Yeah, and I have to say, so I did become an athletic Brewing Company ambassador, I like to put in the application because I’m like the biggest fan. And I got accepted and joined the group and was totally impressed and thoroughly intimidated because the people in the group introducing themselves are like, ultra-runners and world champion skin, boarders, and hikers and climbers and Iron Men, which is totally inspirational. Like, wow, I’m a little out of my league. But I love that they’re, you know, I would say a lot of people say, Oh, my, I’m two years sober. I’m five years sober and athletic was amazing in helping me adopt that lifestyle. Other ones are just like, hey, I love drinking athletic gear, because I want to be a better athlete or improve my recovery or have quicker race times, and all of that stuff.

 

21:02

Yeah, and the ambassador team is incredible. I mean, the caliber of athletes on our athletic rosters amazing. And on our team, even one of our brewers is had one of the fastest ultra-marathon times in the country in 2018. And Olympian, Molly Seidel, was actually to win the bronze medal at Tokyo in the marathon, but she was actually on our ambassador team. And she won the USO, or the US Olympic trial marathon out of the blue totally. And so it’s an amazing group of athletes of all different skills and professions and, but we also like to say everyone’s an athlete, like I’m, like, I love to consider myself an athlete, but I’m like a total sightseer compared to all these elite athletes and, like I can run forever, but it’s at a super, super slow speed. And I’ll do any workout out there and just happy to do it with a smile on my face. And, but even like, beyond athletics, like we like to say, everyone’s an athlete in all sorts of different ways. And the word athletic is just meant to more be positive and inclusive, where 50% of adults don’t really drink and are like, kind of cut out of like great social occasions that, like kind are built around alcohol. And so we’re excited to welcome them into those occasions. And so everyone’s an athlete, it’s kind of one of our sayings.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  22:31

Yeah, I first I read that, that in your research, you said that 50% of people don’t really drink or barely drink it. First of all, I found that incredibly hard to believe, right? Because I was like, a bottle of wine a night girl seven nights a week, a lot of my friends Drake’s house like, seriously, 50% of adults don’t really drink. And that’s, that’s kind of amazing.

 

22:57

It blew my mind too. And I think beer advertising would have us have believed that 98% of people drink like a beer at night or whatever, glass of wine. And it really is that 80% of the alcohol is consumed by 20% of the people that that caught me so off guard, I’m part of that group.

 

23:18

Yeah, for sure. And I quit. I definitely was too. And it took me like slowing down my drinking and like reflecting on it to like, look at how much more I was drinking than a lot of people do. And, and also realizing that like one of my biggest realizations was that people didn’t care how much I drank. Yeah. And so and then I liked buying drinks more than ever, like drinking them myself, too. And it’s also like, not really, our goal is to like not really sacrifice and have it be about the alcohol, like, like one of the big things about our beers is actually right now I’m drinking a coffee stout, but this is like such a afternoon treat where it’s like a little coffee pick me up. It’s an interesting beverage and, but like so much of like drinking is centered around like stress relief for helping sleep or something like that, and where it’s really stress relief to just like go through the ritual of like having your favorite drink or your favorite beer or your favorite cocktail or even outside of athletic products. There’s amazing like aperitifs and stuff like pee, and stuff like that. So it’s that ritual of like grabbing an IPA to have with your tacos. And it’s not necessarily about the alcohol. It’s about having a good drink and good food and relaxing with your family and stuff. And then you can have the whole ritual and then feel good in the morning and get a good night’s sleep as well.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  24:43

Yeah, I have I work with women who typically are just starting to stop drinking like they’ve tried to moderate for years and have gotten like, two weeks or a month or a couple days and then always gone back to drinking so I work with them sort of in the first 100 days. Have not drinking alcohol and sort of getting them to that point. So they get out of the really hard part and start feeling great and want to keep going. And for a lot of them, it’s really about habit change, right? So you get to five o’clock or six o’clock, and you’re used to getting your happy hour drink. And so the substitution of opening it any beer or a different beverage really helps them right, because psychologically, you’re like, Oh, I’m having my happier drink. I’m just not getting the negative physical effects of alcohol. And you’re typically not drinking six of them, you know what I mean?

