There are non-alcoholic beers you have to describe down to the grain bill and IBUs.  

Then there’s Guinness. 

Who doesn’t know Guinness? The iconic Irish stout is dark, brooding, and bitter, unmistakable and ubiquitous. And if you think the folks at St. James’s Gate just decided to slap the Guinness brand—built over two-and-a-half centuries, mind you—on some ersatz non-alcoholic version, you are deluded. 

They journey to Guinness 0.0 took four freaking years. The team started with the same ingredients that go into the boozy version: the same water, barley, hops, and yeast. Once the brew was finished, they removed the alcohol via cold filtration, which means they didn’t inflict any thermal stress on the beer. The result is an impressive alcohol-free stout that’s as Guinness as Guinness gets, down to the mesmerizing way it cascades down the inside of the glass.  

Guinness is betting big on its N/A version—we were just in Dublin, where we saw it on tap just about everywhere—and it’s easy to see why. It’s slightly tangier than its classic sibling, but tastes just as good and doesn’t fill you up as much. It’s as good of an N/A stout as we can imagine. 

It’s a Guinness.