Low-alcohol beer
Low alcohol (or Non-alcoholic) beer is beer with very low or no alcohol content. The vast majority of NABs are lagers, but there are to a lesser extent some ales.
Legally, in the US, beers containing up to 0.5 percent alcohol by volume can be called non-alcoholic. In Europe, it must be lower than 1%. Although they are called non-alcoholic, they still contain some alcohol and some states have laws which prohibit their sale to minors. In 1997, the U.S. military ruled that the 12-hour required wait after drinking beer before piloting a plane would also be applied to non-alcoholic beer.
In countries where alcohol advertising is forbidden or limited, non-alcoholic versions of many popular brands of alcoholic beverage are created for the purpose of advertisement.
Persons who avoid alcoholic drinks for medical reasons may drink non-alcoholic beer [citation needed]. Others, but not all, who avoid alcoholic drinks for religious reasons may also drink it [citation needed].
Near beer
Near beer was originally a term for malt beverages containing little or no alcohol (one half of one percent or less by volume), which were mass-marketed during Prohibition in the United States. Near beer could not legally be labelled as "beer" and was officially classified as cereal beverage. The public, however, almost universally called them "near beer."
The most popular "near beer" was Bevo, brewed by the Anheuser-Busch company. The Pabst company brewed "Pablo", Miller brewed "Vivo", and Schlitz brewed "Famo". Other brands of near beer included "Chrismo", "Barlo", "Becco", "Bone Dry", "Bravo", "Cero", "Golden Glow", "Gozo", "Graino", "Hoppy", "Kippo", "Lux-O", "Mannah", "Milo", "Mother's Malt", "Mulo", "Ona", "Quizz", "Singo", "Tang", "Tivoline", and "Yip". Many local and regional breweries stayed in business by marketing their own near-beers. By 1921 production of near beer had reached over 300 million US gallons (1 billion L) a year (360 L/s).
A popular illegal practice was to add alcohol to near beer. The resulting beverage was known as spiked beer or needle beer, so called because a needle was used to inject alcohol through the cork of the bottle or keg.
Food critic and writer Waverley Root described the common American near beer as "such a wishy-washy, thin, ill-tasting, discouraging sort of slop that it might have been dreamed up by a Puritan Machiavelli with the intent of disgusting drinkers with genuine beer forever". Some historians of beer attribute the U.S. taste for beers that are lighter and thinner than beers which are common in Europe to the generation who became accustomed to near beer.
Today the term "near beer" has been revived by some people to refer to modern versions of non-alcoholic beer. The term is also sometimes used derisively to refer to beer deliberately brewed with lower alcohol content. For example, in some jurisdictions (Minnesota and Utah, for example), beer sold in some establishments must be less than 3.2% ABW (4% ABV). This style of reduced alcohol beer is also referred to as 3.2 beer (Minnesota has a full-service alcohol license, permitting sales of beers up to the normal alcohol level, but 3.2 licenses are easier to obtain).
Examples of non-alcoholic beers
- Beck's (non-alcoholic version, Haake Beck)
- Bavaria Malt
- Bevo
- Bitburger Drive
- Buckler (brewed by Heineken)
- Busch N/A
- Clausthaler (also available in Amber)
- Coors Cutter
- Duff Zero: fictional non-alcoholic beer on The Simpsons
- The Edge: fictional non-alocoholic beer on Beavis and Butt-Head
- Erdinger Non-alcoholic Weiss
- Hacke Beck
- Kaliber (brewed by Guinness)
- O'Doul's (also available in Amber)
- Sharps
- St. Pauli Girl N/A
- Warsteiner Premium Fresh
- White Label (bitter)
- Bintang Zero (brewed by PT. Multi Bintang Indonesia Tbk)
- Labatt Nordic (Canada)