The "Top Ten" NA Beers
For the sober or "sober-curious" beer lovers.
Dry January is over and we are well into Feb., but for many who are sober or sober-curious, or simply reexamining their relationship to alcohol, there’s no better time to be alive than 2025. The craft beer boom came and went, so too did craft cocktail culture (depending on where you live). On the other side of these two trends emerged a couple of things. For one, a return to the basics — beer + shot combos and martinis and negronis. Second, and maybe more to do with a generational change than a response to the ebbs and flows of trends, people are drinking less. More and more people are sober by choice rather than by demand. Gen Z is drinking less than any generation before (shocking given the state of the world).
One thing I do know is I don’t identify with Gen Z in their temperance movement. I love alcohol. I love cocktails, I love craft beer AND mass-market lagers, I love sipping nice whiskey on the rocks or neat, I’ll even do the occasional shot. My home state of Wisconsin is home to most of the “drunkest” counties in the country (mostly a b.s. ranking but a badge we tend to wear with pride, for some reason). Unfortunately I am also from a family with a history of taking it a step too far. As a result, I grew up in a home and in family gatherings largely devoid of the substance. I didn’t have more than a drop of alcohol until after I graduated high school. But when I got to college (at the notorious party school UW-Madison, no less), I took full advantage of my newfound freedom from parental oversight and threw caution to the wind.
In the subsequent 10 years, save for a short two and a half month stint in NYC at age 20 with no fake ID, I don’t know if I’ve ever gone an entire week without a drink. But now, as I approach my 30s and ponder my current lifestyle and my future health, I realize I need to change my relationship with alcohol. So, starting in December, I decided to go sober, subsequently spending most of the month of December and then all of “Dry January” completely alcohol-free.
Seeing that I had built up a routine of enjoying Hazy IPAs in my free time, I found myself searching for something to fill that void; enter the burgeoning non-alcoholic craft beer market. In the last two months or so I have familiarized myself with a decent share of the NA market, and I’m here to tell you what's good and what isn’t.
To kick things off, I want to recognize the OG, which I have not tried but must acknowledge for its trailblazing status: O’Doul’s. This was the non-alcoholic beer du jour before “sober-curious” was a thing. In fact, I don’t think a single sober-curious person has ever tried the big OD. This one is only for the capital-S Sober, the middle-aged midwestern dad that hung up the Buds and High Lifes for good after one too many mornings waking up on a strange couch, or worse.
The N/A OG - O’Doul’s Premium Non-Alcoholic Lager
Next, before getting into individual reviews, I want to acknowledge the leader of the new guard: Athletic Brewing. Athletic burst onto the scene a few years ago with a unique approach to the dying craft beer trend. Unlike O’Doul’s, who boasts one legendary product aimed at replicating the tasteless beers that took over America before the craft trend of the last couple decades (more on that in a sec), Athletic has a non-alcoholic option for just about any variety (and sub variety) that became so popular with the craft boom. As of writing, they have 16 different NA beers available on their website, including six varieties of IPAs and at least one option for a plethora of the other most common selections. They’re even trying to snatch away the O’Doul’s customer with Athletic Lite.
The New King in Town - Athletic Brewing (Assorted)
Now let’s do some rankings… starting from the bottom.
Very Bottom (Unranked) - Any NA version of big-name lagers including, but probably not limited to:
Heineken 0.0
Budweiser Zero
Coors Edge
Stella Artois 0.0
Props to these big corporations for giving their customers a healthier alternative to their well-known and popular beers, but let’s face it, none of the alcoholic siblings to these beers are even remotely close to being good enough for me to want to drink a non-alcoholic version of them. Just drink water at this point, or at least own it and go for O’Doul’s.
*Writers note: after beginning this draft, I found myself out with a friend at a bar that had Budweiser Zero as the only NA option and I have to say it was solid. I still do somewhat regret not simply opting for a bitters and soda, though.
9 - All the worst parts of an IPA with none of the best - Lagunitas IPNA
The original Lagunitas IPA is one of the most popular IPAs on the market, at least here in NYC. It’s regularly the only IPA available on tap at any bar that isn’t also a brewery. But it’s also one of the most overrated. When I first dabbled in IPAs I was a fan, or at least tolerated it but then I branched out and realized that all it had going for it was a very aggressive hoppy-ness. There’s no complexity to the flavor and nothing to offset it like you find with the “Hazy” or “West Coast” style IPAs I’ve come to prefer. It’s been a while since I had this one, but from my memory, their IPNA has a lot of the same flavor profile, sans alcohol. It’s probably more drinkable than your standard Lagunitas given that is doesn’t have that same fullness, but it also doesn’t have anything going for it as far as flavor, which IMO is what is key in NA beers.
8 - Worst of the Best - Best Day Brewing Hazy IPA
I gotta pay some respect to Best Day Brewing - they seem to be the only player meaningfully coming for Athletic’s lunch, with 5 different options including 3 IPAs. This is the only one I have tried, and while it certainly makes for a better drinking experience than a neutered lager, and poured the most like a classic beer, there’s not much hazy about it, so I have to downgrade it for that.
7 - Least “Athletic” - Athletic “Upside Dawn” Golden
To be frank, I’m only ranking this as the lowest of the Athletic brews based on the fact that Goldens have never been my go-to. However, my partner-in-crime Nicholas had these in the fridge when we recorded the year-end ep and I enjoyed one during recording. It was solid.
