Beyond Brew Mushroom Coffee Review: Ingredients, Caffeine, Side Effects, Beyond Brew vs RYZE, and Alphacino Compared

Short answer: Beyond Brew is not a mushroom coffee. It is a cacao drink mix from Live Conscious with six mushroom extracts in it, and the brand's own FAQ says it contains no coffee at all¹. A serving is two teaspoons (5.6 g) at 20 calories, with 3 g of fibre, no sugar, about 5 mg of caffeine by the brand's statement, and a mushroom blend the page puts at 522 mg of 4:1 extracts, "equivalent to 2,088 mg of mushroom powder", with no figure for any one mushroom¹. It costs $39 for 30 servings on the brand's store, $1.30 a cup, falling to 98 cents on the largest subscription, and it carries a 365-day money-back guarantee¹. Read against the human trials, which used one to nine grams a day of a single mushroom²³⁴, the blend is a sprinkle, so the honest reading is that Beyond Brew is a pleasant, near caffeine-free hot chocolate with a small amount of six mushrooms, a prebiotic fibre and an uncounted probiotic. Below: everything on the label, the caffeine, each mushroom against its trial, the side effects, the price, Beyond Brew against RYZE, MUD\WTR and Cuppa, and the comparison with Alphacino, which is a real coffee with every dose printed⁵.

What is Beyond Brew?

Beyond Brew is a powdered drink mix sold by Live Conscious, a California supplement company that also sells collagen, greens, probiotics and a lion's mane capsule. The label reads "Manufactured for Live Conscious, Cerritos, CA" and "Manufactured in the USA from globally sourced ingredients"; the brand's FAQ page gives its headquarters as Burbank, California¹. The product comes in three flavours, Original Cacao, Caramel Macchiato and Vanilla Latte, each a 6 oz jar of 30 servings at $39 against a $45 list price, or $108 for a bundle of all three¹. The brand's page shows a reviews widget at 4.7 out of 5 from 1,621 reviews and a banner claiming "15k+ jars sold in the last month"; both are the brand's own numbers¹.

The first thing to settle is the category. Google files Beyond Brew under "mushroom coffee", and that is how most people search for it, but the brand's FAQ answers the question directly: "Beyond Brew does not contain coffee." The base is organic cacao, and the page suggests drinking it as a hot cocoa, over ice, or whisked into your own coffee as an "enhancement"¹. That puts it in the same family as MUD\WTR, a cacao and chai drink, rather than beside RYZE, Cuppa or Alphacino, which are coffees. If you want the taste of coffee or the lift of coffee, Beyond Brew is not built to give you either, and it does not pretend to.

The formula has changed. The archived product page from September 2024 called the product "Rise 'n Shroom", described a "light cacao flavor", and stated 7 mg of caffeine a serving, "less than one tenth of a cup of coffee"⁶. The current page says about 5 mg and "one twentieth", one FAQ answer says "less than 5 mg", and the brand's own image files for the page carry the word "reformulation"¹. None of that is a problem in itself, but it means reviews written before 2025 may describe a different jar.

Beyond Brew at a glance: what the label says

All of it is from the brand's product pages, label images, FAQ and refund policy on 26 October 2026¹. If you are comparing it with a coffee, the line that matters most is the first one: 5.6 g of powder has to hold the cacao, the fibre, the mushrooms, the flavouring and the probiotic, which is why the next section is about what the label order can and cannot tell you.

Beyond Brew ingredients: what is in the scoop, and how much

Because Beyond Brew is labelled as a food rather than a supplement, its ingredients are listed by name in descending order of weight with no amounts, and a compound ingredient like the mushroom blend is declared with its parts in parentheses, also in descending order⁷. That is the rule, not a dodge, but it leaves you reading order rather than numbers. Here is what the order tells you, ingredient by ingredient.

