Black Butte NA
Deschutes Brewery

I love this beer when it’s “caffeinated”, and this decaf version is v-e-r-y close in taste/texture… not sure I’d be able to tell the difference until I got off the barstool (after drinking on an empty stomach!)

Look: See Black Butte regular beer

Sniff: Similar to Black Butte regular beer

Sip: Similar to Black Butte regular beer

Swish: Similar to Black Butte regular beer

Overall: Similar to Black Butte regular beer. You can taste some of the differences, bu they are minor and expected. What is left over after their special cold dealcoholization process tastes much like a regular porter. No lingering palate-fatiguing "cooked" artifacts like old-school near beers. The roasted grains and the hops used come through no different than a regular porter. I am impressed and sold!

12 ounce can into willi becher glass, canned on 11/14/2025. Pours fairly clear nearly opaque dark brown color with a 2 finger dense and rocky khaki head with fantastic retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lingers. Nice spotty soapy lacing clings on the glass. Aromas of big dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, caramel, brown sugar, toffee, nuttiness, brown bread/crust, herbal, grass, pepper, pine, dark fruit, yeast earthiness, and light char. Smells just like the normal beer. Taste follows with big dark chocolate, cocoa, coffee, caramel, brown sugar, toffee, nuttiness, brown bread/crust, herbal, grass, wood, peppercorn, pine, dark fruit, yeast earthiness, and light smoke/char. Light-medium pine, woody, roast, charred bitterness on the finish. Medium carbonation and light-medium body; nice creamy/silky malt mouthfeel with lingering sticky hop and chalky roasted dryness. No cloying, acrid, astringency. A little thin, but flavorful and great for the NA style. Tastes very close to the regular porter on malt complexity with a nice amount of their house English yeast notes. I need to buy their beer more often, it's been a long time. I look forward to the Fresh Squeezed NA and Fresh Haze NA soon. Very impressive all around, and doesn't have the usual cardboard and astringent bitterness of NA beers I have had in the past.

 

Love the regular version, so was hoping this to be similar. And it is. Really captures the deep, roasty, and comforting aroma, taste, and body of an old skool, classic Northwest porter. Looks good, too!
Cheers!

Far and away the best nonalcoholic beer I’ve ever had. Though that’s admittedly not much of a brag given how awful most nonalcoholic beers are. Not exactly sure how to grade it since this is a pretty big catchall category covering all kinds of different beer types. But it deserves high praise.

The look and aroma actually hold up beautifully even against true full-octane porters. Deep and dark, nice foamy tan head, with decent retention and some pretty solid lacing. Wonderful dark, bready, nutty, and roasty nose. Certainly not big and bold, but it hits all the right notes. A little bit of chocolatey sweetness and baking spices in the mix as well. Not surprisingly the taste falls short relative to the nose. Pretty mild and a little watered down, but you still get some lovely roasted malts, dark bread, and nutty characteristics. Can’t hold up to an alcoholic version on this front, but it’s a solid effort, tasty beer, and blows most nonalcoholic beers out of the water. Feel, too, is a little light and thin, but still excellent versus comparable NA beers. If you’re looking for nonalcoholic and want something dark and roasty, you’re simply not going to do better than this. Well done, Deschutes!

 

Wow! This is one of the best-tasting dark N/A's I have ever tasted. Smells of chocolate-y goodness. It's not particularly low calorie, but frankly . . . this is a better N/A than Guinness Zero (sorry Guinness). If I'm in the mood for a darker N/A, I'm hunting for Deschutes Black Butte in the future. I hope they keep making it!!

The aroma is toasted malt with coffee and chocolate and a touch of earthiness and grass. The appearance is dark brown with a medium head. The taste is like the aroma a bit of the dry side and rather robust for an N/A. The palate is smooth for an N/A. Overall the best Porter/Stout N/A beer I have had to date and when a beer with such an opportunistic name is this good it takes away all the fun you could have had describing it.

It looks like the can is changed I had the Black Butte but it wasn't NA I accidentally bought the NA but we're going to give it a go This is my fourth beer of the night.... Dude it's not even beer.
. I'm resetting the glass so let's check it out

Aroma:

Wow caramel malt citrus Oregon hops what...this isn't beer seriously... Pours like root beer nothing's missing... Aroma black patent malts in Oregon hops what? No alcohol we'll see...

Forced nearly full black just like its sister... There's got to be something missing...
Oh my god it's got all the taste... Yep alcohol and roundness is all that's missing... It's a little bit flatter... But I think you'd make it up with some sugar... Yeah it's missing something but it's not like having coffee in the morning The black patent chocolate malt comes out I'm going to do something crazy.... I'm going to add cream in my salted caramel that I put in my coffee.... I mean I might invent something this could be a damn good breakfast beer... Okay that wrecked it... But it was certainly where the try...

So I'm going to rate this before the corruption...

