Carlsberg just told shareholders that soft drinks and alcohol-free beer are doing the heavy lifting while regular beer sales keep sliding. The Danish brewer said non-alcoholic beer volumes rose 11% in the first half of 2026, with particularly strong growth in western Europe, even as overall beer volumes fell.
The company, which brews Carlsberg, Poretti and Erdinger, reported beer volumes of 52.2 million hectolitres for the first half of the year, down from 52.7 million hectolitres a year earlier. Across western Europe specifically, beer volumes fell by 3.9% as the company described “challenging” market conditions, including a continued fall in alcohol consumption among younger drinkers.
What offset the decline was Carlsberg’s £3.3 billion acquisition of Britvic, the soft drinks group behind Robinsons, Tango and Jimmy’s Iced Coffee. Soft drink sales volumes rose 7.8% for the half, largely on the back of that deal, and Carlsberg said the Britvic synergies are arriving faster than it originally expected. Combined with the alcohol-free growth and tight cost management, the company is now guiding toward the upper end of its full-year operating profit growth range of 4% to 6%, having previously guided for 2% to 6%.
“Carlsberg delivered solid top-line and earnings growth for the first half year despite the continued uncertain macro environment, and we saw sustained good progress on our key strategic priorities, with particularly strong growth for soft drinks and alcohol-free brews,” said group chief executive Jacob Aarup-Andersen. “As a result of our disciplined cost focus, performance management and faster-than-expected delivery of the Britvic synergies, we’re narrowing our full-year earnings guidance towards the upper end of the range.”
Why alcohol-free beer keeps growing while regular beer slows down
Carlsberg is not alone here. Every major brewer has been chasing the same shift for a few years now: younger drinkers buying less beer overall, but a growing slice of them still wanting the ritual of a beer without the alcohol. The difference in 2026 is that the alcohol-free beers on shelves are genuinely good, not the thin, sweet stand-ins that used to fill that gap.
We put that to the test ourselves. Our full non-alcoholic beer guide ranks eight NA beers we actually tasted side by side, from proper hoppy IPAs to a stout that fools people who don’t know it is alcohol-free.
A few of our favorite alcohol-free picks
Three that stood out when we worked through the category for that guide:
- BrewDog Non-Alcoholic Beer – our full review of BrewDog’s alcohol-free take, tested for how close it actually gets to a real IPA.
- Kirin Alcohol-Free Beer – a Japanese lager built specifically to be alcohol-free rather than a stripped-down version of an existing beer.
- Lawson’s Finest Sip’N – a craft brewery’s first NA IPA, reviewed fresh off the shelf.
For the full ranked list, including Athletic Brewing’s Run Wild IPA and how Guinness 0 and Heineken 0.0 stack up against the real thing, read our Best Non-Alcoholic Beers guide.
Curious what Carlsberg itself actually tastes like? Read our Carlsberg review, or grab one for yourself.
