Non-Alcoholic Section on a Tap List, Step by Step

Set up a non-alcoholic section in 7 steps: decide what qualifies, name it Non-Alcoholic, give each drink the same fields as a beer line, copy the maker's ABV exactly, mark NA on every line, put the section where guests can see it, then check it from where guests order. Below is each step, with a filled example for a 12 tap taproom, a screen layout calculation, and how the same build works on TapDisplay.

Why give non-alcoholic drinks their own section?

A section of their own lets a guest who wants no alcohol find every option under one heading instead of reading the whole beer list line by line. That guest is often a regular. In Gallup's August 20, 2026 poll on American drinking, 17% of US adults, including 20% of people who drink, said they had a nonalcoholic beer, wine or spirit in place of an alcoholic drink at some point in the past year.

Gallup also found that among drinkers who have NA drinks, 38% are having more of them than they used to, about double the 17% who are having fewer. Bars see it in volume. The Brewers Association's look inside American drinking places, published May 13, 2026 from Nielsen CGA data, puts low and non-alcoholic beer volume at bars up roughly 5 times from pre-COVID levels.

The steps below work on any digital board. The TapDisplay specifics come at the end.

What goes in the non-alcoholic section?

Every drink a guest can order with no alcohol in it goes in, wherever it pours from: NA beer on draft or in cans, hop water, craft soda, and zero-proof drinks if you make them. A 3% session beer still has alcohol, so it stays with the beers.

Nothing alcoholic goes in, not even as a one-night special. A guest ordering from this section trusts every line in it, and so does the bartender pouring.

Zero-proof drinks are the judgment call. A bar with a long cocktail list on its own screen can keep them there. At a beer bar with 2 or 3 house builds, put them in the NA section so every no-alcohol option sits in one place.

What to stock to begin with has its own post: how many NA options a bar should carry to start.

What should the section be called?

Call it Non-Alcoholic. Guests scan for that word, and a new bartender can say it without translating. A clever name like "Dry Goods" makes a guest stop and decode it, "NA" on its own is staff shorthand, and a "Dry January" header tells guests the section ends with the month.

Use the same word on the header, on each line, and in what staff say when a guest asks what you have without alcohol.

Which fields does each NA line need?

An NA line carries the same fields as a beer line: tap number if it has one, maker, name, style, ABV, and pour size with price. A guest comparing the NA pale ale with the pale ale on tap 4 then finds every detail in the same column. Put NA in front of the style, give a can its size, and leave the tap column blank for anything without a handle.

Here is a filled section for a made-up 12 tap taproom that pours 1 NA beer on draft. Maker and drink names are placeholders, and the prices are examples.

The 2 house builds have no maker and no ABV, so the name, the word Zero-Proof and the price carry the line. The hop water's maker prints no ABV in this example, so its box stays empty.

Whether the NA beer earns a handle at all has its own post: NA beer on draft or in cans. The hop water guide covers how to describe it on the line.

What ABV should an NA line show?

An NA line shows the ABV the maker prints on the can, keg collar or sell sheet: 0.0 for a 0.0 beer, 0.5 for a 0.5 beer, 0.35 for a can that says 0.35%. Don't round a 0.5 down to 0, and leave the box empty when the maker gives no figure.

The federal label rule shows why the column matters. 27 CFR 7.65, as published by Cornell's Legal Information Institute, lets a malt beverage label say "non-alcoholic" only with "contains less than 0.5 percent (or .5%) alcohol by volume" right next to it. "Alcohol free" is allowed only on malt beverages with no alcohol at all, and a label may not show 0.0% unless it also says alcohol free. Below 0.5%, the label may state alcohol to the nearest tenth or hundredth of a point.

So a 0.5 and a 0.0 can both sit under Non-Alcoholic, and a guest who needs a true zero reads the ABV column to tell them apart. In the example, the NA lager is the only 0.0 on the list. The guide to 0.0% vs 0.5% non-alcoholic covers the wording, and your state alcohol regulator may add rules for menus.

Keep words out of the ABV box. If someone types "NA" there, a board that adds a percent sign after the number may print "NA%", and a guest has to ask what it means. The letters NA belong in the style field.

How do you mark every line as non-alcoholic?

Mark each NA drink on its own line, because a guest often reads only the line a bartender points to and never sees the header. NA in front of the style does this on any board. If your board also offers a tag or badge for non-alcoholic drinks, put it on every NA line.

Mark all of them, the 0.5s, the hop water and the house builds included. If some lines carry the mark and others don't, guests start to wonder about the rest. Whoever adds a drink should check the can or the build before marking it, the same way they copy the ABV off the label.

