Non alcoholic and alcohol free beers are growing in popularity rapidly. More and more people are trying them but there can be a lot of associated questions. O’Doul’s is a specialty non alcoholic beer brand and one of the most popular.
One of the main ones is “How many non alcoholic beers equals one beer?”. This usually means in terms of alcohol but we can explore what that looks like with calories, carbs and sugar. Specifically with relation to O’Doul’s, how many O’Doul’s equals one beer?
How many O’Doul’s equals one beer?
The USDA describe a standard beer as having 5% alcohol by volume. If we compare this to a standard non alcoholic beer of 0.5% alcohol by volume, you would need 10 non alcoholic beers to equal one alcoholic beer.
To work out how many O’Doul’s equals one standard beer we have to divide the ABV of a beer by that of O’Doul’s.
That means 5/0.4 = 12.5
You would need to drink 12.5 O’Doul’s to equal one beer.
How many alcohol free beers equals one beer?
An alcohol free beer should have less than 0.05% ABV by definition. If we use 0.05% and calculate it against a 5% standard beer from the USDA definition, you can see it would take 100 alcohol free beers to equal one standard beer
What is a standard beer?
What is a standard beer indeed?! There is no such thing surely.
Step in the USDA.
They have defined a standard beer as having 5% alcohol by volume. Some of their other nutritional stats per 12fl oz are: 153 kcal, 12.8g of carbs and 0g of sugar.
| Alcohol concentration | Calories per 12fl oz | Carbs per 12fl oz | Sugar per 12fl oz |
| 5% | 153kcal | 12.8g | 0g |
How much alcohol is in an O’Doul’s?
An O’Doul’s weighs in at a tiny 0.4% alcohol by volume and comes into the non alcoholic bracket of the beer market.
“Non alcoholic” is sometimes used as a catch all term for all low alcohol beers or all beers with an ABV of less than 0.5%.
Although, strictly speaking, in the US and UK, a non alcoholic beer will have an ABV of between 0.05% and 0.5% with the vast majority having 0.5% ABV.
O’Doul’s is a little lower than the upper limit of 0.5% with its 0.4% beer.
The labelling can be confusing along with the terminology. In the EU, they are allowed to label 0.5% beers as “alcohol free” and not “non alcoholic”
I have written a full article on labelling of non alcoholic beer, which you can read here
There are many reasons for the slight difference in alcohol from a <0.05% beer to a 0.5% beer which i have full explored here. As with most things in life, it tends to come down to cost and perception.
How much alcohol is in an alcohol free beer?
An alcohol free beer should have an alcohol percentage of less than 0.05%. This means they usually display an ABV of 0.0% on the can, which is correct to 1 decimal place.
What is the range of non alcoholic beers that equals one beer?
Most non alcoholic beers are 0.5% ABV, so it would take 10 of them to equal one alcoholic beer. However i have drank non alcoholic beers from 0.2-0.5% so there is clearly a range.
It would take x25 0.2% non alcoholic beers to equal one alcoholic beer
| Non Alcoholic Beer percentage | How many to equal one alcoholic beer |
| 0.2% | 25 |
| 0.3% | 16.67 |
| 0.4% (O’Doul’s) | 12.5 |
| 0.5% | 10 |
How many calories are in non alcoholic beer compared to beer?
I undertook a study of over 100 beers and found the average non alcoholic beer has 80.1kcal per 12fl oz. This compares to 153kcal per 12fl oz for an alcoholic beer.
That means in terms of calories, 2 non alcoholic beers equals 1 alcoholic beer.
| Type of Beer | Kcal per 100ml | Kcal per 12fl oz |
| Non alcoholic beer | 22.6 | 80.1 |
| USDA Alcoholic beer | 43 | 153 |
How many calories are in O’Doul’s?
O’Doul’s has a decent amount less calories than the standard non alcoholic beer with 65kcal per 12fl oz.
How many carbs are in non alcoholic beer compared to beer?
I again undertook a study of over 100 non alcoholic beers.
I found the average non alcoholic beer has 4.75g of carbs per 100ml and 16.85g of carbs per 12fl oz.
This would mean that a non alcoholic beer, has on average, 34% more carbs than an alcoholic beer.
| Type of Beer | Carbs per 100ml | Carbs per 12fl oz |
| Non alcoholic beer | 4.75g | 16.85g |
| Alcoholic beer | 3.55g | 12.6g |
| % increase | 34% | 34% |
How many carbs are in O’Doul’s?
O’Doul’s does a little better than the average non alcoholic beer with only 13.3g of carbs per 12fl oz serving.
How sugar is in non alcoholic beer compared to beer?
From another one of my studies, i found the average non alcoholic beer has 2g of sugar per 100ml and 7.2g of sugar per 12fl oz.
There are a small number of sugar free non alcoholic beers and quite a few, very low sugar ones but the range is quite big.
You cant really compare with a multiple as you cant divide by 0.
| Type of Beer | Sugar per 100ml | Sugar per 12fl oz |
| Non alcoholic beer | 2g | 7.2g |
| Alcoholic beer | 0g | 0g |
How much sugar is in O’Doul’s?
It is difficult to fin out the exact amount of sugar in O’Doul’s but it seems likely to be around the average if not higher than the non alcoholic beer middle of 7.2g per 12fl oz.
