Is Non-alcoholic Beer Lower in Calories?

Non-alcoholic beer aims to replicate the taste of beer whilst containing zero or very little alcohol. With more and more people opting to reduce their alcohol intake, there is now a wide variety of non-alcoholic beers available, with most popular breweries having their own alcohol-free offering.

But, if it is not alcohol that you are avoiding, and you’re more interested in which drinks have the most impact on your waistline, you may have found yourself wondering whether non-alcoholic beers are a lower calorie option to alcoholic beers.

In this blog, we will take a look at the average calorie, carb and sugar content in non-alcoholic beer and compare that to some of the lower calorie alcoholic beers we have available at DrinkWell. 

• Lean Brew IPA
• £15.99

Nutrition details (per can/bottle)

• ABV4.1%
• Calories99
• Carbohydrates4g

Each bottle saves you (vs standard average*):

• Calories

  62.0

• Carbohydrates

  11.0g

*Statistics based from Drinkaware 2023 and Alcohol Health Alliance 2022

Unfiltered - Unpasteurised - Unfined

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Is Non-alcoholic Beer Lower in Calories?

There is no getting around the fact that alcohol contains calories. There are around 56 calories per unit of pure alcohol, equating to 7 calories per gram (almost as much as you find in a gram of fat!). What’s more, as our bodies can’t store alcohol, all of our energy goes into getting rid of it, rather than burning fat and absorbing nutrients.

With a non-alcoholic beer generally being 0.5% ABV or lower, they tend to be lower in calories than their alcoholic counterparts. For example, there are 122 calories in a 330ml bottle of Carlsberg (3.8%) vs 73 calories in a 330ml bottle of Carlsberg “0.0” (0%).

However, not all of the calories in beer come from alcohol, which explains why non-alcoholic beers are not completely calorie free. In fact, many alcohol free beers are actually higher in sugar and carbohydrates than standard beers. This is because, unlike alcoholic beers, non-alcoholic beers contain sugar, which is often added to improve the flavour once the alcohol has been removed. This added sugar means that non-alcoholic beers can contain more than twice as many carbohydrates as alcoholic beers, significantly increasing their calorie content, and making them unsuitable for those following a low carbohydrate or low sugar diet.

The NHS recommends that adults do not consume more than 30g of sugar per day. This can quickly be exceeded by drinking non-alcoholic beers - for example, a 330ml bottle of Peroni Libera Alcohol Free contains around 10g of sugar.

How Do Non-alcoholic Beers Compare to Low Calorie Beers?

Here at DrinkWell, we are committed to ensuring that the only compromise you have to make is the number of calories consumed, as we understand that not everyone that wants to cut back on calories wants to sacrifice alcohol. For this reason, we have worked hard to find a number of high quality, low calorie alcoholic beers for you to enjoy. But how do these compare to some of the popular non-alcoholic beers on the market? Let’s have a look in the table below. 

Check out our range of low calorie and alcohol free beers on the DrinkWell website.

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