Cacao: the base, and where the caffeine comes from

Cacao is first, so it is the largest ingredient by weight. It is also the only source of caffeine in the jar. USDA's figure for unsweetened cocoa powder is 230 mg of caffeine and 2,057 mg of theobromine per 100 g⁸. If the brand's 5 mg is right, that works out to roughly 2 g of cacao in the 5.6 g scoop, carrying about 45 mg of theobromine; that is our arithmetic from USDA's table, not a figure the brand prints. Theobromine is cacao's own mild stimulant. In a placebo-controlled study of 80 adults it showed limited subjective effects at 250 mg and unpleasant mood effects at 500 and 1,000 mg⁹; at 700 mg it lowered blood pressure an hour after ingestion without the alertness that 120 mg of caffeine produced¹⁰. A scoop of Beyond Brew sits at about a fifth of the lowest dose those studies tested, so the cacao is flavour, not a stimulant you will feel.

Acacia: the 3 g of fibre

Acacia gum (gum arabic) is second, which is consistent with the panel's 3 g of fibre: it is a soluble fibre and the brand calls it a prebiotic¹. The human trial behind that word gave healthy volunteers 5, 10, 20 or 40 g a day for four weeks and found more bifidobacteria and lactobacilli in stool at four weeks, with the best effect at about 10 g a day¹¹. Three grams is below the smallest dose that trial tested. It is still 10% of the daily value for fibre, which is more than any coffee gives you, and that is the honest size of the claim.

The six mushrooms: 522 mg between them

The blend is third by weight, and the page gives the one number the label does not: 522 mg of 4:1 extract a serving¹. Two things about that number. First, "4:1" means four grams of dried mushroom went into each gram of extract, which is why the brand counts 522 mg as "equivalent to 2,088 mg" of powder. An extract ratio is a statement about the starting material, not about what is in the cup; the compounds the trials are interested in, mostly beta-glucans, vary with the species, the part of the mushroom and the extraction, and a ratio does not tell you the beta-glucan content¹². Second, 522 mg is shared six ways, and the parentheses list the six in descending order of weight: lion's mane first, then reishi, chaga, Cordyceps sinensis, Cordyceps militaris and turkey tail⁷. If the split were even, each would be 87 mg; the only thing the order guarantees is that lion's mane is the largest share and turkey tail the smallest. The section below puts each against its trial.

Flavour, ginger, salt, cinnamon, stevia and the probiotic

Everything after the blend weighs less than 522 mg a serving, because the list is in descending order⁷. Ginger and Ceylon cinnamon sit behind "natural flavour" and around the salt, which is the position of a flavouring, and the page's benefit claims for them (cravings, metabolism, digestion) belong to trial doses of a different size: the ginger meta-analyses used 1 to 3 g a day¹³, and the cinnamon dose-response analysis found its blood-sugar effect at doses up to 1,200 mg a day in people with type 2 diabetes¹⁴. Rebaudioside M is one of the sweeter stevia glycosides, which is how the drink has "a hint of sweetness" at zero sugar¹. Bacillus coagulans is last. It is a spore-forming probiotic that survives heat, which is why it can go into a hot drink, but the label names no strain and prints no count. That matters because the trials are strain-specific and counted: BC30 at one billion live cells a day for four weeks improved stool frequency and consistency in 111 healthy adults with functional gut complaints¹⁵, and MTCC 5856 at two billion a day for 90 days reduced bloating, pain and stool frequency in diarrhoea-predominant IBS¹⁶. Without a strain or a count on the jar, there is no way to put Beyond Brew's probiotic beside either.

Does Beyond Brew work? Each mushroom against the trials

Put together, the trials run from 1 g to 9 g a day of one mushroom, and Beyond Brew holds about half a gram of extract across six. Even taking the brand's "equivalent to 2,088 mg" at face value, that is two grams of starting material split six ways, below the lowest single-mushroom trial dose for every one of them. The blend is not nothing: lion's mane extract at a few hundred milligrams is a real ingredient, and the fibre and the cacao are real food. But if you are buying Beyond Brew for the mushrooms, you are buying a sixth-of-a-gram sprinkle of each, and no trial has tested that. The same is true of RYZE's blend and of most mushroom coffees, including the lion's mane in our own tub, which is why we print the amount and let you judge it.

Two more things the page claims. "64% of users felt their daily energy levels improve after consistent use within 12 weeks or less" is a customer survey with a footnote marker and no method on the page; it is a satisfaction figure, not a placebo-controlled result¹. And "jitter-free, all-day energy" is true in the sense that 5 mg of caffeine gives no jitters; it also gives no lift. Alertness, vigilance and reaction time improve from about 40 mg of caffeine upwards in the research record²⁶, and a cup of Beyond Brew is an eighth of that.

