What Is The Best NA Beer? | Picks By Taste

If you’re asking what is the best NA beer, start with the kind of beer you already enjoy. There isn’t one can that wins for every palate. Still, for the widest group of drinkers, Athletic Run Wild is the best starting point. It has hop aroma, real bitterness, and enough malt weight to feel like beer instead of a soft drink with foam.

Once style enters the room, the answer shifts. Guinness 0.0 is stronger for stout drinkers. Heineken 0.0 fits people who want a clean lager. Samuel Adams Just The Haze works better for people who miss juicy haze and fuller body. Best Day Kölsch is the easy grab when you want something crisp and not too bitter.

What Is The Best NA Beer For Your Taste?

The best NA beer is the one that lands closest to your usual lane. A dark-beer drinker who buys a citrusy IPA may walk away thinking all NA beer tastes thin. A hop lover who grabs a sweet lager may think the whole category is flat. Style match matters more than brand name.

Use this filter before you buy:

• If you like IPA, start with Athletic Run Wild, Sierra Nevada Trail Pass IPA, or Samuel Adams Just The Haze.
• If you like lager, start with Heineken 0.0 or a crisp kölsch-style pick.
• If you like stout or porter, start with Guinness 0.0 or Deschutes Black Butte Non-Alcoholic.
• If bitterness wears you out, skip heavy-hop cans and grab Best Day Kölsch or Athletic Upside Dawn.

That one move cuts down the usual trial-and-error phase and gives you better odds on the first try.

Best Nonalcoholic Beer Styles And Label Clues

NA beer is not one single thing. Some brewers pull alcohol out after brewing. Others build the beer to stay below the threshold from the start. In U.S. label terms, the TTB labeling rules for malt beverage alcohol content say “non-alcoholic” needs a label statement showing less than 0.5% alcohol by volume, while “alcohol free” is reserved for beer with no alcohol at all.

Style matters just as much as the alcohol number. The Brewers Association Beer Style Guidelines place sub-0.5% beers inside familiar beer styles. That’s why the best can on your shelf may be an IPA, stout, hazy IPA, lager, or kölsch-style ale, not one bland middle-ground beer.

When people say an NA beer is “good,” they usually mean four things: it smells like real beer, carries enough body through the middle, finishes clean, and leaves no cooked-wort aftertaste.

The fastest way to miss is to shop NA beer as one single category. IPA drinkers chase hop bite. Lager drinkers want snap and clean malt. Stout drinkers want roast and a dry edge. Once you sort that out, the shelf gets easier to read.

The Standout Picks By Style

Best Overall: Athletic Run Wild

If you want one answer for most people, this is it. Athletic’s Run Wild lists five Northwest hops and 65 calories, and that matches how it drinks: bright aroma, a real bitter edge, and enough malt in the center to keep it from feeling watery.

It tastes like an IPA first and an NA beer second, which is why it works so well as a first buy.

Best Lager: Heineken 0.0

Heineken 0.0 works when you want something cold, clean, and familiar. The brewery describes it with fruity notes and a soft malty body, and that’s a fair read. It won’t hit like a bitter pilsner, yet it lands close enough to standard lager territory that it doesn’t feel like a compromise.

This is the easy door into NA beer for mainstream lager drinkers.

Beer	Style And Profile	Best For
Athletic Run Wild	IPA with citrus, pine, and balanced bitterness	Most drinkers who want a craft-beer feel
Heineken 0.0	Lager with soft malt and light fruity notes	Classic lager fans
Guinness 0.0	Stout with roasted, bittersweet, creamy character	Dark-beer drinkers
Samuel Adams Just The Haze	Hazy IPA with juicy aroma and fuller body	People who miss haze and hop punch
Best Day Kölsch	Crisp kölsch-style ale with light toast and clean finish	Easy sipping and food pairings
Athletic Upside Dawn	Golden ale with citrus, herbs, and light body	Low-bitterness drinkers
Sierra Nevada Trail Pass IPA	IPA with citrus, pine, and firmer hop snap	West Coast IPA fans
Deschutes Black Butte Non-Alcoholic	Porter-like dark beer with coffee and chocolate notes	Richer dark-beer cravings

Best Stout: Guinness 0.0

Guinness 0.0 is the bottle that makes doubters pause. It keeps the dark color, roasted barley edge, and that coffee-and-cocoa shape that stout drinkers want. The body is lighter than full-strength Guinness, yet the roast profile still lands.

If stout is your home style, skip the pale cans and start here.

Best Hazy IPA: Samuel Adams Just The Haze

Just The Haze has more body than many NA IPAs, and that matters. Hazy drinkers usually want soft texture as much as hop aroma. This one brings ripe hop character and a thicker feel than the category average, so it doesn’t drink like watered-down citrus tea.

If you miss juicy IPA texture more than sharp bitterness, this is the better pick over a leaner West Coast style.

Best Easy Drinker: Best Day Kölsch

Best Day Kölsch is the can I’d hand to someone who says, “I just want a beer-like beer.” It’s crisp, light, and clean, with a little toast on the malt side and a tidy finish. No part of it shouts.

If you want something for lunch, hot weather, or a second can without palate fatigue, this is a smart buy.

If You Usually Drink	Start With	Why It Fits
West Coast IPA	Athletic Run Wild or Trail Pass IPA	More bitterness, pine, and cleaner finish
Hazy IPA	Samuel Adams Just The Haze	More body and softer hop texture
Mass-market lager	Heineken 0.0	Clean malt profile and easy drinking
Pilsner or kölsch	Best Day Kölsch	Crisp snap without heavy bitterness
Stout or porter	Guinness 0.0 or Black Butte Non-Alcoholic	Roast, cocoa, and darker malt depth
Golden ale	Athletic Upside Dawn	Light body with a clean citrus-herb edge

How To Buy Better NA Beer

You’ll get better cans if you shop NA beer the same way you shop regular beer. Buy by style first. Then watch freshness, especially with hop-forward beers. A tired hazy IPA is rough enough with alcohol. Without alcohol, that stale edge sticks out even more.

Temperature changes the glass more than many people expect. Straight-from-the-fridge cold can hide sweetness and flatten aroma. Letting the pour sit for a minute or two often gives you a truer read on what’s in the can.

A few habits help:

• Buy singles or small packs before loading up on a case.
• Serve hop-forward cans cold, but let them sit for a few minutes before the second half of the pour.
• Use a glass when you can. Aroma does a lot of work in NA beer.
• Check whether you need under 0.5% ABV or true zero before you shop.
• Don’t judge the whole category from one weak can.

Don’t chase “health halo” marketing if taste is your main goal. Start with flavor, then use calories, carbs, and ingredient notes as tie-breakers.

Where To Start

For most drinkers, Athletic Run Wild is still the best first buy. If hops aren’t your thing, go straight to Heineken 0.0 or Best Day Kölsch. If you drink stout, make Guinness 0.0 your opener.

So, what is the best NA beer? For the broadest crowd, Athletic Run Wild gets the nod. For your own fridge, the right answer is the can that matches the style you already reach for.