0.0% vs 0.5% Non-Alcoholic: What Your Menu Should Say

Use the federal label terms on your menu: a drink under 0.5% ABV can be called non-alcoholic, and only a drink with no alcohol at all, 0.0%, is alcohol free. Both belong under one Non-Alcoholic header, as long as each line shows the maker's exact figure and anything at 0.5% or more goes with the beer. Below are the label rules, what goes in the ABV box, what bitters do to a zero-proof drink, a house rule you can copy, and where state law comes in.

Why isn't "NA" enough on the board?

"NA" tells a guest the drink was made for them, but it says nothing about how much alcohol is in it, and for some guests that is the only question. When a guest points at the board and asks "is that one zero?", a line like this one can't answer, and the bartender has to walk to the cooler and turn a can over:

The guests asking aren't all drinkers taking a night off. In Gallup's August 20, 2026 poll on American drinking, 17% of US adults said they had a nonalcoholic beer, wine or spirit in place of an alcoholic drink at some point in the past year. That 17% includes 20% of drinkers and 14% of people who don't drink at all.

Some of those guests won't mind a trace of alcohol. Others want none, for reasons they don't owe anyone, and nobody behind the bar can tell which guest is which, so the board has to carry the number.

What do 0.0% and non-alcoholic mean on a label?

On a US label, "alcohol free" means 0.0% ABV and "non-alcoholic" means less than 0.5%. The TTB, the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, lays this out in its 2026 presentation, Federal Regulation of Low and No Alcohol Beverages.

Finished drinks under 0.5% ABV are not considered alcohol beverages under federal regulations, and they can be labeled alcohol free (0.0%) or non-alcoholic (less than 0.5%). The same deck uses "low alcohol" for drinks at 0.5% and up.

For beer, the wording comes from 27 CFR 7.65, as published by Cornell's Legal Information Institute:

• "Non-alcoholic" may go on a malt beverage label only with "contains less than 0.5 percent (or .5%) alcohol by volume" immediately next to it.
• "Alcohol free" may be used only on malt beverages that contain no alcohol, and no tolerance is allowed.
• A label may not say 0.0% unless it also says alcohol free and the beer has no alcohol in it.
• Below 0.5%, the label may state alcohol to the nearest tenth or the nearest hundredth of a point, with no tolerance.

The TTB deck adds that a maker must send TTB a sample of an alcohol free malt beverage for approval, so a 0.0 claim on a beer label has to be backed up. The deck also notes that TTB's own definitions of these terms cover malt beverages, meaning beer made with malted barley and hops.

NA wine and NA spirits under 0.5% fall under FDA labeling rules, so read their labels as printed instead of assuming the beer wording.

None of this governs what a bar writes on its menu. It does give you one dependable place to look before an NA drink goes up: the can, the bottle or the keg collar.

What should the ABV box say on an NA line?

The ABV box shows the figure the maker prints, copied exactly. Here is how each kind of label turns into a line on the board:

A few rules keep that column honest:

• Round nothing, in either direction. A 0.4 doesn't become 0 because it's "basically nothing," and a 0.0 doesn't get bumped up to play it safe. Both print a figure the maker never stated.
• Keep the second decimal when the can has one. The general rules for that column are in the guide to ABV, IBU, style and pour size on a draft menu.
• Leave the box blank when there is no printed figure. A 0.0 typed for a drink whose maker states nothing is your number, not theirs.
• Keep letters out of the box. "NA" where a figure belongs puts you back at the before line.
• Trust the label in hand over a sell sheet or a distributor list, and ask about any difference.

Here is the fixed section for a made-up 12 tap taproom. Maker and drink names are placeholders, and the prices are examples.

The 0.0 lager sits first, so the guest who needs zero finds it without reading the rest. The hop water's maker prints no figure in this example, and the house build has no label at all, so the house rule speaks for both. The hop water guide covers how to describe that line.

Where do "alcohol free" and "0.0" belong on the board?

"Alcohol free" belongs only on a line whose drink has no alcohol at all, and the section header should read Non-Alcoholic. A header that says Alcohol Free over a 0.4% NA IPA claims something the can itself doesn't. Non-Alcoholic covers the 0.0 and the under 0.5 drinks, and the ABV column tells them apart.

Put one plain line under the header so guests get the answer before they ask:

NON-ALCOHOLIC: 0.0% has no alcohol. Under 0.5% has a trace.

Staff should say the same thing in one breath: "The NA lager in the can is our only 0.0. The other NA beers are under half a percent." When the NA list changes, that line changes the same shift. The pour side, making sure the right can reaches the guest, is covered in stopping wrong NA pours.

House words like "zero-proof" and "mocktail" carry no federal meaning. The TTB deck lists "mocktail" among marketplace terms its regulations don't define, next to session and spritz. On your menu, those words mean whatever your house rule says they mean.

Is a zero-proof drink with bitters still zero?