 

25:40

For sure, yeah. And it’s about like making those special rituals for sure. I, I definitely agree with you. It’s not about like depriving you of like one of your favorite parts of your day. You have like, definitely got to replace that with something. And it could be like, so if you’re used to having a glass of wine at five o’clock, so you could have a beer and a piece of chocolate or something, or like something special that like really makes that a great moment for you. I’m definitely a huge believer in that. Yeah, something I did after I stopped drinking was, so like, Friday nights. It used to be like, Oh, you’d like leave work and have a beer or drinks. And like it was, it was like the start to the weekend. I had Friday night, I would, after work, I would meet up with like a group of people who don’t drink and get a good bite to eat and hang out. So it’s like still a social thing on Fridays that I could look forward to. And it wasn’t like, Oh, here’s why I started missing out or anything like that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  26:37

Yeah, yeah. And I think that the more people who get used to nonalcoholic beer and have it and try it, it’s sort of seamless. You know, some people want to have an alcoholic drink. Some people don’t. I have to say I had a birthday party here this summer. And you know, Coronavirus, it was sort of one of our first big gatherings outside, and firepit and all that kind of good stuff. And I just had like, three coolers we had a cooler like labeled like alcoholic drinks. And then we had a cooler labeled nonalcoholic drinks. And we had all the athletic and some groovy Prosecco and bubbly, Rosé and stuff like that. And then we had like, the kid’s drinks, right? So everything that was great for kids, and it was just awesome. People can just go and grab it. And I actually did it taste testing for a lot of my friends who drank with all the different athletic, nonalcoholic beers. And they were like, Oh, this is actually really good.

 

27:35

I love it. So a lot of adults were already looking for an alcoholic drink, too. I think they just weren’t always socially available or available at grocery stores and stuff to like, people didn’t know what to buy in those occasions. Even before this category started to take off, I did a bunch of Google Surveys before I quit my job. And in every survey, it was like 55% of adults would say I would love a good nonalcoholic beverage, I would love a good nonalcoholic beer if it just tastes good or didn’t have the stigma. But at the time, like despite 55% of people saying they would want it only 0.3% of the beer market was not an alcoholic beer. And so there’s this huge gap between what people want.

 

28:23

Yeah, and so it’s like almost nonexistent. And so there’s this like, huge gap between like what people wanted and what the industry is providing. So I think had a cooler, like you’re suggesting have been there a lot of parties in the past, I think people would have been excited to find it. But like kind of the industry just didn’t know people were looking for it.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:44

Yeah. And you had mentioned so you said that the nonalcoholic beer market hadn’t seen any new innovation or new products in like 25 or 30 years. But in Europe, there’s a big market for nonalcoholic beers. And I noticed that I went to Amsterdam a couple summers ago with my husband. And first of all amazing nonalcoholic beers and every restaurant you go to, but I went to my cousin’s house with her husband. And she didn’t know I quit drinking. I hadn’t seen her in a number of years. And we were staying with them. And they just sort of were like, oh, yeah, do you want a nonalcoholic beer when I told her and I was like, you have it in your fridge? She’s like, Oh, yeah, well, we just like to have it around. Because sometimes we feel like drinking something but don’t want the alcohol and in the US that would like to blow my mind that someone who is a drinker would just keep nonalcoholic beer around.

 

29:40

Yeah, it’s amazing that it’s an it’s funny in Europe and alcoholic beer market is so much bigger. And it’s not necessarily that the options are like so much better. A lot of them are very straightforward lager offerings, similar to some of the US offerings. And but I think it’s the stigma in society really were in the US, we’ve had alcohol taken away and prohibition. And so there was this, like, major marketing push back on that, and the place in society, and we’re in Europe, there’s this culture of moderation. And children like learning how to drink gradually. And like I’ve had friend, some of my friends in high school, one of them grew up in Belgium, and then moved to the US in high school. And he couldn’t believe that we drank Jägermeister as a shot, he was like, I sit this with my grandmother like, and they didn’t really like, understand drinking to get drunk. Yeah, and like, there’s like the French cafe culture where like, you drink a beer with lunch. And then you could have multiple beers with lunch, and then go back to work and stuff. So yeah, it’s such a different culture. And I’m so that’s exactly the kind of barriers we’re trying to knock down in the US. It’s like, weather, like taking the separating the word drinking from alcohol. Just like you’re just drinking something you’re excited about individually, regardless of the functional ingredients inside it.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  31:12

Yeah, definitely. Because you know, a lot of people, especially in the early days, get completely like deer in the headlights, when someone is like, oh, we should go for a drink. And part of working through that is saying, that is just shorthand for I want to hang out with you after work and talk it you know, beer does not necessarily equal an alcoholic drink, you can drink anything with them, and you know, have a good time and have the same experience. So like you said, that’s just part of separating in our mind that having a drink going out to dinner, happier equals alcohol in your glass, it’s just a beverage.

