Maybe you were inspired by Dry January and now want to continue being more health-conscious. Or maybe you enjoy beer but just want to be sober.
Whatever the reason, non-alcoholic beers have become more popular in the past five years. More breweries are starting to produce them, and more taphouses are starting to pour them, too – places such as the Waterfront Taphouse in Vancouver and West Coast Drinkery & Pizzeria in Southwest Portland.
Beth Grover and her husband, Jeff Grover, are co-owners of West Coast Drinkery, and she said nonalcoholic beers are one of the pub’s fastest-growing categories.
“It’s generally in the past something people weren’t that interested in,” she said. “But people started asking for it. We carry (Crux Fermentation Project’s) No Mo on draft, and we are having trouble sometimes keeping it in stock.”
Grover said health is a big motivator — most of the beers are between 25 and 100 calories — but also after COVID-19, many people are going out more and wanting to socialize, and having a nonalcoholic option gives them more time to hang out with their friends.
“It’s not necessarily the kombucha crowd,” she said. “It’s now just as much the average beer drinking crowd that is giving it a shot, where in the past it’s not something they would have been interested in. It’s a product our mainstream beer drinking customers are interested in.”
While once only barely resembling actual beers in terms of flavor and quality, these nonalcoholic beers have come a long way. We purchased the most popular, most available ones and also asked local beertenders for their recommendations. Then we tried 25 of them in an Oregonian/OregonLive taste test, and these are the 12 most worth your dollars:
IPA
Like their higher ABV cousins, nonalcoholic IPAs dominate the market, so we dedicated one rating category to the style. Here is our ranking of the best we tasted:
No. 1: Freak Flag Hazy IPA, Three Magnets Brewing
Part of the Self Care nonalcoholic line of beers by Three Magnets Brewing of Olympia, this was the best IPA of the class. With a finishing bitterness balanced by a malty sweetness, Freak Flag is slightly bitter and fruity, and comparable to an IPA you would get at a really good brewery.
No. 2: Intentional IPA, WellBeing Brewing
WellBeing Brewing is a St. Louis brewery dedicated to making nonalcoholic beers. The Intentional delivers medium bitterness and some tropical notes, and it would be comparable to an IPA you would get at a solid brewery. A good nose, floral and hoppy.
No. 3: Athletic IPA and Hazy IPA, Athletic Brewing
Athletic is the U.S.’s leading producer of nonalcoholic beer, and last year partnered with Keurig Dr Pepper and now has a wide line offered nationwide. The IPAs are both full-bodied and flavorful without quite the refinement of the top two in our ranking.
No. 4: West Coast IPA, Best Day Brewing
This beer from Best Day Brewing out of Sausalito, California, delivered a creamy full head, pungent nose of hops and tasted like an IPA leaning into an amber ale.
No. 5: Partake IPA, Partake Brewing
This Canadian brewery makes only nonalcoholic beers, including a blonde, pale, red, stout and peach gose. The IPA was rich and darker amber in color, with a hoppy aroma, wheat notes and a caramel maltiness.
Honorable mentions:
- No Mo IPA, Crux Fermentation Project: This nonalcoholic out of the Bend brewery continues to evolve and improve after its first release in 2021, and it was recently joined by No Mo Hazy IPA and Strata Gold.
- N/A IPA, 10 Barrel Brewing: This offering from 10 Barrel in Bend leans to the tropical citrus side.
- IPNA, Lagunitas Brewing: From pioneering Lagunitas Brewing of Petaluma, California, this IPA delivered slight bitterness with decent flavor but was slightly more watery than the others.
Best other styles
(in no ranked order)
Black Butte Porter, Deschutes Brewery
The nonalcoholic Black Butte Porter from the Bend brewery tastes shockingly similar to its 5.5% ABV partner. Its dark color, rich aroma, and creamy mouthfeel tastes just like the real thing, and you could probably fool your friends that it’s actually the real thing.
Guinness 0, Guinness
This nonalcoholic draught ale mimics the cascading carbonation like the classic Guinness Draught stout, then it delivers the same dry, slightly bitter chocolatey coffee notes and creamy mouthfeel as the full octane version.
Mango Dragonfruit Fruited Sour, Untitled Art
This fruited sour from Untitled Art, an arts-focused maker out of Florida, was a huge and pleasant surprise, and one of the best nonalcoholic beers we tasted. A fruit-forward aroma led to an effervescent experience loaded but balanced with tart dragonfruit and a slightly pulpy mouthfeel. The missing alcohol is barely noticed.
Heavenly Body Golden Wheat, WellBeing Brewing
This wheat ale from the same producer as the Intentional IPA was light, refreshing and crisp while still delivering balanced flavor for a nonalcoholic beer.
Take-away: We found the breweries dedicated to producing nonalcoholic beers or with a large investment in producing an array of them fared best, especially at producing the hoppier nonalcoholic beers, which seem more difficult to achieve parity with alcohol beers. That might account for the darker beers, which lean more on a roasted or toasted malt profile, being more true to their alcohol-enhanced versions.
We purchased all of these beers either at Ben’s Bottle Shop of Vancouver; Belmont Station, John’s Marketplace and BeerMongers in Portland; or New Seasons and Whole Foods. Availability may be inconsistent, as some are seasonally produced, but others are year-round.
— Andre Meunier; sign up for my weekly newsletter Oregon Brews and News, and follow me on Instagram, where I’m @oregonianbeerguy.
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