The Best Beers in Every Category : Vegan Beer Guide

The majority of beer is vegan. There will be no difficulty in locating vegan brands. When in doubt, use Barnivore to check the vegan status of any beer you’re interested in.

Estimated reading time: 7 minutes

Vegan Beer

If you want cheap beer, most widely available brands are vegan and decent enough. But keep an eye out for Foster’s, an Australian lager. It’s one of the few non-vegan mass-market brands available globally.

Vegan Beers that are inexpensive and widely available
Here are some of the most popular beers in the world, all of which are vegan:

Budweiser and Bud Light from the United States
Coors and Coors Light from the United States
Miller Lite, High Life, and Genuine Draft from the United States
The Dutch beer Heineken
Beck is a German.
Corona de Mexico
Mexico’s Pacifico
Brazil’s Skol
China’s Tsingtao

Snow and Harbin are also Chinese

Many of these beers are produced by regional breweries around the world. All of these beers are generally acceptable, and many brands taste almost identical. However, you should think twice about purchasing beers made in China because the country’s food safety record is appalling.

Reviews of the Best Vegan Beers

There are hundreds of delicious vegan beers brewed all over the world, more than enough to make you dizzy with choice.

So, to get you started, here are some of the best beers in each category. We chose beers from independently owned breweries that are still widely available as much as possible. We would have loved to include excellent beers from small independent breweries.

Pilsners and Lagers

Casual beer drinkers can’t tell a lager from a pilsner, just as they can’t tell a stout from a porter. Lagers are the flagship brands of America’s largest breweries: think Budweiser, Coors, and Miller beer. They all have a similar flavor. Germans and Canadians consume a lot of lager and claim that their beer is more hearty than American beer. However, that is equivalent to comparing a 98-pound weakling to a 102-pound weakling.

On a hot summer day, the best way to enjoy a lager or pilsner is to drink it ice cold. Session Lagers, which contain less alcohol than other beers, may also appeal to you.

A session lager is an excellent choice because lagers lack bold flavors in general. The majority of drinkers will not notice a difference.

Finally, many well-known lagers are available in green or clear bottles. While the glass is attractive, beer bottled in green or clear glass should be avoided. These bottles allow in ultraviolet light, which often imparts a skunky flavor to your beer.

The beers listed below are in the same style as the beers listed at the beginning of this guide. However, they are brewed in smaller quantities and frequently with higher-quality ingredients. Many mass-market beers contain corn syrup, which, in my opinion, has no place in beer.

Sapporo, Kirin, and Asahi lagers: These breweries’ flagship beers are all well-crafted, though most cans sold outside Japan are brewed elsewhere under contract. In any case, this is as good as lager gets. Adams, Sam Boston Lager: One of the best beers brewed in New England, and as good as Japanese lagers.
Pabst Blue Ribbon: The official beer of hipsters, and an excellent choice for a basic lager. It’s dirt cheap and just as tasty as any other.
Labatt Blue: A cheap Canadian pilsner that deserves to be on this list only because we wanted to include a beer from Canada. Is it any different than Budweiser or Miller? Not at all.
Urquell Pilsner:

If you want to try the original Pilsner, named after the town of Pilsen in the Czech Republic, this is the place to go. If you’re in Europe, there are numerous Czech beers that are just as good at a fraction of the price. Unfortunately, cheaper Czech beer is difficult to find outside of the Czech Republic.
Special Model: It is not recommended outside of Mexico due to its high price. In Mexico, however, you can get a 24 ounce ice cold bottle for about a dollar, squeeze some lime into it, and sit on the beach happy.

Pale Ales and IPAs for Vegans

These beer styles were central to the West Coast microbrew movement that exploded in the 1980s and 1990s. They’re hoppier and have a higher alcohol content than the lager-style beers popularized by brewing behemoths like Anheuser-Busch and Miller. Once you’ve tried these beers, you might find it difficult to go back to lagers and Pilsners.