How much caffeine is in Beyond Brew?

About 5 mg a serving, by the brand, against roughly 95 mg in an 8 oz cup of brewed coffee by USDA's table¹²⁷, which is where the "one twentieth" line comes from. The 2024 page said 7 mg⁶. Either way the practical answer is the same: Beyond Brew has no caffeine effect to speak of. That cuts both ways.

• At night: 400 mg of caffeine taken six hours before bed measurably disturbed sleep in a controlled study²⁸; 5 mg does not come close. Beyond Brew in the evening is fine on caffeine grounds, and the brand sells it partly on that.
• Switching from coffee: Beyond Brew will not spare you caffeine withdrawal. Headache, fatigue and low mood follow abstinence from habitual doses as low as 100 mg a day²⁹. If you move from two coffees to Beyond Brew in one step, expect a few rough days; stepping down over a week or two is the gentler route.
• Stirred into coffee: the brand's "coffee enhancement" use puts the scoop into your own cup, in which case the caffeine is your coffee's and the cacao makes it a mocha. The mushrooms, the fibre and the probiotic ride along unchanged.
• Daily limit: the European safety assessment puts 400 mg a day and 200 mg in one sitting as the lines for healthy adults³⁰. Beyond Brew does not move you toward either. Our guide to how much caffeine is in mushroom coffee, by brand has the rest of the market.

What does Beyond Brew taste like?

Like a lightly sweetened hot chocolate with a little spice, not like coffee. The base is cacao with ginger and cinnamon behind the flavouring, the sweetness is from a stevia glycoside, and the brand describes the Original as "a rich cacao flavor", the Caramel Macchiato as "smooth, sweet caramel" and the Vanilla Latte as "vanilla and cacao"¹. The directions are two teaspoons in 8 to 12 fl oz of hot or cold water or milk, or into coffee¹. The reviews on the brand's own widget praise the taste and how it mixes; a few note they could not tell whether it had done anything, which is consistent with the dose arithmetic above¹. If what you want is coffee that tastes like coffee, our guide to what mushroom coffee tastes like sorts the market by base, and Beyond Brew is in the cacao column with MUD\WTR.

Beyond Brew side effects

Few, and mostly from the fibre rather than the mushrooms. In order of likelihood:

• Gas, bloating or looser stools in the first week. Three grams of a soluble fibre plus a probiotic is a small gut change, and the brand's own FAQ warns of "mild digestive changes" for people new to it¹. The gum arabic trial found no complaints at 5 to 40 g a day¹¹, so this should settle. Our guide to why mushroom coffee makes you poop covers the coffee version of this, which Beyond Brew does not share, since it has no coffee acids and almost no caffeine.
• Mushroom allergy. Rare but real; mushrooms are antigenically rich and a sensitised person can react to small amounts³¹. Anyone allergic to mushrooms should skip all six.
• Reishi and blood thinners. Reishi extract inhibited platelet aggregation in a study of volunteers and patients taking 1 g three times a day for two weeks³²; the share here is far smaller, but people on anticoagulants should ask their doctor rather than guess.
• Reishi and the liver. Two case reports describe liver injury, one fatal, after weeks of reishi powder at supplement doses³³³⁴. These are rare events at far higher intakes than a share of 522 mg; they are the reason to stop and see a doctor if you ever notice dark urine or yellowing while taking any mushroom product.
• Chaga and kidney stones. Chaga is high in oxalate, and the kidney cases above involved 10 to 15 g of powder a day for months²²²⁴. A third share of 522 mg of extract is a different order of magnitude, but a history of oxalate stones is a reason to prefer a product without chaga.
• Pregnancy and breastfeeding. No human data on any of the six mushrooms in pregnancy; the brand says to check with a provider, and so do we¹.
• What it will not do: raise your blood pressure, speed your heart or keep you awake. Those are caffeine effects, and there is almost none. The caffeine side effects people search for under "Beyond Brew side effects" belong to coffee; our mushroom coffee side effects guide covers them for the coffees.

