More sugar than chocolate: The best and worst alcohol-free beers for your health

Telegraph

4 days ago

What a time to be alive if you're a teetotaller. Alcohol-free and low-alcohol beers (which typically contain up to 0.5% ABV – around the same amount of alcohol you would find in a ripe banana), are big business. No longer an insipid, metallic-tasting booby prize for designated drivers, the thirst for them is insatiable – with the market worth £380 million in 2024 – and encompasses a dizzying range of stouts, porters and craft wheat beers.
However, before you knock them back with joyful abandon, it's worth having a closer look at the label, as many contain a lot more sugar and calories than you may think. There's that attractive-looking bottle of alcohol-free stout which contains more sugar than a Galaxy chocolate bar and enticing blonde beers with more calories than a packet of salty crisps.
Which are the best options and the ones to avoid then? From Guinness to Lucky Saint, we rank the leading brands and speak to the experts about how much is safe to drink.
The best and worst alcohol-free beers for your health
Rated by Sam Rice, Telegraph nutrition expert
Nøgne Ø Svart/Hvit Milk Stout
Innis & Gunn 0.0% lager
Leffe Blonde 0% Abbey Ale
Madrí Excepcional 0%
Brewdog Punk IPA Alcohol Free
Guinness 0.0
Lucky Saint Alcohol Free Lager
7. Nøgne Ø Svart/Hvit Milk Stout
Ingredients: water, malted barley, lactose, hops, yeast
Wowzers, this wholesome-looking bottle contains a whopping 23g of sugar, the highest by far of those tested. The clue is in the name; lactose is the sugar found in milk, and it has been added here to give the stout its characteristic creamy mouthfeel. Yeast cannot ferment lactose, so it remains in the finished beer, providing a distinct sweetness.
A 330ml bottle contains 23g of sugar, equal to a 42g bar of Galaxy chocolate. I think I know which I'd choose, but if you like this beer, then, like Galaxy, it's probably best kept as a treat.
Verdict: One point for the fact that it's alcohol free.
6. Innis & Gunn 0.0% lager
Ingredients: water, barley, oats, hops.
A simple ingredients list is always a great start when it comes to nutrition, but sadly, that's where the good news ends, as this beer is the second-highest in sugar, 4.5g per 100ml, compared with the minuscule 0.1g in Lucky Saint.
One 440ml can contains two thirds of the recommended daily sugar intake set by the NHS, which is 30g. Unless you absolutely love this for the taste, which is a valid reason to drink anything, I'd probably choose something else.
Verdict: Just the one point for being alcohol-free.
5. Leffe Blonde 0% Abbey Ale
Ingredients: water, barley malt, maize, barley, sugar, hops, natural aromas.
What this beer gives with one hand – it's pretty low in sugar – it takes with the other; it's the highest in calories of the beers featured, with almost three times that of the Brewdog Punk AF.
Blonde ales are an unfiltered beer style known for being high in silicon, or more specifically, orthosilicic acid, which helps the body to build and maintain healthy bones, and may help guard against conditions such as osteoporosis.
Each 250ml bottle contains 100 calories, so a couple of those and you're consuming more calories than a standard bag of Walker's ready salted crisps.
Verdict: An extra half a point for the silicon.
4. Madrí Excepcional 0%.
Ingredients: water, barley malt, wheat, barley, glucose syrup, sucrose, natural flavourings, hops.
This beer sits right in the middle of the pack for calories and sugar, so if you love that cool, crisp Spanish cerveza-style lager, then this might be the one for you. But before you pop the top, the addition of glucose syrup, sucrose, and natural flavourings raises a nutritional red flag – we are entering UPF territory here.
Verdict: The additives let this down.
3. Brewdog Punk IPA Alcohol Free
Ingredients: water, lactose, malted barley, hops, yeast, malted oats, malted wheat, lactic acid.
While Brewdog Punk IPA was the lowest in calories, just edging out Lucky Saint, it was much higher in sugar, presumably due to the lactose. This is a method for adding body to beer after the alcohol has been removed. With 6g of sugar per 330ml, this would add up pretty rapidly if you were to enjoy a few cans in the sun. Sometimes, even alcohol-free beers should be enjoyed in moderation.
Verdict: Shame about the sugar.
2. Guinness 0.0
Ingredients: water, malted barley, barley, roasted barley, fructose, natural flavourings, hops, yeast
I'm reliably informed by beer connoisseurs (my husband!) that Guinness 0.0 is the closest to the real thing of all the zero-alcohol beers. This is likely because it is brewed in the same manner as regular Guinness, utilising a cold filtration method to remove the alcohol. This preserves the flavour as well as plant compounds called polyphenols from the barley, which act as antioxidants in the body to protect cells against cancer-causing compounds called free radicals.