A zero-proof drink with bitters is not zero. Aromatic bitters are made with alcohol, so a dash in a build of juice, syrup and soda adds some. Cocktail writer Camper English worked out how much on Alcademics (November 12, 2020), using Angostura aromatic bitters at 44.7% ABV and a dash of 1/41 oz. The dash figure comes from Don Lee, who found that 41 dashes of Angostura made 1 ounce, as PUNCH reported on June 10, 2016.

The worked calculation, with those inputs:

• Alcohol in 1 dash: 1/41 oz x 44.7% = 0.0109 oz of alcohol.
• Drink ABV: alcohol added ÷ drink volume.
• Example: 2 dashes in a 6 oz drink is 0.0218 oz ÷ 6 oz = 0.36% ABV.

Use the liquid in the finished glass, not counting ice. Your dasher and your hand won't match Lee's exactly, so treat the table as an estimate, or count how many of your dashes fill a 1 oz jigger and redo the math.

Either way, no row reaches 0.0, and a short drink with 2 or 3 dashes passes 0.5%, the line federal labels draw for non-alcoholic.

English reached the same point: with 2 dashes, he found a drink has to be 5 oz to stay under 0.5%, where it comes out at 0.45%. He also wrote that for several groups of people who aren't drinking, adding bitters is "like asking 'will you violate your sobriety a little bit?'" and that he has come to see it as inappropriate.

The same check applies to any back bar bottle that goes into a zero-proof build. Read its label before it goes in. Writing a zero-proof list covers names and builds, and pricing NA beer and zero-proof drinks covers what to charge.

What goes in a house rule for the Non-Alcoholic section?

A house rule says what goes under the header, how figures get copied, what a zero-proof build may contain, and who checked the wording with the state. Write it down with a name and a date, and keep it where the board gets edited. A made-up example:

1. Under the header: drinks labeled non-alcoholic or alcohol free, plus house zero-proof builds that pass line 4.
2. Anything at 0.5% or more goes with the beer, whatever its name says.
3. ABV is copied from the label in hand. No figure on the label, no figure on the board.
4. Zero-proof builds: no bitters, and nothing from a bottle whose label lists alcohol.
5. Wording checked with the state alcohol agency on (date), by (name).

Line 4 is yours to decide. Some bars keep bitters out of anything called zero-proof, so the word means the same thing on every line. Others like what a dash does and keep it, with "contains bitters" written on that line so the guest can choose. Either works. Leaving it to each bartender doesn't, because then the same drink is zero on Tuesday and not on Friday.

Building the section itself, from the header to placement on the screen, is covered in setting up a non-alcoholic section on a digital tap list.

Do state rules change what your menu can say?

State rules can change what you serve and to whom, because federal terms cover labels and your bar runs under state law. Pennsylvania is one example. Section 6310.7 of Title 18, on the Pennsylvania General Assembly's site, makes it a summary offense to intentionally and knowingly sell or furnish nonalcoholic beverages to anyone under 21. It defines those as drinks marketed or sold as nonalcoholic beer, wine or liquor "having some alcohol content but does not contain more than 0.5% alcohol by volume."

Your state may draw its lines somewhere else, so ask before you settle the wording. Before the house rule goes up, send your state alcohol agency your exact header wording and your NA list with each label figure, and ask whether any of it is a problem. Write the answer and the date on line 5. This post isn't legal advice, and the agency's answer outranks anything here.

Then leave the rule up. Guests ask "is it zero?" in July as well as January, and they should get the same answer both times.

How do 0.0 and under 0.5 drinks look on TapDisplay?

On a TapDisplay board, an NA drink is an item like any other. Each line shows the 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. 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. On an NA line, check that ABV against the can in hand before you save, since the board has to match the maker's figure. You can always type everything yourself. Afterward, read the finished line on the TV from where guests order.

Type 0.0 in the ABV field and the board shows 0.0%, exactly as typed. Never type "NA" in the ABV field, because the TV shows "NA%". To mark an NA drink, tag it with the NON-ALC badge from a fixed badge list; cocktail menus use ZERO PROOF instead. You make your own Non-Alcoholic section by hand, so your house rule decides which drinks carry the badge and sit under the header.

You change the board from a phone, a tablet or a computer. Every connected screen checks for changes every 30 seconds, so a corrected figure shows within about 30 seconds on every screen carrying that drink. One list can be split across several screens, or each screen can show its own sections, so a screen near the NA cooler can show only Non-Alcoholic.

Owner, manager and staff roles come with an activity log of who changed what, plus undo. If an ABV on the board doesn't match the can, the log shows who changed it and when.

A sold out drink stays on the board, struck through, with the word set by the business type: KICKED on keg menus such as a bar or brewery, SOLD OUT on menus such as coffee or wine. A location is $49 a month or $499 a year with unlimited screens, as listed on the pricing page.

The bottom line

Non-alcoholic means under 0.5% and alcohol free means 0.0, so put both under a Non-Alcoholic header and copy each maker's figure onto the line exactly as printed. Anything at 0.5% or more goes with the beer, and a zero-proof drink with bitters is not zero. Write the house rule down, check its wording with your state, and keep it up all year.