If I have to drink an NA this is going to be it... I mean I haven't been all the way around the NA world be quite a while but this is a contender for sure

Dark N/A is a combo that gets me excited, so I picked up this gem for something new. On the pour, pitch dark, toasty aroma, chocolately froth. Gotta try the froth! Tastes as good as it smells. Below this into the pitch of deliciousness I dove to find rather than the smoothness of the above, a nice bite below. Surprised? Yep, I was expecting smooth like its popular counterpart, but this is where the difference is. There's less depth here, so I'd call this an autumn beer, suitable for summer even, though not as filling comfort food as the big G. I dig it! Happy I got it and certainly will again.

I use two N/A beers as the goal, as of this review, and for darker beers, it is Guinness 0.

Reviewing on my second sipping, and having a slightly different experience. I think the difference is in environment, as it often is, but having had relatively sweeter things today versus more bitter things in first tasting, this is falling a bit flat. I really quite enjoyed it the other day - so I am splitting the difference in the rating.

There is a big, foamy beige head that gets a little creamy before falling slowly. The nose is roasted malt with a chocolate lean, but also with a weak coffee bitterness. This is a flavor part I get in dark N/A beers, and it comes through on the taste today, where it was much more well hidden the other day. I felt it was a restrained, perhaps home brewer attempt at a porter the other day, which I equate to a decent N/A beer. Today, it is a bit more weak coffee.

To go back to the Guinness 0 comparison.. this beer is named after a beer that is much more bitter than the beer Guinness 0 is based on. I am a firm believer bitter beer styles cannot be decently replicated in N/A form. I thought this did well the other day, fairly okay today. I have a few more to got do adjust this rating / review if a pattern shows itself more definitively than it has in the first two cans.

Dark brown in color with minimal light penetration. There’s a half inch of rocky khaki foam on top. Heavy, soapy lacing is on the glass. There’s aroma is of baker’s chocolate and caramel. I’m tasting baker’s chocolate and caramel. The mouth is a bit dry and unpresumtious.

12 oz. can poured into nonic
(7/20/25 born-on date printed on bottom of can)

L: looks like a beer :) super dark, almost black in the glass topped by a thick 1 1/2-inch head of beige foam; no major sticking or lacing; keeps a thick collar and most of a skin of beige foam

S: light hints of dates, cocoa powder, something roasted ... maybe a bit of roasted coffee bean but smells more like decaf beans, darker and closer to burnt than a light- or medium-roasted fully caffeinated bean; honestly, there's something just a bit sour in there — as I start drinking the beer, that sour aroma note seems to disappear, but it was there, maybe a bit lactic or funky like a funky cheese thing ... it's hard to call it because it was barely there

T: charred wood, roasted coffee, a bit of espresso with a very earthy finish ... much darker than the nose would suggest and almost no sweetness, just enough to balance out the more bitter/earthy notes; the flavor is for black coffee drinkers, not for pumpkin spice latte drinkers, if that makes sense

F: thinish but not overly watery ... it feels like a standard beer, like a Lone Star or Miller Lite, which is not bad considering it's an N/A brew

O: well, I'm always banging the drum for lower-ABV beers, so here it is, my first N/A stout, and I have to say, it's pretty darn good as an alternative to the real thing; the mouthfeel is really the only thing here that screams "I'm not real!"

RB transfer

Drinking out of a Coots tasting glass.
Pours a clear dark mahogany with a standard head.
Smells of roasted malt - though a little weak.
Fair mouth feel.
Tastes the most part like a porter.
But it’s missing something.
Too bland.

 

Poured from 12oz can into a dimpled mug. Canned 12/17/24.

Appearance: dark brown hue with a clear body and amber highlights when held up to the light. Head is a thick finger of frothy tan foam. Looks good!

Smell: a nice caramel and chocolate malt aroma. There’s even just a hint of that vegetal hop character present in so many dark beers; maybe just a dash on the sweet side, but really this is a very convincing porter.

Taste: a nice mix of sweetish caramel malt and drier, toastier malt, with a bit of chocolate malt character coming through as well. It’s also a little bit astringent, which both detracts from the overall flavor but adds to the overall convincing-ness of this as a full-strength beer. So, not pefect, but solid.

Mouthfeel: medium body with a good carbonation and a massively smooth, lovely creaminess. Breweries have really been figuring out texture for their NA beers, I’ll say that for sure!

Overall: this is a solid NA beer and a really good approximation of the original. In my experience, dark beers are harder to get right in an NA forumula than hoppier beers. This is definitely the most successful of the dark NA beers I’ve tried.

A: appears to be very dark brown and opaque, but when held to the light, it's crystal clear with mahogany highlights; 1 finger finely pored tan head that receded to a moderate tight collar; very little lacing;

S: roasted grain and bittersweet chocolate;

T: follows the nose; mostly roasted grain up front and mostly bittersweet chocolate at the end; moderate bitterness on the finish;

M: light to medium bodied; light to moderate carbonation; moderately dry finish;

O: an outstanding NA beer;

Poured from 12-ounce can into a stemless wine glass. Deep chestnut brown, with a thick tan head. Good retention and carbonation. Aromas and flavors of dark roasted malt, a little char, medium-light in body, and a dry finish with a bit of bitterness on the palate. Overall excellent beer, no less than I'd expect from Deschutes.