Polyphenols are also prebiotics, which feed our good gut bacteria, and they can even help improve circulation and blood pressure. Guinness famously contains energy-boosting iron, too.
A 440ml can contains only as many calories as a single Hobnob biscuit, which is half the calories of regular Guinness, and it's also very low in sugar. A win in my book.
Verdict: One of the best on the market.
1. Lucky Saint Alcohol Free Lager
Ingredients: water, malted barley, hops, yeast.
This is the alcohol-free lager I have in my fridge at home. It has a delicious fruitiness and a paltry 53 calories and 0.3g of sugar per can. This simple, unfiltered beer is made with just four ingredients and no additions, such as aromas or flavourings. You'll also be getting a hit of plant polyphenols for some extra gut goodness. Bravo Lucky Saint, you win!
Verdict: Not much wrong with this.
FAQs
How much is safe to drink?
A recent study by a research team from University of California San Diego, Knappschaft Kliniken in Germany and the University of the Basque Country in Spain, which was published in the journal Nutrients, suggests that even two bottles of non-alcoholic beer a day is enough to increase blood sugar levels.
The authors conclude: 'The consumption of non-alcoholic beverages has unfavourable effects on metabolism, mainly driven by their calorie and sugar contents.'
The researchers indicated a long-term risk of Type 2 diabetes and obesity. The study, however, was limited. The cohort was restricted to 44 healthy young men who drank either two 330ml bottles of alcohol-free beer or water every day for four weeks.
The team conducted regular tests to check for changes in glucose and lipid metabolism, liver enzymes, body composition, and the composition of the men's gut microbiome – and compared the results between the alcohol free beer drinkers and the water drinkers, so it was not surprising these drinkers fared worse.
Nevertheless, consuming alcohol-free beers with high levels of calories and sugar, over time and at volume could have more serious implications for health.
What are the main health risks?
Clearly, 'the biggest benefit to alcohol-free beer is cutting out the alcohol and typically they add fewer calories to your diet,' says Matt Coulshead, the research and development manager at Gaba Labs, which specialises in neuropsychopharmacology and synthetic chemistry. But the main problem is that the sugar and calorie content varies widely between the different types of beers.
The research findings revealed that mixed beer – alcohol-free beer with added lemon or orange soda, for example, raised long-term blood sugar levels and fats in the bloodstream, and wheat beer increased insulin and blood fats. And some lagers, such as one 440ml can of Innis & Gunn 0.0% lager beer, contains 20g of sugar, two thirds of the recommended daily intake. (The NHS recommends that adults consume no more than 30g of added sugar a day, approximately 7tsp.)
It's not all bad news, however. According to the NHS, it is not usually a serious problem if your blood sugar is slightly high for a short time – it is when it is sustained that high blood sugar can raise the risk of pre-diabetes and Type 2 diabetes.
Dr Federica Amati, the head nutritionist and global head of communications at Zoe, explains: 'If you consume these products every so often, they're unlikely to do much harm – or good. However, if you're having several cans every day, we don't really know what effects they might have, but it's unlikely to be neutral. These drinks are still providing liquid calories, which we know contribute to worse metabolic health outcomes compared with drinking water, tea or coffee, for example.
'Consuming any sugar and energy in liquid is more harmful for health,' says Dr Amati. 'This is because you can consume them quickly, and we know that the speed you eat – or in this case, drink – increases the risk of weight gain. One can every now and then is only contributing a small amount to our overall dietary pattern, but I wouldn't make this my main drink of choice. It's worth noting that low-alcohol beers do still contain some alcohol. It's in small amounts, but it may still have some negative effects.'
The verdict: are non-alcoholic beers really bad for you?
Dr Amati concludes: 'In nutrition, the most important question is 'what is it replacing?' If you swap standard beer for non-alcoholic beer, it's absolutely a healthier option. No question. If you swap regular fizzy pop for low-alcohol beer, that's probably a little better. But if you swapped low-alcohol beer for water or kombucha, that's even healthier.
'As with any soft drinks, moderation is key. But if you love the taste of beer, and it's replacing regular beer, you're making a solid choice.'