If you like Athletic Brewing, the closest alternatives are the other breweries that treat non-alcoholic as the whole business, not a side project. Best Day Brewing is the nearest all-round swap, Bravus owns dark beer, Go Brewing rotates the most interesting seasonals, and Guinness 0.0 is the easiest one to find.
Athletic built the category, so it is the default answer in almost every roundup. That is also why it gets boring. Once you have worked through Run Wild and Free Wave a few dozen times, the useful question is not "what is the best non-alcoholic beer", it is "what does this specific brand do for me, and who else does that better".
Most lists rank individual beers. This one ranks brands by the job they fill, and it tells you how each one gets the alcohol out, because that is the thing you actually taste.
How we picked these brands
- Non-alcoholic is the whole business. Breweries built around it invest in the process. A macro lager with a zero badge usually does not.
- A named alcohol-removal method. Vacuum distillation, cold filtration, arrested fermentation, or brewing to 0.5% from the start all taste different. Brands that say which one they use tend to be the ones that care.
- Range beyond the IPA. A real Athletic substitute covers lagers, wheats, and dark beers too. Plenty of brands only make one hazy.
- You can actually buy it. Non-alcoholic distribution is patchy outside big cities, so we favored brands that ship direct or sit on normal shelves.
- Outside validation. Competition medals, blind panel results, or a large first-party review base, not a marketing line.
At a glance
| Brand | Best for | Price | Known for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best Day Brewing | The closest all-round swap | Mid | Full-strength brew, alcohol removed cold |
| Go Brewing | Seasonals and sours | Mid | Fastest-growing US craft brewery, 65 to 89 calories |
| Bravus Brewing | Stouts and dark beer | Mid | Peanut Butter Dark, barrel-aged stout |
| Grüvi | Beer and wine in one order | Mid | Denver sibling founders, NA beer plus NA wine |
| BERO | A polished everyday IPA | Premium | Founded by Tom Holland, four core beers |
| Big Drop Brewing Co | People who dislike dealcoholized beer | Mid to premium | Brewed at 0.5%, never stripped |
| RationAle Brewing | Crisp lagers with food | Mid | Four styles, one price |
| Sober Carpenter | Buying by the case | Budget to mid | 24-packs and non-alcoholic cider |
| Lucky Saint | Lager purists | Premium | Unfiltered Bavarian lager at 0.5% |
| Brooklyn Brewery | Shelf availability | Mid | Dry-hopped non-alcoholic amber |
| Hoplark | Hops without a beer | Mid | Sparkling hop water and hop tea |
| Guinness 0.0 | The familiar stout pour | Budget to mid | Cold filtration, nitrogen widget |
1. Best Day Brewing
Best Day Brewing is the closest thing to a like-for-like swap. It brews to full strength first, then removes the alcohol at low temperature so the beer never rises above its fermentation temperature, which is the part that usually flattens flavor.
The lineup covers the same ground Athletic does: Kölsch, West Coast IPA, Hazy IPA, a wild American pilsner, and fruited options like Electro-Lime. That pilsner won Best in Show and Double Gold at the North American Non-Alcoholic Cup.
Best for anyone who wants a full craft range from one brewery rather than one good beer.
2. Go Brewing
Go Brewing launched in 2023 and the Brewers Association named it the fastest-growing craft brewery in the US in May 2026, up 116 percent. Most of its cans land between 65 and 89 calories.
It is also the most restless brand here. Watermelon wheat pales, Japanese rice lagers, honeycrisp apple brews, and a rotating beer of the month. Forbes' blind panel picked its Suspended in a Sunbeam pilsner as the best non-alcoholic pilsner it tasted and its New School Sour Berry as the best sour.
Best for the drinker who gets bored of a core lineup and wants something new every month.
3. Bravus Brewing
Bravus Brewing was one of the first US breweries dedicated entirely to non-alcoholic craft beer, and it has the deepest dark-beer bench in the category by a distance.
Oatmeal Dark, Peanut Butter Dark, a raspberry gose, and a barrel-aged stout called Gravitas. Forbes' panel scored the Peanut Butter Dark 4.8 out of 5, its highest stout score of the tasting.
