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Key Takeaways
- Athletic Brewing turned America’s #1 non-alcoholic beer by eliminating the stigma round non-alcoholic beer.
- The corporate created social proof by partnering with elite athletes like JJ Watt and Naomi Osaka and touchdown on 22% of Michelin-starred menus nationwide.
- It turned Dry January clients into year-round consumers by providing a guilt-free choice that matches fashionable life.
Invoice Shufelt cherished beer. He cherished sports activities bars, eating places, and the ritual of cracking open a chilly one with pals. However he didn’t love the best way beer made him really feel. The alcohol was having detrimental results on his well being and his productiveness.
Shufelt stopped consuming in 2013, however he was annoyed by the dearth of great-tasting non-alcoholic beer choices obtainable to him on the time. After years of analysis and enterprise planning, in 2017, Shufelt co-founded Athletic Brewing Firm with John Walker, and the pair got down to resolve an issue that had plagued the beer trade for years: Develop a spread of full-flavored non-alcoholic beers that individuals would really be proud to drink.
For too lengthy, non-alcoholic beer carried a stigma. Ordering one at a bar signaled you is perhaps an alcoholic or in restoration. The class’s legacy manufacturers didn’t assist. They tasted horrible and got here with an implicit declaration that you simply had an issue.
“I simply wished a scrumptious non-alcoholic beer that I’d be psyched to carry up with the label exhibiting,” Shufelt says.
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Constructing a class chief
After creating a proprietary brewing course of and experimenting with a whole bunch of trial batches, the duo launched their brews commercially in mid-2018. Concurrently, they raised a $2.95 million angel spherical (led by Shufelt and his spouse) that included over 66 angel buyers and enabled them to construct the primary devoted NA brewery and taproom in America.
“The imaginative and prescient began for me so authentically in my life that it actually nonetheless energizes me on daily basis,” Shufelt says.
Athletic Brewing offered simply 875 barrels in its first yr. In 2026, now ranked as America’s #1 non-alcoholic beer model with 18.6% market share, the corporate expects to surpass 500,000 barrels. Athletic is not only a frontrunner within the NA beer phase, it was additionally ranked because the eighth largest craft brewery and 18th largest general brewing firm within the nation in 2024.
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How they received there
Athletic Brewing began with a easy premise: make non-alcoholic beer that really tastes good. The corporate’s brewing workforce has gained 185 style awards. Two of its hottest brews—Run Wild IPA and Free Wave Hazy IPA—rank among the many high 20 best-selling IPAs in America, competing instantly with alcoholic beers.
However Shufelt’s actual breakthrough was utterly reframing what non-alcoholic beer may imply. As a substitute of hiding it, he made it aspirational.
The technique was deliberate: connect the model to elite athletes, Michelin-starred cooks, and earn prestigious awards for style and high quality. Celeb buyers and ambassadors embrace NFL star JJ Watt, bicycle owner Lance Armstrong, tennis champion Naomi Osaka, and chef David Chang. As we speak, Athletic seems on 22% of Michelin-starred menus nationwide.
It labored. The corporate constructed what Shufelt calls “a really well-armed quantity of social proof” that gave individuals permission to drink non-alcoholic beer proudly.
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Past Dry January
Athletic’s January marketing campaign drives large buyer acquisition, however these individuals even have the best retention charges of the yr.
“They understand they’re consuming virtually fully non-alcoholic beer as a result of it matches in so many events of their life,” Shufelt says. “It looks like a responsible indulgence—scrumptious, tremendous low calorie, not intoxicating, however nonetheless stress-free.”
And it’s not simply the abstinence crowd. 80% of its clients nonetheless devour alcohol on some events, and the corporate sees one other main spike the week after the Tremendous Bowl, proving the enchantment extends far past Dry January resolutions.
The technique works as a result of Shufelt isn’t asking individuals to declare they’re sober or make everlasting commitments. He’s simply giving them a more healthy choice that matches into their precise lives. “Athletic is beer for the fashionable grownup,” he says.
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The lengthy sport
Shufelt’s ambition extends far past constructing America’s largest non-alcoholic brewing firm. He’s making an attempt to alter what consuming means in American tradition.
“I’m actually making an attempt to interrupt down the post-prohibition stigmas that also exist,” he says. “We need to be sure individuals really feel like they don’t must declare that they’re sober or how a lot they drink or after they drink or after they don’t.”
His final imaginative and prescient? “That by the point my children flip 21, the phrase sober is simply completely irrelevant.”
The market is shifting in that path. A file 53% of Individuals now imagine consuming one to 2 drinks per day is dangerous for one’s well being, up 14 proportion factors since 2023. Practically half of Individuals try to drink much less alcohol in 2025. When Athletic launched in 2018, non-alcoholic beer accounted for simply 0.3% of complete beer gross sales. As we speak it’s over 3% at grocery shops—and has grown at a 30% CAGR since 2020.
Athletic now operates customized breweries in Connecticut and California with a mixed capability of over 1 million barrels. Its beers can be found at greater than 75,000 retail places nationwide, and the corporate has expanded to the U.Okay., Canada, and components of Europe.
Slowly however absolutely, Athletic is reframing the whole class from one month of abstinence to a lifetime of moderation.
Key Takeaways
- Athletic Brewing turned America’s #1 non-alcoholic beer by eliminating the stigma round non-alcoholic beer.
- The corporate created social proof by partnering with elite athletes like JJ Watt and Naomi Osaka and touchdown on 22% of Michelin-starred menus nationwide.
- It turned Dry January clients into year-round consumers by providing a guilt-free choice that matches fashionable life.
Invoice Shufelt cherished beer. He cherished sports activities bars, eating places, and the ritual of cracking open a chilly one with pals. However he didn’t love the best way beer made him really feel. The alcohol was having detrimental results on his well being and his productiveness.
Shufelt stopped consuming in 2013, however he was annoyed by the dearth of great-tasting non-alcoholic beer choices obtainable to him on the time. After years of analysis and enterprise planning, in 2017, Shufelt co-founded Athletic Brewing Firm with John Walker, and the pair got down to resolve an issue that had plagued the beer trade for years: Develop a spread of full-flavored non-alcoholic beers that individuals would really be proud to drink.
