It’s NA Michelada Summer, and You’re Invited

Made with a zero-proof lager or pilsner, this non-alcoholic Michelada recipe is salty, tangy and wildly refreshing. [...] Read More... The post It’s NA Michelada Summer, and You’re Invited appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.

Jun 4, 2025 - 19:20

When Evan Hawkins was creating a summer drinks menu for Romeo’s, his neon-lit bar in New York City’s East Village, he knew it had to include a Michelada. “It’s one of my favorite drinks and, in my humble opinion, one of the best summer cocktails,” he says.

The internet agrees. Each year, when temperatures rise, so do Google searches for Michelada recipes. The drink’s roots lie in 20th-century Mexico—some believe that a San Luis Potosí civil engineer named Michel Esper was the first to doctor a beer with lime, salt and salsa picante in the 1970s—and are profoundly iterative. Expect versions made with fresh citrus or Clamato juices, hot sauce and black pepper, as well as Maggi seasoning or soy, fish or Worcestershire sauces.

Thanks to a booming non-alcoholic (NA) beer market, there’s never been a better time to riff on the rubric and make an NA Michelada. By using a quality NA beer and adjusting the other ingredients to suit your palate and pantry, this easy NA cocktail recipe is a perfectly tangy antidote to rising temperatures. It’s not a facsimile of the alcoholic original so much as a natural step in the Michelada’s ongoing evolution.

Whether you serve yours in lieu of or alongside traditional beer cocktails, an NA Michelada recipe is easy to make and incredibly satisfying. It’s a celebration of summer—and everyone is invited.

Best Beers for NA Micheladas

In any beer cocktail, choosing the right base ingredient is key. Zero-proof lagers or pilsners are the best beers for NA Micheladas because their light, easy-drinking flavors and crisp texture complement (rather than compete with) all the salty, spicy and sour elements.

A variety of well-made alcohol-free lagers, pilsners and similar beers are widely available and make tasty NA Micheladas. Try AL’s Classic Non-Alcoholic Lager; Best Day Brewing’s Nature’s Pils or Kölsch Style; Athletic Brewing’s Athletic Lite or Atlética; and Untitled Art’s NA Italian-Style Pils.

Or start with an NA beer that was made to mimic a Michelada, suggests Rob Theodorow, owner of Generation NA, a functional bottle shop and taproom in Lafayette, Indiana.

“There’s an RTD that Athletic Brewing Company makes called Chelada Amada that has a blend of tomato and lime in it, and Go Brewing has a Salty Lime AF Chelada,” he says. “You can use that and mix in your own tomato or Clamato, or add more spices.”

The NA Beer Boom

The very existence of all these options speaks to the sophistication of the NA beer market. In recent years, the category has skyrocketed: From 2023 to 2024, NA beer sales were nearly $368.7 million, up almost 30% over the previous year, according to Chicago-based researcher Circana.

As audiences for NA beers have expanded and matured, so have the choices. The tides are rising in tandem, explains Anthony Gladman, a drinks writer in London.

“It used to be that you needed a reason to drink non-alcoholic beer—perhaps you had to drive, or you were pregnant or you didn’t drink alcohol anymore,” he says. “Now that the beer is so much better, more and more people are finding reasons to drink it.”

NA beer fans might not consider themselves sober or drink it in place of alcohol, too. Nielsen data suggests that 82% of the people buying nonalcoholic beer, wine and spirits also purchase alcohol.

“It’s not a binary thing,” says Gladman. He references the phenomenon of zebra striping, or switching between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks with every round. “It’s just a way to moderate your overall intake, and it doesn’t feel like a punishment.”

How to Make an NA Michelada

Into all this alcohol-free abundance comes the NA Michelada, a quick way to take a good non-alcoholic beer to the next level. This recipe is moderately spicy; tweak the amount of hot sauce to taste, add a pinch of cayenne or skip it entirely.

Ingredients

Tajín or a 50-50 mixture of salt and chile powder

1 ½ oz freshly squeezed lime juice, plus an additional lime wedge

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 to 2 teaspoons hot sauce, such as Tabasco or Tapatío

Black pepper

1 12-ounce can of nonalcoholic lager, pilsner or similarly light NA beer, chilled

Directions

Step 1

covering a beer glass rim with tajin — Photography by Ellen Mary Cronin

Put a big pinch of chile-salt or Tajin into a shallow bowl or plate. Rub a wedge of lime halfway around the lip of a pint glass, then dip the glass into the bowl or plate to create a rim.

Step 2

squeezing a lime into a beer glass — Photography by Ellen Mary Cronin

Flip the glass upright and add lime juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce and a few grinds of cracked black pepper. Stir gently, then fill the glass with ice.

Step 3