Best for stout and porter drinkers, who are the most underserved group in this whole category. If your complaint about non-alcoholic beer is that everything is a hazy IPA, start here.
4. Grüvi
Grüvi was founded in 2019 by sibling co-founders Niki and Anika Sawni and runs out of Denver. It is the only brand on this list that covers beer and wine properly.
On the beer side there is Golden Era lager, Juicy Dayz IPA, Weekday Wit, and a Mocha Moment stout. On the wine side, Dry Secco, Bubbly Rosé, sangria, and a red blend.
Best for a household where one person wants a beer and the other wants a glass of something sparkling, without placing two separate orders.
5. BERO
BERO launched in 2024, founded by actor Tom Holland, and the tagline is "Born in London. Crafted in America." It would be easy to write it off as a celebrity label, except the beer is good and the range is tight.
Four core beers: Edge Hill Hazy IPA, Double Tasty West Coast Style IPA, Noon Wheat, and Kingston Golden Pils, plus a shandy line. VinePair included it in its 2026 list.
Best for the lapsed IPA drinker who wants a polished can and does not want to think about it. It sits at the premium end of the shelf.
6. Big Drop Brewing Co
Big Drop Brewing Co takes the opposite approach to almost everyone else. Instead of brewing a full-strength beer and stripping the alcohol out, it brews to 0.5 percent from the start, so nothing gets removed.
That shows up in the mouthfeel, which is fuller than most. Its Galactic milk stout took Bronze in the non-alcohol category at the 2023 World Beer Cup and Gold at the 2023 World Alcohol-Free Awards, and Pine Trail was named World's Best Low Alc Pale at the 2020 World Beer Awards. Founded in October 2016.
Best for the drinker who has tried dealcoholized beer and found it hollow.
7. RationAle Brewing
RationAle Brewing started in 2021 after a campfire conversation between a father, Jamie, and his sons about making your own choices about drinking. The lineup is deliberately small.
Four styles, all at the same price on their site: Japanese Style Dry, Mexican Style Brew, Hazy IPA, and West Coast IPA. The Japanese dry and the Mexican style are the interesting ones, since almost nobody else in non-alcoholic makes them well.
Best for someone who wants a crisp, food-friendly can with tacos or sushi rather than another hop bomb.
8. Sober Carpenter
Sober Carpenter comes from two Canadian brothers who started brewing in their parents' basement in Quebec. The beer is solid, but the format range is what sets it apart.
You can buy 355ml or 473ml cans, in 12-packs or 24-packs, across an IPA, a blonde ale, and an Irish red ale. It also makes a non-alcoholic cider, which very few beer brands bother with.
Best for a household that goes through this stuff quickly and would rather buy a case than a rotating four-pack. It is also the most budget-friendly craft option here.
9. Lucky Saint
Lucky Saint launched in the UK in 2018 after founder Luke Boase spent two years working with six brewers across three countries to get one lager right.
It is brewed in Bavaria with Hallertau hops, left unfiltered, and taken down to 0.5 percent by vacuum distillation. The unfiltered part is why it has body where most non-alcoholic lagers feel thin. By January 2024 it was pouring on tap in more than 1,000 UK pubs.
Best for the lager purist. It is a genuine pilsner-style beer rather than a hoppy craft can, and it costs accordingly. US buyers will usually be ordering it rather than finding it locally.
10. Brooklyn Brewery
Brooklyn Brewery is the pick when you want a craft name you can grab at a normal grocery store instead of waiting on a delivery. Its non-alcoholic line, sold as Special Effects and now the Non-Alcoholic Brooklyn Original amber, sits under 0.5 percent.
The amber is dry-hopped with Sabro, Saphir, and Cascade, and it uses a fermentation method that builds beer character without producing much alcohol in the first place. The hoppy amber has picked up more than 52,000 Untappd ratings, which is a lot of real-world feedback.
Best for shelf availability and for anyone who finds most non-alcoholic beer too pale and too sweet.
11. Hoplark
Hoplark is not beer, and that is the point. It brews real hops into sparkling water and unsweetened tea, so you get the aroma and the bitterness without anything that resembles a lager.
