wrote, “there is a quiet, citrus flavor deep in the background screaming to get out.”
Partake Non-Alcoholic IPA: One tester said this is a beer they “would pair with Malört,” referencing the uniquely bitter botanical liqueur produced in Chicago. That says just about everything you need to know.
Sierra Nevada Trail Pass IPA: This had a certain je ne sais quoi, but our panelists struggled to figure out if that was a good thing.
Lagunitas IPNA: The je ne sais quoi in this one was a bad thing.
Return to menuWinner: BrewDog Non-Alcoholic Hazy AF
Hazy beers are a divisive category. Some people want the fruitiness turned up to 11; some prefer it be a bare bit more than background music. As such, half our panel went wild for Brew Dog’s Hazy AF’s grapefruit notes, agreeing it was one of the best beers of the day. While the remainder weren’t quite as enthusiastic, they found plenty to love in this cloudy quaff.
Advertisement
Runner-up: Athletic Free Wave Hazy IPA
Decently hoppy with a back end of grapefruit that’s a bit too bitter to be enjoyable. Our panel agreed it was tolerable, but not phenomenal.
Samuel Adams Just the Haze: Another divisive entrant, this one from the Boston Beer Company. Our craft beer connoisseurs loved the aggressive sweetness of this beer, praising its “juicy strawberry notes” and little-to-no bitterness. Meanwhile, the casual drinkers were turned off by it, with one taster comparing it to “liquid cotton candy,” and another to “cough syrup.”
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLOwu8NoaWlqZGR9dXuPbWabnaOpeq%2B7zZqjnKeYpLmqr4ybnJ6qo2K2sa3SZqeipKOjsrO%2Fjg%3D%3D