Beyond Brew price per cup, and the guarantee

Prices from the brand's store on 26 October 2026¹. That makes Beyond Brew cheaper per cup than RYZE at list ($45 for 30, $1.50)³⁵, MUD\WTR ($50 for 30, $1.67)³⁶ and Alphacino ($49.97 for 30, $1.67, or $1.50 in the three pack)⁵, and about level with Cuppa, which was 97 cents to $1.30 a cup on the day we read it³⁷. Remember what you are paying for: a cacao drink with a small mushroom blend, not a coffee. The 365-day guarantee is the longest in the category by a wide margin (RYZE and Cuppa give 30 days, Alphacino 60), with two conditions in the refund policy: you need a return authorisation from customer service first, and you pay the return shipping¹. Subscriptions ship every 30, 60, 90, 120 or 180 days and can be paused or cancelled by phone, email or online¹.

Beyond Brew vs RYZE

This is the comparison people search for most, and it is a comparison between two different kinds of drink. RYZE is an organic instant arabica coffee with a six-mushroom blend, coconut milk and MCT oil at 48 mg of caffeine a serving³⁵. Beyond Brew is cacao with a six-mushroom blend, fibre and a probiotic at about 5 mg¹. Neither prints a dose for any single mushroom.

Pick Beyond Brew if you are leaving caffeine, you like hot chocolate, and you want fibre in the cup. Pick RYZE if you want a mild coffee that still tastes like coffee and gives you a modest lift. On the mushrooms there is nothing to choose: both are undisclosed blends, and both are small. Our RYZE review reads RYZE's label line by line.

Beyond Brew vs MUD\WTR and Cuppa

MUD\WTR is Beyond Brew's closest relative: a cacao or masala chai base, no coffee, 35 to 45 mg of caffeine from the tea and cacao, and a 2,240 to 2,250 mg blend of chaga, reishi, lion's mane and cordyceps that the label describes as "mushrooms and mycelium cultured on organic oats and/or organic sorghum"³⁶. MUD\WTR prints a larger blend weight; the catch is that mycelium grown on grain is weighed with the grain it grew on, so the number is not comparable with a fruiting-body extract, and MUD\WTR does not print a beta-glucan figure either. At $50 for 30 it is the dearest of the three. Beyond Brew is sweeter, lower in caffeine, cheaper, and adds fibre and a probiotic; MUD\WTR is spicier and more caffeinated. Our MUD\WTR review has the full label.

Cuppa is a coffee, not a cacao drink: 100% arabica instant at about 70 mg of caffeine, two fruiting-body mushroom extracts printed as 8:1 equivalents (250 mg of extract), 250 mg of KSM-66 ashwagandha and 100 mg of L-theanine, at 97 cents to $1.30 a cup on the day we read it³⁷. Against Beyond Brew it has more caffeine, more disclosure, and two ingredients, ashwagandha and L-theanine, with trials at or near its doses. If you searched "Beyond Brew vs Cuppa", the question to answer first is whether you want coffee at all; if you do, Cuppa, and our Cuppa review reads it label to label.

Beyond Brew vs Alphacino, label to label

Where Beyond Brew wins. It is almost caffeine-free, so it suits the evening, the caffeine-sensitive and anyone stepping away from coffee. It brings 3 g of fibre and a probiotic, which no coffee does. It is cheaper per cup, comes in three flavours, and gives you a year to change your mind¹.

Where Alphacino wins. It is coffee, with 100 mg of caffeine and 100 mg of L-theanine, a pairing with its own trial record for attention and reduced jitteriness³⁸. Every dose is printed, including 500 mg of lion's mane fruiting-body extract, so you are not reading label order. And it carries 600 mg of KSM-66 ashwagandha, the dose that lowered stress scores and cortisol against placebo over 60 days³⁹, which Beyond Brew does not contain at all⁵. Its lion's mane is still below the gram doses of the trials, as every coffee's is; the difference is that you know the number.

Who should pick which

Beyond Brew if you want a sweet cacao drink with almost no caffeine, you value the fibre and the long guarantee, and you are content that the six mushrooms are a small, undisclosed blend. It is a good hot chocolate with a wellness label; judge it as that.

