The Non Alcoholic Beer Market
Miller-Coors introduced Becks Non Alcoholic Beer in the United States in 1997. The non alcoholic beer market has grown rapidly in recent years with the introduction of non alcoholic beers that taste more like regular beer. 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 is the current market leader in non alcoholic beers and is a top 10 craft brewer, but more and more specialty non alcoholic breweries are entering the market, as well as traditional breweries. Not a day goes by without some news story about the rise of non alcoholic beer and societal trends towards reducing alcohol intake.
Anheuser-Busch and Becks
Corporate history and lawsuits are complicated and not the subject of this post, and we may not get it totally right, but this what we think we know. Brewmaster Heinrich Beck and others founded Beck’s Brewery in Bremen, Germany in 1873. A division of Anheuser-Busch purchased Beck’s Brewery, also known as Brauerei Beck & Co. in 2008. Anheuser-Busch also purchased Miller-Coors in 2015 but had to divest itself of Miller brands to satisfy the United States anti-trust division. So one way or another, Anheuser-Busch is the brewer of Becks Non Alcoholic Beer.
Lawsuits
There have been at least two major lawsuits regarding Anheuser-Busch’s marketing of Becks. First, there was a lawsuit in 2015 accusing Anheuser-Busch of deceiving customers into thinking that the Beck’s beers distributed in the United States were brewed in Germany, when in fact that they were brewed in the U.S. This has to do with the bottle labeled as “Originated in Germany.” We do not believe this suit included the non alcoholic version, as the bottle we have still says “Originated in Bremen, Germany,” “Product of Germany,” and “Imported by Brauerei Beck & Co. , St. Louis, MO.” So the information suggests Anheuser-Busch brews Becks Non Alcoholic Beer in Germany.
The second suit is more relevant. In 2021, plaintiffs sued the company, alleging that it marketed the product as totally free of alcohol. The plaintiffs saw the term “non-alcoholic” on the package of Becks Beer but did not see any other statement indicating that the product contained alcohol. The bottle we have says “contains less than 0.5% alc. by volume” on both label sides and the website says 0.5%.
Beer Description
Anheuser-Busch describes Becks NA as “light amber in color and boast[ing] a full, rich, thick head and balanced bitterness. Beck’s brewmasters stop the fermentation process before alcohol can form, but not before they achieve the distinctive full-bodied taste and aroma of the finished brew.”
Becks NA has 68 calories, 14.6g carbs (per the bottle. website says 11g), 0g fat and 1.2g protein. There is no information on IBU. It has an “Poor” rating on Beer Advocate.
Our Review of Becks Non Alcoholic Beer
If you read our post about ProofNoMore, I bought 35 single non alcoholic beers to try. I decided to start at the bottom with O’Doul’s and Claustauler, two of the most well known and most hated non alcoholic beers, and Budweiser Zero, which tasted like regular Budweiser. Next, I decided to try another big name, Becks NA.
Becks is a highly regarded old German brewery, but I never really liked regular Becks, as I found it too bitter. So I figured I would not like Becks NA either.
I was wrong. It was very good, although it probably deserves a rating of “3-1/2 beers” and not 4. It had a clean and drinkable taste with little or no bitterness, and tasted like beer. Just going from a distant memory, it was better than regular Becks. It was the first beer I bought from ProofNoMore that I would buy again.
Here are some purchasing options:
Becks Non Alcoholic is available at Amazon at Becks.
As an Amazon Associate and ProofNoMore affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
For more recommendations, try Athletic Brewing Cerveza Atletica and Best Day Brewing Kolsch.
For non alcoholic beer nutritional information for all NA beers we have reviewed and more, see NA Beer Nutritional Information.