Where should the section sit on the main list?

Put the Non-Alcoholic section where a guest at the order point can find it without waiting for a page to turn or looking at a second screen. On a single screen that usually means the bottom of the list, just above On Deck, where it has a fixed spot staff can name out loud. Where cider, seltzer, wine and NA go on a beer list covers the order among the non-beer sections and the full field map.

The bottom of the list stops working once the list spreads across 2 screens. Take the 12 tap taproom above: 11 beer lines, 7 NA lines and 1 on deck line come to 19 lines. Split evenly over 2 screens, that's 10 lines on screen 1 and 9 on screen 2, and every NA line lands on screen 2.

Layout A works if both screens are in view from where guests order. If only screen 1 is, use B or C. Layout C keeps NA on the main list but puts 19 lines on one screen, so run the type size test for a tap list TV before you settle on it.

Should the NA section get a screen of its own?

Give the NA section its own screen if you have one over the backbar, or one guests face while they wait, that nothing else needs. Settle 3 things first:

• Which screen. Pick the one nearest where NA drinks are poured and handed over, so a bartender can point at it.
• Whether NA stays on the main list. Keep it there if the main screen can carry the extra lines at a readable size, since a guest at the tap wall should still find it.
• How long. Leave it up for good.

NA sells all year. IWSR's analysis of US no-alcohol sales, published January 21, 2026, found that as early as 2019 the strongest quarter for US no-alcohol volume was the third, at around 27% of the year against 22% in the first quarter. A screen that flips back to beer on February 1 tells guests the section was a promotion. The Dry January prep list covers the January push itself.

Keep the Non-Alcoholic header at the top of that screen, so a guest who glances up knows what the whole screen holds.

How do you check the section from the guest's side?

Check the section from where guests order, once after setup and again whenever the NA list changes:

1. Read every NA line aloud from the order point: name, what it is, ABV, size, price. Each should make sense without a question.
2. Scan the ABV column for "NA%", a stray percent sign, or a number that doesn't match the can.
3. Confirm every line carries the NA mark and nothing with alcohol has slipped in.
4. Look at the NA screen, if you have one. It should show the Non-Alcoholic header and only those lines.
5. Ask a bartender which drinks are 0.0. The answer should match the board; in the example, only the NA lager.
6. Have someone who didn't build the list order one of each by the board's wording, and watch that the right can or handle comes out every time.

Fix whatever fails and run the list again. Step 6 tests the pour as well as the board, and stopping wrong NA pours covers the habits behind the bar that make it pass.

How does TapDisplay handle a non-alcoholic section?

On TapDisplay, you make your own Non-Alcoholic section by hand, and NA drinks go in it as items like any other. Each line shows its name, maker, style, the venue's own stats such as ABV, and a price per pour, with 2 pours by default and up to 4, so the draft NA pale ale gets its 16 oz and 10 oz prices. The TapDisplay board shows how a line looks.

Start typing a drink name and pick a match from the catalog, and it fills in the brewery, style and ABV you haven't entered yet. Check that ABV against the can, since an NA line has to match the maker's figure. You can always type everything yourself.

A 0.0% ABV shows exactly as typed. Never type "NA" in the ABV field, because the TV shows "NA%".

Tag each NA drink with the NON-ALC badge from the fixed badge list. Cocktail menus use ZERO PROOF instead, and NON-ALC also works on the Wine on Tap, Nitro Cold Brew and Restaurant menus.

One list can be split across several screens, or each screen can show its own sections, so layouts B and C above come down to choosing sections for each screen. Owners and managers run the screens. Staff edit the menu, including items, sections and prices.

A long list adjusts its type to fit and then turns pages. For layout C, stand at the order point and make sure the NA lines don't land on a second page.

You change the board from a phone, a tablet or a computer. Every connected screen checks for changes every 30 seconds, so a new price or a swapped can shows within about 30 seconds on every screen carrying that drink.

A sold out drink stays on the board, struck through. The word comes from the business type: KICKED on keg menus such as a bar or brewery, SOLD OUT on menus such as coffee or wine. On a beer bar's board, a sold out NA can reads KICKED too.

Screens are unlimited, so an NA-only screen doesn't change the bill. A location is $49 a month or $499 a year, and at 3 to 9 locations it's $39 a month or $399 a year each, as listed on the pricing page.

The bottom line

Build the Non-Alcoholic section once, on purpose: only drinks with no alcohol, a plain name, beer line fields, the maker's exact ABV and NA marked on every line. Place it where a guest at the order point can see it without waiting, and give it a screen of its own if the list spans 2. Then read it aloud from the guest's side and leave it up all year.