The Non Alcoholic Beer Market
Athletic Brewing Lite is one of Athletic Brewing’s flagship beers. Athletic Brewing and the non alcoholic beer market have been growing rapidly in recent years. Non alcoholic beers have several health advantages over regular beers, including fewer calories, sugar, carbs and of course, alcohol. Non alcoholic means less than 0.5% alcohol, so non alcoholic beers can still have traces of alcohol.
Athletic Brewing has become synonymous with non alcoholic beers, with a large selection of award winning beers in many styles, including IPAs, limited edition specialty beers and lots more. The brewer is now considered a top 10 craft brewer with about 19% market share of the non alcoholic beer market.
Athletic Brewing Lite Non Alcoholic Beer
Athletic Brewing describes Lite as “With its light body and crisp finish, Athletic Lite is our most drinkable brew yet. This ultra-crushable brew pairs perfectly with any occasion…Beautiful Noble hops hover over a light and refreshing Rice and Malt body that is infinitely sessionable.” Athletic Brewing suggests pairing it with salads & pizza.
Athletic Brewing Lite has 25 calories, 5g carbohydrates, 0g protein, 0g fat and a 20 IBU. It has won several gold and silver medals. It has a “Good” rating on Beer Advocate.
Our Review of Athletic Brewing Lite
IIf you read our post about ProofNoMore, I bought 35 single non alcoholic beers to try. I decided to start with non alcoholic beers from large well known breweries. O’Doul’s and Claustauler, two of the most well known and most hated non alcoholic beers, Budweiser Zero, Becks NA and Corona NA. Clausthauler was awful and O’Doul’s was better than expected. Budweiser Zero tasted like regular Budweiser and Becks NA and Corona NA were both better than their respective regular beers. Corona was a pleasant surprise.
Next I moved on to craft brewers’ non alcoholic beers. Sierra Nevada Trail Pass IPA was an excellent non alcoholic IPA but Trail Pass Golden was just okay. Figueroa Mountain’s three non alcoholic beers were Hoppy Poppy IPA, Hikers High Hazy IPA and FMB 101 Blonde. Hoppy Poppy IPA wasn’t very hoppy. Hiker’s High was much better, and FMB 101 Blonde was also very good.
The Tasting
I was very skeptical about Athletic Lite. My first reaction to it was “who is drinking a light non alcoholic beer? How is there a market for this?” It has no less alcohol than regular non alcoholic beers. Its only selling points are 25 calories versus 50-60 for similar non alcoholic beers (or even 35 for Wellbeing Hellraiser) and 5g carbs versus about 10-15g. Is this enough of a difference to make it a good choice? At what point does it just make sense to drink water? I had to try one.
It was much better than expected. I actually believe it was better than Upside Dawn and several other non IPA non alcoholic beers. So if you are looking for a non alcoholic beverage with 25 calories and 5g carbs that tastes like beer, it is a good choice. I wouldn’t call it one of my favorites, but we rated it 4 out 5 because it is very good for what it is supposed to be.
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For more recommendations, try Athletic Brewing Cerveza Atletica, Best Day Brewing Kolsch, Corona Non Alcoholic and Becks Non Alcoholic.
For non alcoholic beer nutritional information for all NA beers we have reviewed and more, see NA Beer Nutritional Information.
