Mahou

The company grew steadily through the twentieth century, building its reputation around Mahou Cinco Estrellas, the five-star lager that became the drink most associated with Madrid. In 2000 Mahou acquired a controlling stake in San Miguel from Danone, creating Grupo Mahou-San Miguel. The merged group is now the largest beer business in Spain, and holds stakes in international craft breweries including Founders Brewing in the US.

Mahou's alcohol-free range grew out of decades of work in the non-alcoholic space. The brand launched its first AF beer in the early 1990s under the name Laiker, later rebranded Mahou Sin. That low-alcohol lager remains in the range today, positioned as the everyday session-free option. The newer Mahou 0.0 line, launched in 2015, takes things further: brewed to genuine 0.0% ABV, it comes in three versions: a classic lager, a lemon variant, and an apple-flavoured option. The classic is a clean, golden pour with a light bitterness and a fairly convincing lager character for a completely alcohol-free product.

In the UK, Mahou sits in a slightly unusual position. It's a mainstream brand in its home market but occupies something closer to premium import territory here, stocked selectively rather than ubiquitously. The AF products are available across a handful of UK retailers, appealing mainly to people who already know the brand from holidays in Spain or from Spanish restaurants and bars.

For a lager-first drinker who wants something familiar in the AF space, it delivers a recognisable continental profile rather than anything particularly adventurous. The range is modest, but Mahou's long history in non-alcoholic brewing means the fundamentals are solid.