6 - False Advertising - Hoplark “Really Really Hoppy” IPA
While I can’t really say anything outwardly negative about this brew — it was a very enjoyable drink — I do have to knock it for its misnomer. Tasty, but anyone that has ever had an alcoholic DDH beer can immediately identify that the “hoppy”-ness just isn’t there with this one. If there are no Athletics available, this is still a solid option.
5 - Fool Me Once - Athletic “Run Wild” IPA
In my first experience with Athletic Brewing, I didn’t even mean to buy an NA beer. But I could tell they know what they’re doing when I didn’t realize they were NA until the 6-pack I bought was about half gone. Full disclosure, this was probably 2 years ago so I don’t remember if it was this one or their Hazy, but I’m going to say it was this one because I had some of these again more recently over the holidays, and it could have fooled me again. It really separates itself from the original Lagunitas in the fact that they clearly focused on still delivering a product with complex flavor that hits the high notes of IPAs and leaves the low behind.
4 - Blazing Their Own Path - Lagunitas “Hoppy Refresher”
I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one, no mention of the words “brew” or “beer” or “IPA” or anything else having to do with that notorious beverage Lagunitas is known for. And what is “sparkling hop water” anyway? Is it NA beer? Is it an NA Seltzer? (Don’t even get me started on NA White Claws). Who knows? Well I do now, even if I can’t quite describe it. All I can really say is it was good. It was like a sparkling mineral water but the minerals were replaced with, well, hops. It ranks so far up this list, 5 whole spots above the other entry from the same brewing company, because it’s not trying to be anything it isn’t. It isn’t overcompensating for anything. It lives up to the name. It is simply a sparkling water with just a bit of hoppy-ness to it — and it really is refreshing.
3 - Dark Horse Favorite - Montauk Brewing “N.A. IPA”
Montauk came out an interesting player in the late stages of the craft brewing trend. Anchored in Montauk, NY, rather than say, Portland (OR or ME) or Brooklyn (NY, obviously), they brought a new perspective to the craft game. Their motto, “come as you are” encapsulates their ethos perfectly; rather than going down the route of many other breweries in creating dozens of brews with the subtlest of differences geared entirely toward craft beer “heads”, their approach is in many ways more similar to Athletic, just with alcohol. They have a medium-sized selection of options that simply put their best foot forward in whichever niche they are targeting, whether that’s a Belgian White, IPA, or chuggable Pilsner. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone to tell you that Montauk is the best in the game at any of these varieties, but they are good, and they’re consistent. The dark horse in their repertoire, however, is their N.A. IPA. I call this a dark horse not only because it is the sole NA option from a traditionally-alcoholic brewery I have found to compete with the likes of Athletic, but also because you can’t even find it on their site. Opportunity?
2 - Athletic Brewing “Free Wave” Hazy IPA
After all I have said praising Athletic for proposing the perfect response to both the converging craft beer and sober-curious trends, it should come as no surprise that I would rank their Hazy IPA near the top of this list. Hazy IPAs had become my go-to, after some trial and error with traditional IPAs (too broad of a spectrum for me that often favors punching you in the face with hops over flavor). Therefore, Athletic’s version of the variety was at the top of my list to try when I began my NA journey and they didn’t disappoint. They delivered with everything I was looking for: interesting flavor with a decent amount of hoppy-ness, complimented by citrus, as any Hazy IPA should have, aka everything anyone looks for in a Hazy, just without alcohol.
1 - Guinness 0.0
Now I know this will come as a surprise after I just waxed poetic about Hazy IPAs and cursed all the NA versions of mass-market beers so here’s a little backstory:
I’ll never forget the first time I tried a can-poured Guinness and was amazed at how well it lived up to the “Draught” branding on the can and the nitrogenized tap which gives it its name. Similarly, I’ll never forget my first (and to this date, only) experience with Guinness 0.0. I was out in my hometown with Nick and a few others, just a couple of weeks into my sober-curious journey. After soldiering through a few stops drinking either bitters + soda or Athletic Run Wild IPAs, as the clock approached 12 and past versions of me would have been the first to suggest we hit another spot, I insisted I was headed home just as the rest insisted we go to another bar. After some back and forth, I complied to hit up the premier “tap room” in La Crosse, Bodega Brew Pub. (Maybe they’d have at least a second option from Athletic).
As Nick went to order at the bar, I left the final call up to him - “any NA beer or just a bitters + soda”. A short wait later, as he and another started to bring a few beers to our table, I saw the iconic deep brown color and foamy head of a Guinness on its way over. Was it really for me? It couldn’t be. It wasn’t. Nick had gotten his own, fully-alcoholic, Guinness, poured straight from the tap. But then, after he closed out at the bar and came over with the last of our beers, I saw it: that black/brown can with blue accents and an empty glass.
I spent the next half hour reliving that first experience I had with a canned Guinness. First the amazement at how the pour from a can, aided by a simple metal ball (apparently filled with nitrogen that releases upon opening), replicated that from the tap. Then, the amazement of how true it tasted to a traditional draft - or draught if we’re being pedantic. Now, there was yet another level: the amazement that as familiar as this tasted to the original, not only did it come from a can but it has no alcohol?? Just as I must admit that Budweiser Zero was a pretty good simulation of a traditional “Bud Heavy”, it seems that the lager isn’t the only mass-market beer varietal that big-name brewers can recreate without alcohol. In this case, however, the OG version is at least interesting and tasty. And maybe as good as the original?