Is Guinness 0 Totally Alcohol-Free?

Whether you're taking a break or totally breaking up with alcohol these days, you're not alone. According to Gallup, Americans are rethinking their relationship with alcohol in recent years, and if you happen to be one of those people tiptoeing toward the straight and narrow, chances are you've been confused by the labeling on non-alcoholic and alcohol-free products. If you love a Guinness Stout, for instance, you might assume that Guinness 0 has no alcohol — after all, it says "zero" right on the can. However, in the U.S., a product can be categorized as non-alcoholic as long as it has less than 0.5% alcohol by volume, which includes Guinness 0.

The choice to drink a non-alcoholic beer comes down to your personal preference. Some people just want to cut down on their consumption while others want or need to abstain totally. For those who are completely alcohol free, it's important to know what does and doesn't have any alcohol whatsoever. While 0.5% ABV is not a lot of alcohol, if you're looking to cut booze totally out of the equation, these beers aren't safe. Fret not, though, beer drinker, because if you don't want the sauce, there are plenty of beer choices that are totally alcohol free — and one of them is even made by Guinness. Just look for something labeled "alcohol-free."

Beers that are labeled alcohol-free are not the same as non-alcoholic. Non-alcoholic beers are usually made the same way as regular beer, which is a process of fermenting sweet liquid (called wort). Brewers like this method because fermentation affects flavor. For these beers, however, brewers use specific malts and yeast strains to create low levels of alcohol – or the fermentation is stopped before it reaches 0.5% ABV. You'd need to drink quite a few non-alcoholic beers like Guinness 0s to get intoxicated, but it's still possible, which is why you may be carded at a store when you're buying non-alcoholic drinks. 

Alcohol-free beer, on the other hand, has all of the alcohol removed, either by a process known as vacuum distillation, or filtering using reverse osmosis. Some alcohol-free beers are also made like soda, which uses force carbonation to create bubbles in flavored solutions, so there is never any alcohol from the start. The term "alcohol-free" can only be used if the product contains no detectable alcohol, according to the FDA.

If you're not sure if a beer has any alcohol, read the label carefully, and always look for 0.0% alcohol by volume. Thankfully, many zero-alcohol beers put zeros in the name or on the front of the label so you know they're safe to drink, including Heineken 0.0, Asahi Super Dry, Corona Cero, and yes, Guinness 0.0, which is the alcohol-free version of their classic stout — that extra decimal point really matters!