 

31:54

I totally agree. Yeah, it’s like, whatever you’re excited about whatever you’re in the mood for. And like they, people really just want to have someone there to like, talk to hear them. And it’s about the human to human connection and having something in your hand that you’re excited about as part of that. But the alcohol isn’t really necessarily, I always like one of my biggest reflections too, as I stopped drinking was like, so many of my favorite beers like that I had. And like when you like, first get to a bar and see a friend that you haven’t seen in a long time. Or when you like, when I like to get to a bar and see my brother, or at the finish line of a race have a beer, it like none of those moments have anything to do with alcohol at all. It has everything to do about the person, you’re with the ingredients in the glass and everything like that. And the rituals humans have been going through for 1000s of years. And alcohol affects you down the line two or three hours. But that’s not like this moment. And so that was a big realization for me to say that. Like alcohol wasn’t actually like the functional ingredient in the moment. I often thought it was.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  33:09

Yeah, well, and not only that, I mean, one of the big things that you are sort of addressing is the fact that alcohol is a really big issue for a lot of people. I mean, you know, within the last 1520 years, alcohol use has sort of gone off the charts. And I think I read in one of your statistics that in 2016 14% of deaths among people 20 to 39, were attributable to alcohol. And in 2019 there were 14 point 5 million people aged 12 and up with an alcohol use disorder in the pandemic that’s just gotten even worse than I know that for women and older people, the alcohol use and binge drinking is going off the charts. Like that’s the largest growth group of people drinking a lot or nightly. So the fact that nonalcoholic beer and all the other amazing nonalcoholic drinks are more widely available is also helpful to people who are like, Gosh, I really need to reevaluate my relationship with alcohol. I need to cut it out. But I’m surrounded by it constantly.

 

34:25

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and all those stats are great, or they’re not great for. And there’s, I read a start somewhere recently, too, that like 36% of people in jail were under the influence of alcohol when they committed their crimes and it’s something like 54% under drugs or alcohol. And I like also reflecting like, when I stopped drinking, it was like such a performance unlock like my sleep was so much better and you miss those whole like days where it’s If you have like three drinks, and then eat poorly, you sleep poorly. That kind of builds on itself for like three days where you don’t or like two or three days. And it is so much easier to stay on track with sleeping, eating, productivity and work and like chipping away at products and working out and communication. And like removing alcohol like removed like 95% of these like distractions that were like so avoidable in my wife and I still like it. I still have plenty of cheat meals and ice cream and everything. And it’s like, but there’s so many calories that I’ve replaced to that. Plug in the with the average beer probably being like around 150 calories or the average glass of wine probably being closer to 300 calories. Like if you swap out three to six drinks a week. There’s a lot of extra calories you can mix in for cookies and ice cream and fun stuff as well.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  36:02

Yeah, um, my favorite, I was going to ask you what your favorite athletic Brewing Company beers are. So just because we were doing this interview, I’m kidding. I brought out like my four favorites. So I’ve got upside Dawn, which is golden. And that one’s only 50 calories and you’re totally right. I’m outside with my husband by the fire pit and pick up his beer and I’m like, oh my god, this is 190 calories. You know, so huge difference. And I love your light copper this cerveza Athletica, and the run wild. That one is awesome. The IPA and I’ve got the closer by the mile, which is a different nonalcoholic IPA. So what’s your favorite? Or do you have a couple?

 

36:46

Definitely some of those there. Ron Wilds. Definitely my favorite. It’s probably like 70% of the beer I drink. And it’s like a classic West Coast IPA. And it’s definitely our most popular and most highly awarded beer. And it’s one of the first beers we brewed. So I definitely love that beer. I love that closer by the mile charitable beer you have there. Those proceeds all go to support Dana Farber Cancer Institute as part of the pan mass challenge. And that beer just won a pretty big award recently at the Great American Beer Festival to Oh, I love that it supports cancer research, because my husband is always like, Oh, dude, you’re such a downer. But we go to he works at a private school. And every year they have their like, you know, coaches against cancer or sports games, where everybody’s sort of donating to breast cancer, and everybody wears pink and the ribbons, which is all amazing. And they do these giant gift baskets, which are filled with wine. And I’m just leaning over to be like, yeah, that’s kind of bullshit. You know, like, I think you literally don’t know the connection between alcohol and cancer and just the contribution and how much it raises your risk. But it’s always been very counterintuitive to me when all these alcohol brands are doing, you know, breast cancer month activities and on their jerseys and everything else.

 

38:15

Yeah. And so yeah, we definitely tried to do our part for sure. But yeah, the risk between alcohol as a carcinogen is definitely really real. I’m trying to in terms of my other favorite beers we made, I mean, so we’ve released over 50 beers this year. I think one of my favorites recently was a blueberry IPA, we did. That was really fun. But we have a really exciting light beer coming up to which we’re excited to release Davar on, but that’ll be coming up really soon. But that’s about 25 or 30 calories, too, which will be a really fun beer coming up.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  38:54

That’ll be awesome. Well, so how do you know, with your beers, it seems like you’ve got a couple staples, and then you also have seasonal releases? How does that work?

