NA Beer, Compared

These are the ones you have seen. Big global lagers in a 0.0 version, ₹90-150 for 330ml, stocked in most metro supermarkets. They are genuinely 0.0%, which matters if you need an absolute zero, and they are easy to find, which matters on a Tuesday.

They are also one style. A light lager, made by brewing a beer and then separating the alcohol out afterwards — a process that costs aroma, which is why they taste thinner than the full-strength version of the same brand. SOMA comes in five styles. It is fermented so that the alcohol stays under 0.5% ABV, and the hop aroma never has to survive a second process.

If you want a familiar lager you can buy tonight, they are the sensible choice. If you want an IPA, a wit or a stout, nobody in that aisle makes one.

This is the category we belong to. Specialist craft brewers built the modern non-alcoholic beer. They showed that craft styles still work at under 0.5% ABV, and they set the standard that the rest of us are measured against.

The problem is that it is hard to find. Very little of it is sold in India, and where a shop does stock it, a can usually costs ₹350-450.

SOMA offers the same kind of beer. It comes in five craft styles, from ₹99 a can.

Most of what is sold in India as non-alcoholic beer is not beer. It is malt extract blended with water, carbonation, sweetener and often fruit juice. No fermentation happens, which is why it reads as sweet rather than bitter and why it carries 90-120 calories, most of them from sugar.

SOMA has no added sugar. Every flavour comes from malt, hops and a real fermentation. That is the whole difference: one drink is mixed, the other is brewed.

If you want something sweet and fruity, those drinks are fine and they are cheaper. If you want the bitterness, body and head of an actual beer, they will not get you there. We wrote up the three label checks that tell them apart in brewed versus malt drink.