Updated March 2026
Soft-drink root beer is 0%. Grocery A&W-style root beer is soda, not a malt beverage. Hard root beer is a different bottle — a flavored malt beverage or similar — and those brand ABVs were unused as official, can. US TTB “non-alcoholic” on a malt beverage needs the adjacent “less than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume” line. Under 0.5% cannot say beer (7.145). Do not invent a calorie table.
Related: how NA beer is made, low-alcohol beer class, orange soda mixers.
Soda vs hard
| Language | 12 oz drinks |
|---|---|
| Grocery root beer | 0 |
| Hard root beer | Read the can |
| TTB non-alcoholic | ~0 |
| Best hard root beer | — |
Read the can, not the flavor word. Pour math: beer drinks.
Sources
- 27 CFR 7.65 / 7.145. Official A&W ABV unused (soft drink is 0%).
- NIAAA December 2025.
- (27 CFR 7.65)