NA Beer, Compared

Athletic Brewing created the modern NA craft beer category in the US and remains its benchmark. If you have had a Run Wild IPA, you know how good NA beer can be.

The problem is geography: Athletic has no India presence. Cans occasionally appear via gray imports at ₹350-450 — months old and triple the price. SOMA is the same idea built for India: craft styles including a juicy IPA and a stout, brewed fresh in Bangalore, at ₹199 a can.

We say this with respect: Athletic proved the model. We are bringing it home.

Heineken 0.0 is the most visible NA beer in India and a perfectly competent zero-alcohol lager. It is also exactly one thing: a lager, brewed at industrial scale to taste identical everywhere on Earth.

SOMA is craft: more malt and hops per liter, small batches, and styles the big breweries do not attempt. If you want a familiar lager, Heineken 0.0 does the job. If you want a juicy hazy IPA or a roasty stout without the alcohol, that is us — at a comparable price, brewed locally.

Budweiser Zero is the widest-distributed NA lager in India and often the cheapest. It is light in every sense: light body, light flavor, ~50 calories.

SOMA Lager plays in the same easy-drinking lane at under 13 calories per 100ml, but it is brewed as a craft lager — real malt character and noble hop aroma instead of industrial neutrality. The difference is the one between a beer you drink and a beer you taste.

Kingfisher Radler is not really a beer. It is a non-alcoholic malt drink blended with fruit juice and sugar — closer to a fizzy fruit drink with malt notes, at 90-120 calories, most of them from added sugar.

SOMA has no added sugar; all flavor comes from brewing. If you want something sweet and fruity, a Radler is fine. If you want an actual beer without the alcohol — or a fruit note that comes from real fruit in a real wheat beer — try our Belgian Wit instead.