The Hoplark 0.0 line has no sugar and no calories, and the brand builds everything on short, real ingredient lists. If you want more options in that space, our sparkling water brand picks cover the wider category, and the alternatives to Liquid Death roundup is the closest sibling to this one.
Best for the drinker who wants something adult-tasting in hand without drinking a beer at all.
12. Guinness 0.0
Guinness 0.0 is the most widely available beer on this list and, for stout drinkers, the easiest recommendation to make.
It is brewed at St James's Gate with the same water, barley, hops, and yeast as regular Guinness, then cold-filtered at low temperature so the alcohol comes out without heat damaging the flavor compounds. The nitrogen widget in the can keeps the cascading pour and the creamy head, so the ritual survives intact. It runs about 70 calories per 500ml can.
Best for the person who wants a familiar pour they can buy at any supermarket, bar, or airport.
How to choose a non-alcoholic beer brand
If you want the closest thing to Athletic, order a Best Day Brewing variety pack. Same craft range, same everyday price band.
If you are counting calories, Go Brewing keeps most cans between 65 and 89, and Guinness 0.0 sits near 70 for a full stout.
If you drink dark beer, Bravus first, Big Drop's Galactic second, Guinness 0.0 if you want it tonight from the corner store.
If you want a proper lager, Lucky Saint for body, RationAle for something crisp with food.
If dealcoholized beer has disappointed you, try Big Drop, which never removes alcohol because it never makes much.
If you need genuinely 0.0 percent for medical, religious, or pregnancy reasons, read the can. Guinness 0.0 is 0.0. Several craft options are 0.5 percent, which is a real difference for some buyers even though it is trace-level.
If you want it delivered, most of the independents here run their own stores and ship cases directly, which is the same pattern you see across other direct-to-consumer food and drink brands. Grüvi is the easiest single order if you also want wine, and if you are restocking the whole fridge, the better-for-you soda options fill the non-beer slot.
One practical rule: buy fresh. Hoppy non-alcoholic beer fades faster than people expect, so a dusty can from a slow-moving shelf will taste worse than the same beer bought from a store that sells a lot of it. If a brand disappointed you once, freshness may have been the reason.
Frequently asked questions
What is the closest thing to Athletic Brewing?
Best Day Brewing is the nearest match on range, price, and style mix. It brews to full strength and then removes the alcohol at low temperature, and it covers pilsner, Kölsch, hazy IPA, and West Coast IPA the same way Athletic does.
Is non-alcoholic beer actually 0.0 percent alcohol?
Sometimes. Guinness 0.0 is genuinely 0.0 percent because the alcohol is cold-filtered out. Many craft non-alcoholic beers sit at or below 0.5 percent, which is roughly what you find in kombucha or ripe fruit juice. If you need true zero, check the can rather than the marketing.
Which non-alcoholic beer has the fewest calories?
Go Brewing keeps most of its cans between 65 and 89 calories, and Hoplark's 0.0 hop water has none at all. Guinness 0.0 runs about 70 calories per 500ml can, which is low for a stout.
Can you get non-alcoholic beer shipped to your door?
Yes, and it is usually easier than shipping alcohol. Best Day, Go Brewing, Bravus, Grüvi, BERO, RationAle, Sober Carpenter, Lucky Saint, and Hoplark all run their own online stores with direct shipping, and several offer subscriptions.
Why does some non-alcoholic beer taste watery?
Two reasons. The removal method matters, since heat-based distillation can strip out delicate aroma compounds that cold filtration or vacuum distillation keep. Age matters too, because hop character fades quickly, so an old can tastes noticeably thinner than a fresh one.
What is the best non-alcoholic stout or dark beer?
Bravus has the widest dark range, including Oatmeal Dark, Peanut Butter Dark, and a barrel-aged stout. Big Drop's Galactic milk stout has the medals, and Guinness 0.0 is the one you can buy almost anywhere.
How long does non-alcoholic beer stay fresh?
Treat it like fresh craft beer rather than a shelf-stable soft drink. Check the date on the can, buy from a store with turnover, keep it cold, and drink hoppy styles first since they fade fastest.