The Dry Bar

Not everyone wants to pay two pounds for a can of Lucky Saint. Sometimes you just want something cold and inoffensive from a shop you were already in. Perlenbacher 0.0%, from Lidl, is that drink. Perlenbacher 0.0% Ingredients: water, barley malt, flavouring, hop extract, acidity regulator: citric acid. The full-strength Perlenbacher Pilsner won World’s Best Classic Pilsner at the 2024 World Beer Awards, which sets an interesting benchmark for the alcohol-free version. The 0.0

Beck's Blue is the original mainstream alcohol-free lager in the UK — it has been on supermarket shelves since the 1980s when the category barely existed. That longevity tells you something about reliability, though not necessarily about ambition. Beck's Blue Ingredients: water, malted barley, hops, hop extract, yeast. The pour is clear pale gold with a thin white head that dissipates quickly — functional rather than inviting. The aroma is light and slightly grainy. On the pa

Birra Moretti Zero is the entry that completes the supermarket lager picture — the Italian option sitting alongside Heineken and Beck's on the bottom shelf, priced for accessibility and widely available everywhere. Birra Moretti Zero 0.0% Ingredients: water, malted barley, maize, hops, yeast. The pour is clear pale gold with fine carbonation and a modest white head — clean and uncomplicated. The aroma is mild, with a faint malt note and little else to speak of. On the palate

Big Drop is one of the UK's specialist alcohol-free breweries — they brew exclusively low and no alcohol beer, which means every product in their range is designed from the ground up without alcohol rather than dealcoholised after the fact. The Pine Trail Pale Ale is their flagship and it shows that approach paying off. Big Drop Pine Trail Pal Ale Ingredients: water, malted barley, oats, hops (Citra, Mosaic), yeast. The pour is a clear pale amber with a decent off-white head

Heineken 0.0 is the most widely available alcohol-free lager in the UK, which is either its greatest asset or its greatest limitation depending on what you are looking for. It is reliably present — service stations, corner shops, pubs with limited non-alcoholic options — which makes it more useful in practice than drinks that taste better but are harder to find. Heineken 0.0 Ingredients: water, malted barley, hop extract, natural flavourings. The pour mimics its full-strength

Erdinger Alkoholfrei occupies an unusual position in the non-alcoholic market — it is one of the few drinks in this category that actively promotes its isotonic credentials, marketed towards athletes and active recovery. Whether that means anything to you or not, what it delivers in the glass is a genuinely distinctive wheat beer with character that is incredibly refreshing. Erdinger Alkoholfrei Ingredients: water, malted wheat (50%), barley malt, hop extract, yeast. The pour

Lucky Saint has become the benchmark for alcohol-free lager in the UK, and it is not hard to see why. Lucky Saint Unfiltered Lager 0.5% is brewed in Bavaria using pilsner malt, Hallertau hops, spring water and yeast — nothing else — and left unfiltered, it arrives with more body than most of its competitors dare attempt. Lucky Saint Unfiltered Lager 0.5% Ingredients: water, malted barley, hops, yeast. The pour is convincing. A hazy pale gold with a decent head that holds long

If Lucky Saint owns the lager category, Guinness 0.0 owns stout — and it is not close. Brewed at St James's Gate in Dublin using the same natural ingredients as the original before the alcohol is removed through cold filtration, it arrives with something most alcohol-free beers lack entirely: ritual. The widget is in the can. The two-part pour still applies. The ceremony is intact. Guinness 0.0 Ingredients: water, barley, hops, yeast. What comes out of that pour is convincing

St Austell spent over two years developing the 0.5% version of their flagship IPA, and it shows. Where some alcohol-free IPAs arrive thin and unconvincing — all aroma, no follow-through — Proper Job 0.5% actually delivers on the promise of the style. Brewed with the same Cascade, Willamette and Chinook hops as the full-strength original, it hits citrus, grapefruit and a faint pineapple note in the right order. St Austell Proper Job IPA 0.5% Ingredients: water, malted barley,