By 
Brilliantly made, this is some of the best hoppy non-alcoholic beer that’s sure to please fans of craft brew.
IPA
Partake Brewing (Calgary, AB – Canada)
TheBestNA.com rating: 97 POINTS
ABV: 0.3%
Style: IPA
If we want to normalize non-alcoholic beer, I mean really normalize it: we need more than savvy marketing.
All the trend-centric articles in the world about Dry January or Sober October how Gen Z is growing up “sober curious” won’t mean a thing if we ignore the most fundamental need:
We need more NAs that taste and feel normal.
Good NA beer. That’s job number one. It’s why I started The Best NA.
It’s also why I’m ecstatic about Partake IPA.
If it wasn’t for Partake’s wacky can art, you could hand out this NA at a party full of craft boozy-beer drinkers and I seriously doubt anyone would detect anything amiss.
I’ve long been a fan of red IPAs, so I was pleased to see it pour with a light reddish hue.
But nosing the glass provided few clues about what I should expect. Only the faintest essence of hop.
This subtle aroma left me unprepared for what came on the first sip: an NA that dazzled my palate. This non-alcoholic IPA was full of character.
Just as important, it was all in balance: from the complex array of hops with a familiar Cascade anchor to the pleasant tapestry of malts.
A delightful hop profile, with one potential kink
The hops in Partake IPA evoked familiar echoes of popular boozy-beer pales like Sierra Nevada and Dale’s Pale Ale.
But it’s not merely an NA replica of those boozy brews. Partake IPA comes packing its own distinctive, juicy hop profile.
According to Partake’s description, the Cascade hops are complemented by Citrus and Amarillo. Amarillo is a raging bull of a hop that can give off a taste of skunky-crushed-up-Cannabis-plant when overdone (I’m looking at you, Boulder Beer Mojo.)
When I offered this NA to my wife, she found even the small addition of Amarillo off putting. It may be the only factor that keeps Partake IPA from being a rock solid crowd pleaser.
Your mileage may vary, but I found the Amarillo a perfect punctuation mark to the hop blend in Partake IPA.
It’s citrusy. It’s piney. It’s delightful.
Delightful malts… with a backbone
And then there’s the grain bill!
As I mentioned, I love hoppy brews with a little color. The copperish red really comes through in Partake’s IPA.
The company doesn’t detail the grains on its website, but I detected the small addition of some lighter grain that added a subtle sharp accent. It imparts just enough of a pleasant bite to put a memorable stamp on Partake IPA’s well-balanced malts.
The mouthfeel of this NA is as good as the flavor. Partake IPA has fantastic backbone. This is where some good NAs fall short of being great NAs: they don’t feel normal. No such troubles here.
Partake brought the whole ensemble together so expertly, it more than covered for the absence of any heat I’d expect from the alcohol in a boozy-beer IPA. I didn’t feel like anything was missing.
Health and transparency
Since this is our first published review of a Partake brew, I have to give the company one more bit of praise for their transparency. They publish a precise ABV: 0.3%.
NA Brewers: please do this. We live in a time when public trust is… let’s just say, “eroded.” There would seem to be few excuses for failing to provide this level of precision.
Lastly, The Best NA doesn’t go out of our way to highlight calories and carbs (we figure that ditching alcohol is the paramount health benefit of drinking NA.)
Still, I’ll just reflect on the holy-shit realization that Partake IPA clocks in at 10 calories with 1 gram of sugar. Exponentially better marks than a can of soda and way more enjoyable to boot.
TheBestNA Rating
97 POINTS
Among the best of The Best NA
Partake IPA is the real deal, standing a notch above some of the company’s other standard brews. It earns a high “A grade,” excelling on all fronts.
It holds up fine on its own and would pair nicely with robust foods. If you love hoppy beers, you should definitely put Partake IPA on the must-try list.
Most of all, it’s an NA that hits its target: it tastes and feels like a good, craft beer.
Just buy it.
Partake IPA Non-Alcoholic Beer (0.3% ABV)
