Best Alcohol Free Craft Beers

I’ll admit, 18 months-or-so ago, I never bothered stocking more than one or two alcohol-free beers. It wasn’t because I was such a booze-hound that I thought them a waste of time not worthy of shelf-space, but because there simply weren’t enough to go at. Now they seem to be everywhere: the ‘AF’ sector is the fastest growing segment of the craft beer market. So what’s the best alcohol free beer?

While the alcohol-free beers of yesteryear were serviceable enough, choices were typically limited to the odd AF lager such as the (still excellent) Lucky Saint, or perhaps a nonplussed bartender’d offer you a sub-2% (and equally excellent) Kernel Table Beer with an apology and a shrug. Right now though, in my bars and via my website, I’m fortunate enough to proffer belting options from a new wave of low-alc specialist breweries intent on ripping up the rulebook.

Take Mash Gang as exhibit number one. I’d rate these guys as the leading light in modern alc-free brewing, simply because of the range they offer.

At the entry and ‘normal’ end of brewing they make Stoop, which is as good a lager as you’ll get. Other than a very slight lack of body this alcohol-free gem would pass for a beer punching 5+%. It’s a clean and bright American style pilsner that brewers deemed so good Mash Gang created a variant that aped the popular Japanese lagers ubiquitous in larger pub chains: Stoop Extra Dry Alcohol Free Japanese Pilsner. If you’re new to low- and no-alc beers then this fine pair is really where you should be starting out.

The wonderful thing about Mash Gang is they can deliver classy and crisp beers like the lagers just mentioned and also knock out some utterly bonkers stuff too. Once you’ve had your lovely lager, how’s about treating your taste buds to Mash Gang’s Sour Patch Hops – a beer crafted around the flavours of sour patch gums? Or the same brewery’s ‘Low Alcohol Milk & Cereal Pale Ale’ Cap’n Krunk? Made with vanilla and cinnamon, the latter is touted as a ‘breakfast beer for any time of the day’. It seems odd to picture slugging this alongside Sunday scrambled eggs but, given the absence of alcohol, it’s only society holding you back. As I said, Mash Gang brews range from the sublime to the ridiculous via the unashamedly experimental. Get in on these and wake up fuzz-free.

Another brewery really pushing the boundaries of the no/low category these days is Lowtide. Based in Bath, here you have the familiar tale of two friends setting up something new whence they tired of searching for a beer that simply didn’t exist (in this case, a head-turning no/low offering). Everything about Lowtide feels like they’re a ‘regular’ brewery. The branding is fun yet sharp and snuggles on shelves alongside the orthodox exquisitely. Plus, Lowtide beers all sound like something you’d expect to see in any respectable bottleshop. Yet dig a little deeper and you’ll struggle to find any booze at the bottom of these cans.

Now, I’m no scientist, but when I started to explore the latest wave of alc-free beers, I started to learn about the process a bit more. The big issue breweries in the sector grapple with is they typically create a boozy beer then remove the alcohol, often by heating their produce to temperatures that jeopardise flavour profiles. While removing booze is an ongoing issue, techniques have emerged to sidestep the hurdle, allowing brewers to concentrate on what they’re actually creating in the first place. And concentrating on what they’re creating is something Lowtide have mastered.

Like Mash Gang, Lowtide’s flagship lager is a cracker, but where these guys really excel is with hops. Something like the New England IPA Cosmic Turtle has a beautifully pillowy mouthfeel accompanied by a huge fruity aroma, all owed to the truckload of Citra and Mosaic hops Lowtide sling into it. Sky at Night, Lowtide’s AF porter, continues the trend: a cracking beer without the booze and full of rich chocolate, vanilla and coffee notes.

If it’s the traditional you’re looking for then rest assured: some big German breweries are in on the AF act as well. I would have thought they risked breaking The Reinheitsgebot – the country’s brewing purity law laid down in the 1500s which I’m fairly sure would frown at beer with no punch. Either way, it seems like the controversy is worth it for the likes of Kaiserdom and Andechs. Unsurprisingly neither stray far from the classics (perhaps the pair are heeding the Reinheitsgebot after all), which means we see a constant stream of Kaiserdom Grapefruit and Lager disappearing from our fridges, and customers in-store and online raving about a cracking Weissbier from Andresh.

Of course, more than a few drinkers tend to roll out the “what’s the point of a boozeless beer?” or “I’ll drink cola” lines whenever the topic of AF beer comes up. But clearly one of the great things that has come from the recent mini-revolution in low-alc brewing is you can actually get hold of beer when you really fancy a beer but are avoiding a ‘beer’ beer.

Today, you don’t have to force down a Kaliber when you’re the designated driver, or sink four pints of orange juice back to back. Better, beerier options exist. In a traditionally tricky time for independent breweries, it really helps to keep helping the little guy. And if you can do that while skipping the odd hangover?

That has to be good news, right?