Until a couple of years ago, I wasn’t a fan of alcohol free beers, and would never have seen myself drinking them. After mistakenly buying Kaliber once when I was younger, and having tried a Becks Blue some years later, my view of NA beers was they were bland, watery and over-carbonated. And so my sentiment remained unchanged, until I saw more and more alcohol-free beers appearing on supermarket shelves, and was tempted to try again.
My history with beer is similar to many brits who grew up in the 1980s/1990s; started drinking alcohol slightly before it was legal for me to do so, drank more than the government guidelines in my twenties, still drank more in my thirties, but less frequently, and now I’m in my forties I’ve cut back a lot, mainly because the effects don’t appeal to me much any more, and the side-effects are much more pronounced. But I still look forward to the taste of a beer.
And so we cut back to around 2018. I’d been a fan of Brewdog’s offerings for a while, but was surprised when I noticed a can of Nanny State sitting on the shelves at our local Sainsbury’s store. An alcohol-free hoppy ale? I had to give this a go. I bought a four-pack and cracked one open in the evening, and compared to my previous experiences of imbibing non-alcoholic beers, there was so much flavour in the brew. I could tell that there was something missing though, but it didn’t stop me from having a second!
Alcohol-free beer reviews
According to the BBC the sales of non-alcoholic beers is up by 30% since 2016, which means the market is expanding, and we’re getting new alcohol-free brews all the time, from both established breweries and craft brewers just entering the scene. This means that there is a plethora of beer available, and someone has to drink it! I aim to review every NA beer I can find, giving my view on the usual things such as taste, smell and drink-ability, plus giving information on calories, ingredients and where to buy them. Why am I doing this? Mainly as a hobby, but also to help spread the message of alcohol free beers for those wishing to cut down on their alcohol consumption. No more must we be happy with a sugary soft drink at the pub if we don’t fancy a session!
What’s the best alcohol-free beer 2023?
As with all ‘best of’ lists involving food and drink, the results are always pretty personal and depend on the person who is writing the reviews. But below you can find the top ten alcohol-free beers according to the score we’ve given them. It should be obvious that I’m a fan of both dark beers and IPAs, but at least one lager has snuck in there. The scores I give to each beer are determined by a number of factors; the look of the beer, aromas that are present when we inhale, the ever-important tastes that the beer gives us, the way it feels in the mouth as we drink, and what finish we get at the end of the session. Hopefully this list will give you a good starting point on your non-alcoholic journey, or you could jump straight to the style of beer you prefer via our categories on the sidebar/bottom of the page. As with everything we review on this site, all these beers are 0.5% ABV or below.
| Position | Beer | Review Score(out of 5) | Review Summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Fusion Brewing Black Cherry Pastry Stout | 4.7 | A high point in the alcohol-free stout world, and an absolute belter of ... |
| #2 | Guinness 0.0 | 4.7 | It's Guinness! Just without the alcohol! If you're a fan, you'll love it... |
| #3 | Nøgne Ø Svart/Hvit | 4.5 | A full-bodied and full-flavoured milk stout, swaying over to bitterness ... |
| #4 | Mash Gang Anxiety Saint | 4.5 | Totally worth the 2 year wait! Thick, creamy, coffee and vanilla aromas ... |
| #5 | Impossibrew Hazy Pale | 4.5 | Top quality AF brewing on show here, with bags of flavour and aroma, and... |
| #6 | Happy AF Black Forest Gateaux Stout | 4.5 | Not quite a black forest gateaux in a can (which is a good thing), but a... |
| #7 | Untitled Art Chocolate Milk Stout | 4.5 | A worthy contender for the title of 'best alcohol-free stout', at least ... |
| #8 | Lola Coffee Porter | 4.5 | Coffee and roasted malts mix to make something special. It's gonna be ... |
| #9 | Lowtide Brune-DMC | 4.5 | Free Beer's new top-scoring AF beer, Brune-DMC offers an authentic ... |
| #10 | Joker AF | 4.3 | Juicy, fruity, pillowy and delicious - this is a triumph of progressive ... |