When drinking IPAs, keep in mind that they contain significantly more alcohol than most other beer varieties.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Torpedo IPA: These are the beers to try first if you’re new to pale ales and IPAs. Both of these beers are extremely popular, and rightly so. They each have delicate floral hop flavors with just the right amount of bitterness. Torpedo IPA contains 7.2 percent alcohol by volume. The beer gets its name from a “torpedo” chamber at the brewery that adds concentrated hop flavors to the beer.
Racer 5 from Bear Republic. It’s difficult to distinguish from Sierra Nevada’s Torpedo IPA, which is a huge compliment given Torpedo’s quality. The alcohol content is 7.5 percent by volume. This is a flawless beer with one of the coolest labels of any microbrew.

Lagunitas IPA: Another West Coast IPA that can’t be faulted. It has less alcohol than Torpedo or Racer 5 at 6.2 percent ABV. Lagunitas also produces several heavily hopped specialty Imperial IPAs and other strong beers with ABVs ranging from 8% to 11%.
Harpoon IPA: This might be the best beer brewed in the Northeast. It’s very similar to the best West Coast IPAs, but with less alcohol (5.9 percent ABV).

Vegan Stouts and Porters to Try

Both of these styles are coffee black, and unless you know your beers, it’s difficult to tell them apart. The main distinction is that porters typically contain more alcohol.

These are the best beers to serve during the winter. It’s no surprise that the best stouts and porters come from places with harsh winters. These beers are best served cold or at room temperature. Despite their color and body, most stouts have about the same amount of alcohol as lager beers. However, several breweries produce Imperial Stouts, which are extremely high in alcohol, typically 8 percent ABV or higher.

Anchor Porter: Anchor Porter is possibly the best porter on the market, and it comes in gorgeous brown bottles that rank alongside vintage Coke bottles as design classics.
Sierra Nevada Porter and Stout: It’s difficult to tell them apart, difficult to say which is better, and difficult not to pour a second glass.
Deschutes Obsidian Stout: A great stout from one of the West Coast’s most consistent breweries.
Samuel Smith Oatmeal Stout: from one of the oldest breweries in England. It’s robust but not overpowering, and it’s frequently compared to freshly baked bread.

Vegan Belgian Ales to Try

To begin with, these are ales, not beers, which means the flavors vary due to the various yeast strains used. Ale yeasts are “top fermented,” as opposed to beer yeasts, which are “bottom fermented.” Top fermented yeast imparts a distinct flavor that distinguishes Belgian ales from other beers.

Another interesting aspect of Belgian ales is that many of the best Belgian breweries are housed in monasteries. I like the idea that my ale was brewed with the help of a monk. The word “abbey” is usually found on the label of such ales.

Belgian ales are inexpensive in Belgium and most of Western Europe, but they are expensive elsewhere. Unibroue, Canada’s largest brewer, produces some excellent Belgian-style ales. Maudite and La Fin du Monde are two delicious Unibroue varieties. While these products are fairly priced, they are significantly less expensive in the United States than their Belgian counterparts.

Many Belgian-style ales are quite strong, with many exceeding 8% ABV. However, Belgium’s breweries also produce delicious sour fruity beers known as lambics. These beers typically have a low alcohol content—typically less than 4%.

Chimay: Perhaps not the best Belgian ale, but certainly the most widely available. There are four colors to choose from: gold, red, white, and blue. Blue is the most expensive color, but I think white is the best.
Augustijn Dark: A delicious abbey ale available in three varieties ranging in ABV from 7.5 to 9.0%.
Floreffe Prima Melior: A dark, almost porter-colored abbey ale from Floreffe. The alcohol by volume is 8%.
Gulden Draak: A very strong beer with a lot of interesting flavors that is fairly easy to find internationally. It’s not an abbey ale, but it does have a cool golden armor-wearing dragon on the label, which is unusual. There are two Belgian-style varieties, each with 10.5 percent ABV.
They also make an imperial stout with a frightening 12 percent ABV.
In moderation, consume Vegan Beer.
I hope you found some beers you’d like to try here. Don’t forget that DUIs and other alcohol-related consequences are the ultimate buzz-kill. The alcohol industry, like the gambling industry, makes the majority of its money from people who have serious drinking problems.
So, if you enjoy beer as much as I do, please drink in moderation. Respect yourself and exercise caution!