2 min read- I tried Heineken’s non-alcoholic beers at Coachella and they were some of the best drinks I had all weekend.
- The new flavored 0.0 varieties, Cold Pressed Lime and Nectarine Juniper, use Heineken’s alcohol-free base with bright, fruit-forward flavors.
- Of the two, Nectarine Juniper stood out as my favorite.
Let’s face it: non-alcoholic beer has historically had a rough reputation. It was long considered a sad imitation of the real thing, but public opinion has seriously shifted over the past decade. Now, non-alcoholic drinks feel more like an art form than an afterthought.
I went to Coachella this year with Heineken, the festival’s longest-standing brand partner. Music lovers have been drinking the Dutch lager in Indio for 23 years. But while I was there, the brewery’s non-alcoholic options ended up being the best thing I drank all weekend—and, honestly, maybe all year.
Heineken is no stranger to the alcohol-free category, with Heineken 0.0 first hitting U.S. shelves in 2019, making it one of the earliest major non-alcoholic beer launches from a big brewery in America. Since then, demand for alcohol-free options has exploded, and Heineken has clearly had time to fine-tune what it’s doing.
Now the brand is branching out even further. Heineken 0.0 Ultimate, a beer with zero alcohol, zero calories, and zero sugar, is rolling out in select markets through 2026. And at the Heineken House during Coachella, the brand offered its new flavored 0.0 beers, which immediately became my go-to drinks of the weekend. Introduced earlier this year, Cold Pressed Lime and Nectarine Juniper share the same non-alcoholic formula and layer in fruitier, more refreshing notes.
I’ll be honest: any time I see a beer, alcoholic or otherwise, with added fruit flavor, it makes me nervous. Too often, that kind of thing ends up tasting artificial or overly sweet, like it’s masking the bitter flavor of the hops. But that’s not what happened here.
The Cold Pressed Lime features bright, aromatic citrus notes, but the lime reads more like the natural oil from the rind than straight juice. It reminds me of expressing a citrus peel over a cocktail instead of squeezing in a wedge. It still tastes like beer, just a little fresher.
But Nectarine Juniper takes the crown as my favorite drink of the entire weekend. Compared to the zesty citrus notes of the lime version, this one is more floral and delicate. And when you add in the herbaceous juniper and its base recipe, every sip was the ideal balance, fresh, fruity, and bitter.
When it comes to summer drinks, these check every box. You get the familiar taste of beer, the fun fruit flavors you find in hard seltzers, and the clearheadedness that comes with skipping the alcohol altogether. They kept me feeling refreshed in the middle of the desert, and they are exactly the kind of thing I’d bring to a summer party for my alcohol-free friends—and, honestly, for myself too.