The Non Alcoholic Beer Market
Trail Pass IPA is brewed by Sierra Nevada, a craft brewer located in Northern California and North Carolina. The brewery is known for Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. 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.
Sierra Nevada
Sierra Nevada was an early pioneer of the craft beer movement in the United States. The company’s founder Ken Grossman started home brewing in 1976 and then opened a brewery in 1980 in Chico, California where he introduced Pale Ale. Today the company has taprooms and breweries with tours in Chico and Mills River, North Carolina. They offer 10 different IPAs, Pale Ale, Non Alcoholic beers and more. Their website is very heavy on their history, the history of Pale Ale, and their role as one of the founders of the craft beer revolution. The brewery is highly regarded in the craft beer industry and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is considered a ground breaking beer.
Sierra Nevada Trail Pass IPA
Sierra Nevada began tinkering with non alcoholic beers in 2018 and finally introduced Trail Pass IPA as its first non alcoholic beer in December 2023. The brewery describes Trail Pass as “Grab a Trail Pass and start a non-stop adventure with miles of flavor. Explore the hoppy notes of citrus and pine from Amarillo® and CTZ varieties in non-alcoholic Trail Pass IPA. The silky malt body and clean hop bitterness are just what you’d expect from a world-class Sierra Nevada IPA, yet it’s less than 0.5% ABV.”
“It meets all of our criteria for what we would consider a craft IPA – not necessarily even a craft non-alcoholic IPA, but a craft IPA,” says James Conery, [Sierra Nevada’s] Innovation Brewmaster.”
Trail Pass IPA has 95 calories, 35 IBU, 20g carbs, 0g fat and 1g protein. It has a “Very Good” rating on Beer Advocate.
Our Review of Sierra Nevada Trail Pass IPA
If 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.
So now it was time to move on to some craft brewers’ non alcoholic beers. A good place to start was one of the leaders of the industry, Sierra Nevada. It was obvious from the first taste that Trail Pass IPA is an excellent non alcoholic IPA. It tasted just like a regular IPA, but not overly hoppy for my taste. I don’t believe I could tell the difference.
The Tasting
The only question is whether it is better than 3 others I have liked, two from Athletic Brewing and Samuel Adams Just the Haze. My personal preference is Just the Haze. It is the least hoppy of the four and more citrus based. If you are an IPA lover, any of the other three would be a very good choice. We present a table below with the key numbers for the four non alcoholic IPAs. The table includes BeerAdvocate ratings which are all virtually the same and very high.
Top Rated IPA Non Alcoholic Beer Nutritional Information
| Brewery | Beer | Beer Advocate Rating | ABV (%) | IBU | Calories | Carbs (g) | Protein (g) | Fat (g) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Athletic Brewing | Free Wave | 86 | less than 0.5 | 50 | 70 | 16 | 1 | 0 |
| Athletic Brewing | Run Wild | 85 | less than 0.5 | 35 | 65 | 14 | 1 | 0 |
| Sierra Nevada | Trail Pass IPA | 85 | less than 0.5 | 35 | 95 | 20 | 1 | 0 |
| Boston Beer Company | Samuel Adams Just the Haze | 87 | less than 0.5 | 35 | 98 | 22 | 1.5 | 0 |
Here are some purchasing options for Trail Pass IPA:
Trail Pass IPA is available at Amazon at Trail Pass.
As an Amazon Associate and ProofNoMore affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.
For more recommendations, try Athletic Brewing Run Wild IPA, Athletic Brewing Free Wave Hazy IPA and Samuel Adams Just the Haze Hazy IPA.
For non alcoholic beer nutritional information for all NA beers we have reviewed and more, see NA Beer Nutritional Information.
