How Many Non-Alcoholic Beers Equal One Real Beer?

It's a brave new world out there for those of us who'd rather imbibe our beer without the buzz. Non-alcoholic and alcohol-free brews are more popular than ever, offering a solid alternative to anyone who's staying sober for the long haul or just for the night (in fact, the average NA beer drinker probably isn't who you think). But if you're trying to avoid alcohol entirely, you'll need to be mindful of the labels.

In the United States, "non-alcoholic" and "alcohol-free" are not interchangeable terms — non-alcoholic beers actually contain trace amounts of alcohol. And while both types of beverages may taste a whole lot like beer, they legally can't be advertised or labeled as such. According to a public presentation by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, non-alcoholic beers can only use the "non-alcoholic" label if the stated alcohol content is 0.5% alcohol by volume or lower. If the beer contains 0.0% ABV, however, it must be labeled "alcohol-free." While these drinks might be called beers colloquially, federal regulations mandate that sellers have to use words like "brew" or "malt beverage" on packaging, even if the process of making these drinks is highly similar to that of beer.

Even though non-alcoholic beers still contain alcohol, they won't get you drunk. While the difference between non-alcoholic beer and regular beer may lie on that 0.5% ABV line, traditional beers often contain much more alcohol, usually around 5% ABV. Assuming each non-alcoholic beer you drink is 0.5% ABV, you'd have to knock back at least 10 of them to match a traditional brew.

Even if you were to drink enough non-alcoholic beer to theoretically equal the ABV of a normal beer, you still won't get drunk. The ABV limit for non-alcoholic beer is so incredibly slight that it compares to the alcohol content of a particularly ripe banana — and you won't get drunk off a bunch of those, either (though you should store them in the fridge).

Still, you might be recalling a time in which you tried a non-alcoholic beverage and did feel a little tipsy. That, according to experts, is all a placebo effect. A 2012 study conducted by the University of Pittsburgh instructed participants to drink three vodka cranberries in half an hour. What they weren't told was that the vodka was tonic water, poured from a Smirnoff bottle. Sure enough, nearly all of the hundreds of people who participated reported feeling the effects of alcohol (via Slate).

The similarity in taste and presentation between non-alcoholic, alcohol-free, and traditional beers surely plays a part in whether or not the drinker feels "drunk." If you're getting a non-alcoholic beer on tap at a brewery, the familiar setting and flavor may just be enough to convince you that you're actually having a real beer.