Non-alcoholic beer is becoming more popular every year. Globally, sales grew 9% last year, according to the beverage data and analytics company IWSR. At the same time, sales of regular beer fell by 1%. 

By the end of this year, IWSR projects non-alcoholic beer will displace ale as the second largest beer category by volume worldwide. Though, for now it still only has about 2% market share, compared to lager’s 92%.

It used to be, if you wanted a non-alcoholic beer, there weren’t a whole lot of options. And they didn’t really taste like beer. But Kaleigh Theriault, a director of beverage alcohol thought leadership at NielsenIQ, said that’s not the case anymore.

“I've done blind taste testing of an alcohol beer and its non-alcoholic variant, and it's a struggle for me to tell the difference between the two from a flavor perspective. They're that good,” Theriault said.

That is a big reason more people are drinking non-alcoholic beer these days.

“Ten, 15 years ago, the only thing that was available was O’Doul’s and a couple European brands. And there weren't really any options that were aspirational or cool,” said Bourcard Nesin, vice president of research for beverages at Dutch financial firm Rabobank.

He said now there are a bunch of brands making non-alcoholic craft beers, and major beer companies have offerings, too. And lots of people who also drink regular beer are buying them.

“I go to conferences for work, I don't like having a second drink in those situations, because I just want to have my wits about me,” Nesin said.

He said non-alcoholic beer is an easy way to do that, without standing out.