New Holland Brewing – The Knickerbocker

New Holland Brewing opened The Knickerbocker on a busy stretch of Bridge Street NW as its Grand Rapids outpost, and it is built at scale: three separate bars, a wood-fired oven, an indoor and outdoor beer garden and a series of dining spaces that take private events. Grand Rapids has traded on the Beer City USA name since 2012 and was named America's Best Beer City by USA Today in 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025, with a Beer City Ale Trail linking more than 35 craft breweries. That reputation is a problem for anyone not drinking, because the default social venue in this city is a taproom, and most taprooms treat non-alcoholic beer as a canned afterthought bought in from elsewhere.

The Knickerbocker is the exception worth knowing about, because New Holland makes its own. Zylch IPA is brewed at 0.00% ABV using newer process ingredients that allow genuine malt and hop character rather than the thin, worty profile that dogged early alcohol-free beer; it is served on the same footing as the rest of the range. The brewery also produces Aquanut, a non-alcoholic sparkling water, which covers the guest who wants something with no sweetness at all. Beyond the two house products, the bars mix a selection of zero-proof cocktails rather than pointing at the soda gun, so a table can order across the whole group without anyone being handed a glass of cola. The food is substantial — wood-fired pizza anchors it — and the beer garden makes the venue usable in summer for groups mixing drinkers and non-drinkers, which is the practical test most breweries fail. It is the only venue in this guide where the non-alcoholic beer on tap was brewed in the building.