RYZE or Cuppa if you want a coffee with less caffeine than usual; Cuppa if you also want printed mushroom figures and ashwagandha.

Alphacino if you are a man who wants a full cup of coffee carrying ingredients at doses with trials behind them: the full KSM-66 dose for stress, L-theanine against the caffeine, and every amount on the tub. Judge the ashwagandha at eight weeks, which is how long its trial ran, not at seven days.

Where Alphacino fits

We do not make a cacao drink, and we will not pretend Alphacino is one. It is an instant robusta coffee built around the question this review keeps asking: how much of each ingredient is in the cup? Each scoop prints its answer: 100 mg of caffeine with 100 mg of L-theanine, 600 mg of KSM-66 ashwagandha, 500 mg of lion's mane fruiting-body extract, 224 mg of black maca and 50 mg of S7, at 10 calories⁵. It is $49.97 for 30 cups with a 60-day money-back guarantee, which covers the eight weeks the ashwagandha needs. If you are leaving caffeine altogether, Beyond Brew is the better fit and we would rather say so than sell you the wrong jar. If you want your coffee to carry a trial dose of something, the evidence for each ingredient is in KSM-66 ashwagandha for men, lion's mane for men and what S7 is, and the tub is on the product page.

Frequently asked questions

Is Beyond Brew actually coffee?

No. The brand's FAQ says Beyond Brew does not contain coffee. It is an organic cacao drink mix with six mushroom extracts, acacia fibre and a probiotic, sold as a coffee alternative or as something to stir into your own coffee.

How much caffeine is in Beyond Brew?

About 5 mg a serving, by the brand, from the cacao; roughly one twentieth of an 8 oz brewed coffee. The 2024 version of the page said 7 mg. At that level there is no caffeine effect to expect, for good or ill.

What mushrooms are in Beyond Brew, and how much?

Lion's mane, reishi, chaga, Cordyceps sinensis, Cordyceps militaris and turkey tail, as one blend of 522 mg of 4:1 extracts a serving. The label lists them in descending order of weight and gives no figure for any one of them.

Is Beyond Brew good for you?

It is a 20-calorie, sugar-free cacao drink with 3 g of fibre, which is a reasonable thing to drink. The mushroom amounts are well below every human trial dose, so the health claims attached to the mushrooms are not something the evidence supports at this size.

Does Beyond Brew have side effects?

Mild gut changes in the first week from the fibre and probiotic are the most likely. People with a mushroom allergy, on blood thinners (reishi), with a history of oxalate kidney stones (chaga), or who are pregnant should ask a doctor first. It will not cause jitters, a racing heart or lost sleep, because there is almost no caffeine.

Beyond Brew or RYZE?

Beyond Brew if you want a near caffeine-free cacao drink with fibre; RYZE if you want a mild coffee at 48 mg of caffeine. Neither prints a dose for any single mushroom.

Where can you buy Beyond Brew, and what does it cost?

From the brand's own store at $39 a jar of 30 servings ($1.30 a cup), $37.05 to $29.25 a jar on subscription, with a 365-day money-back guarantee that requires a return authorisation and your own return postage. It also appears on third-party marketplaces, where the price and the formula date can differ.

Can you drink Beyond Brew every day, or at night?

Yes to both. The brand's directions are one serving a day, and with about 5 mg of caffeine it will not disturb sleep. If you are replacing coffee with it, step down over a week or two to avoid caffeine withdrawal headaches.

Sources

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35. RYZE Superfoods. Mushroom Coffee product page and FAQ, read 26 September 2026 for our RYZE review, with the list price re-read 26 October 2026. ryzesuperfoods.com
36. MUD\WTR. Product pages and Supplement Facts panels for :rise Cacao and :rise Masala Chai, read 19 October 2026 for our MUD\WTR review. mudwtr.com
37. Better Cuppa. Cuppa mushroom coffee product page, ingredient footnote and FAQ, read 26 September 2026 for our Cuppa review. bettercuppa.com
38. Haskell, C. F., et al. (2008). The effects of L-theanine, caffeine and their combination on cognition and mood. Biological Psychology, 77(2), 113 to 122. doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2007.09.008
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