Non-alcoholic Beer for Beer-and-Pretzel Games

If you were invited to a beer-and-pretzels game night, but you’re the designated driver, here are my favorite “non-alcoholic” beers to consider, though technically some of these do have up to 0.5 alcohol by volume (ABV).

Participation in “Dry January” and “Damp January” is on the rise: 22% of Americans participated this year. For each of the last three Januarys, I personally have set aside regular beer at home to drink these non-alcoholic brews instead, which I track and rate on Untappd. These are sorted by my rating, with the global rating across all app users being the tiebreaker. (Good games need tiebreakers.) Anything I rated below 3.0, I personally won’t buy again.

Rank	Brewery	Beer Name	Type	ABV	IBU	Flavor Profile	Global Rating	My Rating
1	Golden Road Brewing	Mango Cart Non-Alcoholic	Wheat Beer	0.5	0	aromatic, mango, crushable	3.51	5.00
2	Grupo Modelo	Corona Non-Alcoholic	Lager	0.5	0	light, refreshing	3.23	4.80
3	Bravus Brewing Company	Breakfast Dark	Porter / Stout	0.5	0	sweet, molasses, coffee, syrupy	3.39	4.50
4	Anheuser-Busch	O’Doul’s Premium	Lager	0.2	5	malty, light, sweet, dry	2.00	4.40
5	Guinness	Guinness Draught 0.0	Porter / Stout	0.0	28	roasty, dark, metallic	3.16	4.30
6	Molson Coors Canada	Coors Edge	Other	0.5	0	malty	2.47	4.30
7	Surreal Brewing Company	Pastry Porter	Porter / Stout	0.5	0	roasty, sweetness, chocolate	3.16	4.20
8	Partake Brewing	Dark	Porter / Stout	0.0	0	malty, roasty, thin, chocolate	2.80	4.20
9	Athletic Brewing Company	Upside Dawn Golden	Other	0.5	15	clean, crisp	3.26	4.10
10	Heineken	Heineken 0.0	Lager	0.0	0	malty, clean, watery	2.43	4.10
11	Athletic Brewing Company	Cerveza Atletica Light Copper	Lager	0.5	15	malty, clean, refreshing	3.30	4.00
12	Radeberger Gruppe	Clausthaler Original / Premium	Lager	0.5	29	malty, light, sweet, dry	2.53	4.00
13	Fred Koch Brewery	Penn’s Best N.A.	Other	0.5	0	light, sweet, smooth	2.40	4.00
14	Anheuser-Busch	St. Pauli N.A.	Lager	0.5	0	malty, light, sweet, dry, smooth	2.20	4.00
15	Brauerei Beck	Beck’s Non-Alcoholic / Alkoholfrei / Blue	Lager	0.3	12	malty, light, sweet	2.35	3.00
16	Bravus Brewing Company	Oatmeal Dark	Porter / Stout	0.5	0	malty, roasty, metallic, body	2.79	2.90
17	Athletic Brewing Company	All Out Extra Dark	Porter / Stout	0.5	10	thin, coffee, metallic	3.37	2.50
18	Grüvi	Grüvi Stout	Porter / Stout	0.4	0	roasty, smoky, thin	2.87	2.25

As to what beer-and-pretzel games to play, I stopped rating games on BoardGameGeek; it’s easier to judge a beer after drinking just one than it is to judge a game after playing it just once, and there’s a lot of games I don’t get the chance to play more than once. (Different players, different strategies, different understandings of the rules can make subsequent plays completely different.) That said, I think beer-and-pretzel games, by definition, are lighter and shorter and therefore hit the table often. So here are my most played light games that I think fit the category:

Qty	Game
288	Civscape
105	BANG!
54	Star Fluxx
50	One Night Ultimate Werewolf: Daybreak
41	Fluxx
38	Family Fluxx
38	Secret Hitler
33	Chrononauts
32	One Night Ultimate Werewolf
31	Coup
28	Microbrewers
25	Time Breaker
25	Nature Fluxx
23	King of Tokyo
21	Poker
18	Martian Fluxx
15	Pirate Fluxx
15	Wings of War: Famous Aces
14	7 Wonders: Architects
13	Firefly Fluxx
13	Light Speed
13	Port Royal
12	The Battle for Hill 218
12	Early American Chrononauts
12	LCR
11	Jump Drive
11	Monty Python Fluxx
11	Wiz-War (Eighth Edition)
10	Doctor Who Fluxx
10	Oz Fluxx

For me, it seems, the prototypical beer-and-pretzel game is a “take that” card game or a secret-identity game. BANG! may be the perfect beer-and-pretzel game: “take that”, secret identities, and a beer card!

While not a true beer-and-pretzel game, Microbrewers, by Greater Than Games, makes my list, because of its beer theme. Formerly known as Brew Crafters: Travel Card Game, it’s my personal favorite game to take to a brewpub. It’s an elegant engine building game about creating the best microbrewer. It’s discontinued, but still available through some retailers. Since it has a small deck, I encourage you to buy yourself two copies so that you don’t have to shuffle as often, and so that you can play with four players without needing to play as teams.

See these BGG pages for some other discussions:

• What are your favorite “Beer & Pretzel” games?
• Best Beer & Pretzels games
• Best beer and pretzels wargames?

And join the discussion on Dice.camp.

Cheers!

Originally published 2023-02-13. Untappd and BGG stats updated.

iStockPhoto by Paul DeNio.