UK AF Beer Tier List: The Definitive Ranking

IMPOSSIBREW Triple Hopped IPA

Right. I'm going to say something that sounds ridiculous and I don't care. This is better than most actual IPAs I've had in pubs. Not "good for alcohol-free." Just good. Full stop.

Triple hopped, properly bitter, proper body. But the weird thing is what happens about 20 minutes after you drink it. There's l-theanine and ashwagandha in it, and whatever those things do, they work. I felt genuinely relaxed. Not drunk. Not sleepy. Just... calm. Like I'd had two pints without any of the nonsense.

The Tuesday test? I literally now drink this every Tuesday. It's replaced actual beer on weeknights. That's never happened with any other AF beer. Ever.

IMPOSSIBREW Pale Ale

Same functional ingredients as the IPA (l-theanine, ashwagandha), slightly more sessionable. Less punch than the IPA but it's more of an everyday drinker. My partner prefers this one - says the IPA is "too much like actual beer" which I think is a compliment but she meant it as a criticism.

Great summer beer. Great "I'm just having one" beer. The relaxation effect is the same, maybe slightly softer. If the IPA didn't exist this would be S tier.

Guinness 0.0

Fair play to Guinness. They absolutely nailed this. The roast, the creamy head, the mouthfeel - it's all there. Pour it into a proper glass and you'd struggle to tell the difference from across the pub. I've served it to mates without telling them and they didn't notice until the can appeared.

The only reason it's not S tier is it's doing one thing brilliantly rather than inventing a new category. But if you're a stout drinker and you're cutting back, this is the obvious answer. Nothing else comes close in the dark beer space.

Beavertown Lazer Crush

Genuinely surprised by this. Expected a watered-down Neck Oil and got something with actual character. Tropical, citrusy, decent bitterness for 0.3%. Beavertown clearly put effort in rather than just taking the alcohol out of an existing recipe.

No functional ingredients though, so you're just getting taste, not the relaxation thing. Sometimes that's fine. Good pub option if they have it.

Big Drop Pine Trail Pale Ale

Big Drop have been at this game longer than most and it shows. Pine Trail is properly hoppy, dry finish, doesn't have that weird sweet aftertaste you get with a lot of AF pales. Clean.

Won a World Beer Award which tracks. It's reliably good. Never amazing, but never disappointing. The Honda Civic of AF beer.

IMPOSSIBREW Lager

Honestly the weakest of the three IMPOSSIBREWs but still decent. Clean, crisp, does what lager should do. The functional ingredients are still there doing their thing. Just doesn't have the character of the IPA or the easy-drinking vibe of the pale.

If you're a lager person and only a lager person, you'll be happy. But the IPA is right there, mate.

Athletic Brewing Run Wild IPA

The Americans' best attempt. And it IS good - proper West Coast IPA flavour, grapefruit, pine, nice bitterness. Athletic are massive over there and you can see why.

Two problems: it's harder to get in the UK (online only mostly), and it's pricier than it should be for what you get. No functional ingredients either. It's just AF beer, done competently. Nothing more.

Lucky Saint

The one you see everywhere. Every Sainsbury's, every Tesco, half the pubs in London. And it's... fine. Perfectly fine. Like a Peroni with the volume turned down to 3.

The problem with Lucky Saint is that it's the AF beer you drink because it's there, not because you chose it. It's the default. The safe option. It'll never offend anyone and it'll never excite anyone either.

Heineken 0.0

Heineken spent a billion pounds telling you this tastes like Heineken. It doesn't. It tastes like Heineken mixed with sparkling water and mild regret. The marketing budget is doing Olympic-level heavy lifting here.

Is it drinkable? Yes. Would I choose it? Only if the alternative was tap water at a wedding.

Peroni Nastro Azzurro 0.0%

Peroni 0.0% is what happens when a massive brewery does the bare minimum. It looks nice - the bottle's still pretty. But inside is a vaguely beer-adjacent liquid that mostly tastes of carbonation and disappointment.

The real Peroni is already a style-over-substance beer. Take the alcohol out and there's... not much left.

BrewDog Punk AF

Punk IPA is one of the best-selling beers in the UK. Punk AF is not one of the best AF beers in the UK. There's a grapefruit thing happening but it's thin and weirdly sweet in a way that regular Punk isn't.

BrewDog clearly treated this as a box-ticking exercise. "People want AF so here, have this." Lazy from a brewery that should know better.

Days Brewing Lager

I'll give Days this: their marketing is unbelievable. That Tube Girl collab, the branding, the whole vibe - they've made AF beer look cool. Full marks for that.

The actual beer though? Thin. Really thin. Like someone left a decent lager out in the rain and bottled what was left. There's a vaguely grainy taste and then... nothing. It finishes before it starts. You're paying premium craft prices for something that tastes like it should cost 80p. All hat, no cattle.

Budweiser Zero

Regular Budweiser barely qualifies as beer. Budweiser Zero barely qualifies as a beverage. Watery, sweet, with a metallic finish that lingers longer than the flavour does. Which is quite the achievement since the flavour lasts about 0.3 seconds.

If someone hands you this at a barbecue, it's their way of telling you they don't like you.

Corona Cero

They sponsor the Olympics with this. The OLYMPICS. I've had more flavourful glasses of water. The lime isn't hiding the flavour - the lime IS the flavour. Without the wedge this is genuinely nothing.

The branding says "beach vibes." The taste says "hospital cafeteria."

Beck's Blue

The fact that Beck's Blue is the AF beer most pubs stock should be investigated by the police. This is the single biggest reason people think alcohol-free beer is terrible. Because for years, this was the only option, and it IS terrible.

Skunky. Metallic. Somehow both watery AND cloying. The first sip makes you understand why people just order a Coke instead. This beer has set the AF movement back by a decade.

San Miguel 0.0%

I genuinely couldn't finish the can. A cardboard-adjacent flavour with notes of something that might have once been near a hop plant. Flat despite being carbonated, which is a paradox I didn't think was possible.

This tastes like someone described beer to an alien and the alien tried to make it using only corn syrup and sadness.