I Tried Every Alcohol-Free Beer in Tesco. Most Are Garbage.

The obvious answer and it's obvious for a reason. Proper beer taste. Slightly hazy pour, decent head, actual malt flavour. It tastes like a real lager - not like a lager that's had the joy extracted from it.

The only AF beer in Tesco I'd happily drink in a pub without feeling like I'm making a statement.

"The benchmark. Everything else in Tesco is compared to this and most of them lose."

Yeah, I know. BrewDog. I've got opinions about them too. But if we're judging the beer and not the company, Punk AF is genuinely decent. Tropical hop character, bit of grapefruit, light body. It's not Punk IPA - it's lighter and thinner - but it's recognisably trying to be an IPA and mostly succeeding.

Best value on this list too. Four pack from Tesco is about six quid.

"If you can separate the beer from the brand, it's solid. Best IPA option in Tesco by a mile (not hard, it's the only one)."

The dark horse. Nobody talks about this one and I don't know why. Clean, crisp, slightly biscuity. No weird aftertaste. It's genuinely 0.0% too, not 0.5%, if that matters to you.

Not as full as Lucky Saint but more interesting than most of the big-brand offerings further down this list. Feels like an actual Spanish lager, not a chemistry experiment.

"Underrated. If you want 0.0% specifically, this is the one to get."

They've improved this. The first version was horrific - like someone had described Guinness over the phone to a machine. The current version is... acceptable. You get the roasty, slightly bitter thing. The cascade still happens if you pour it properly.

But it's thin. Real Guinness has a weight to it that the 0.0 doesn't have. You notice it, especially by the second can. It's drinkable. It's fine. It's not Guinness.

"Better than it was. Still not Guinness. But if you're a stout person with no other options, it'll do."

It's Corona. That's it. Light, inoffensive, vaguely citrus. Stick a lime in it and you genuinely can't tell the difference from the full-strength version. Which says more about Corona than it does about this beer.

Perfect for BBQs where nobody cares what they're drinking. Terrible for anyone who actually likes beer.

"The AF beer for people who don't really like beer. Which is fine, honestly. Not everything needs to be craft."

Smells like Peroni. Pours like Peroni. First sip is fine. Then you get this weird metallic sweet thing at the back that real Peroni doesn't have. It's like someone added half a sugar cube to a lager.

It's not bad. It's just disappointing because it's so close to being good.

"Almost. The aftertaste lets it down. Would I pick it over tap water? Yes. Over Lucky Saint? Never."

The most popular AF beer in the UK and I genuinely don't understand why. It has this distinctive sweet, slightly metallic taste that bears no relation to actual Heineken. It tastes like someone made a beer-flavoured soft drink.

I think people buy it because they recognise the name and it's everywhere. It's in every pub, every supermarket, every corner shop. Availability isn't quality.

If this is your introduction to AF beer, please try literally anything else before deciding the whole category is rubbish.

"The reason people think AF beer is bad. It's not terrible, but it's nowhere near what's possible."

It's Heineken 0.0 in a different outfit. Same sweet, same thin, same "this isn't really beer is it" feeling. Slightly more bitter than Heineken which saves it from total mediocrity.

If someone handed me this at a party I'd drink it. If I was choosing from a shelf, I'd walk past it every time.

"Exists. That's the nicest thing I can say."

Remember when Carlsberg admitted their beer was "probably not the best beer in the world" and relaunched? The 0.0 version is the same idea but they forgot the relaunch part. It's watery with a vague hop suggestion and a finish that disappears faster than motivation on a Monday.

"Probably not the best AF beer in the world either."

Smells promising. Pours a nice golden colour. Then you taste it and it's like someone left a San Miguel out in the sun for three hours. There's a sourness that has no business being there. My wife tried it (she likes regular San Miguel) and made a face I usually only see when the kids leave wet towels on the bed.

"Looks the part. Tastes like disappointment."

Not technically a beer but Tesco shelves it in the same section so it made the cut. It's Ribena with fizz. Aggressively sweet. If you closed your eyes you'd think it was a kids' party drink, which is appropriate because it has the complexity of a kids' party drink.

To be fair, if you're looking for something sweet and fruity and don't care about it tasting like beer, this does what it says on the tin. It's just not for me.

"Not beer. Not trying to be beer. Fine at that, but it's on the wrong list."

This genuinely confused me because I like regular Moretti. It's a perfectly nice Italian lager. The 0.0 version tastes like they ran it through a filter twice and took out everything that made it a Moretti. What's left is technically liquid, technically cold, and technically beer-shaped. But it's hollow.

"The moustache man on the label is judging you for buying this."

Doom Bar is already divisive as a real beer (it's the Nickelback of ales - massively popular, nobody admits to liking it). The 0.0 version takes that mediocrity and somehow makes it worse. Thin, slightly sour, none of the toffee-ish maltiness that makes regular Doom Bar tolerable. Why does this exist?

"If you already don't enjoy Doom Bar, you'll really not enjoy this."

Remember Budweiser's old slogan? "King of Beers." This is the king of nothing. It tastes like sparkling water that once sat near a beer. There's a faint sweetness and then just... absence. Like drinking the memory of a beer someone else had.

I've tasted AF beers that cost 50p more and are from another planet compared to this. It's lazy. It feels like a box-ticking exercise by a company that doesn't care.

"The Fyre Festival of AF beers. All branding, no substance."

Here it is. The worst. The absolute bottom of the barrel, and I mean that literally because this tastes like someone wrung out the barrel cloth.

Beck's Blue has been around for years and in that entire time nobody at AB InBev has apparently thought "should we make this taste less like metal?" It's sour, metallic, thin, and has an aftertaste that lingers like a bad memory. It costs a pound a can and it's still overpriced.

If Beck's Blue is the only AF beer you've tried and you decided AF beer isn't for you, please - genuinely please - try Lucky Saint or Punk AF before giving up on the whole idea. You deserve better than this.

"An insult to beer, to the concept of alcohol-free, and to Tesco's shelf space."