 

39:07

Um, so really, a lot of it is it’s from the community, like we take a lot of feedback of what people want. And the great thing is we have our own breweries, and we have all different sides tanks from like three-and-a-half-barrel pilot systems that are basically like only up to like my chest off the ground 200 barrel tanks, which you can probably see in the background here. But those Yeah, hold over 24,000 beers and, um, and so it’s we can do it any size all over the map. But we just get inspiration or ideas from either our community or brewers and we can try stuff at the super small end and if it tastes good, we scale it up and share it with our community or Taproom and take feedback on that. Like for example, this Coffee sad I’m drinking right now first ride. One of our burgers in San Diego tried 20 different local coffee companies and roasters, and basically did sensory and taste tests with all the coffee and we chose our favorite coffee. And then that is what made it into the first dried coffee Porter has tried to local coffee. Or someone else on our team the other day was like, you know, we haven’t done anything with ginger yet. And so started him and the lead of our lab process stuff a ton of ginger, and they made both a ginger sour and a ginger IPA on the small system. And we’re gonna see how that tastes in a couple of weeks. But there’s like always, like, fun experimentation going on. And the ideas come from everywhere.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  40:45

That’s very cool. Well, so I actually don’t know, how do you make nonalcoholic beer? And how is it different than your typical craft brew?

 

40:55

Yeah, so it all starts with like nonalcoholic beer. Traditionally, there hadn’t been much pot to ingredients, selection, process, marketing, anything really, it was just like a boilerplate product that got blasts out to the market and was like cheapest possible at every turn. We wanted to just elevate nonalcoholic beer to like an amazing taste and experience. And that all starts with the ingredient selection. We use organic the animal, which is super high quality, Hardy malt as the base malt for all of our beer. And then the hops real resource mostly from the Pacific Northwest and the Optima Valley, up near you in Washington. And just recently, our teams went to the hop harvest on both coasts, in both the Northwest and up in Maine. We support a couple hop growers out there as well but did our hops selection for the year ahead. But those are two of the main ingredients. In the beer, it’s just water, hops, barley, and yeast. So it’s for clean ingredients super easy. And rather than brew most nonalcoholic beers made by brewing a full-strength beer, and then it’s run through an aggressive process that de alkalizes it. And that could either be burning off the alcohol or aggressively filtering it out. And a lot of the like delicacies of fermentation and br Last, when you do those processes, at athletic, we don’t have one step, but we have like 10 different steps that kind of a mosaic of changes, if you will, where we brew a fully fermented beer that below 0.5%. So it has all the nuances and byproducts of fermentation, like the esters and aromas. And so, yeah, it’s a much more delicate process and traditional nonalcoholic beer, but it’s a, we do own all our own brewery. So like we own quality from ingredient selection to brewing, the beer fermenting, packaging, and lab and sensory so like, we take a lot of pride in our quality from end to end.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  43:08

Yeah, and it definitely I mean, you know, some other ones I’ve tried years ago, tastes really watery or metallic or, you know, just not as good as the ones that you’re making.

 

43:22

Oh, thank you. Yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s an industry up and coming. So there’s a work cited for more and more new entrants to becoming into the category and like the whole category to be elevated with better offerings. You mentioned a couple of exciting ones earlier that it’s fun to see like the whole category grow. And we have a lot of friends and then district.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  43:42

Yeah. So what kind of growth Have you seen?

 

43:47

Um, well, I think the tailwinds of the industry are really just natural to the population seeking like healthier, more mindful offerings. And it like kind of jives with, like health habits of the population as a whole, and especially Gen Z and millennials are really drinking less and less every generation. And I kind of saw that over the evolution of my financial career where I was in finance for 12 years before I left to start athletic. And in the beginning, it was everyone was going out to work dinners four nights a week and drinking and coming in hungover and all bad. And it really changed to a mindset over towards the end where the client events were equally as likely to be at a SoulCycle or workout studio as they were Steakhouse. And I think that’s evidence of a trend going on in broader society. But yeah, the nonalcoholic beer category has grown over, so it hadn’t really grown in 30 years. And then since 2018, it’s grown to over 400%. And the craft nonalcoholic beer category has been the fastest growing category and beer for the last three years and Athletic brewing has been the fastest growing brewery in the country. alcoholic or not the last two years. Oh, really? That’s easy, which has been really fun. Yeah. As like, everyone’s, like, it was this idea that like, no one thought at any potential and like, now we’re outgrowing like any brewery in the country and some fun. But it really is like, it’s great to like, bring a growth driver to the industry, too.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:27

Yeah. And I you know, I love how you said earlier, when we were chatting, you said you were nonalcoholic beer was always in the penalty box. And that cracks me up cuz I think you went to college in Vermont. So are you a big hockey fan?

 

45:43

Yeah, our hockey team at Middlebury was great, too. So it was a lot of fun going to all those games and up there, there was amazing crappie are everywhere, too. That’s really where I fell in love with beer. But so many like the early pioneers and beer were up there are in craft beer, like, long trail, Magic Hat Alchemist and a number of others.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  46:05

Yeah, that’s awesome. I actually played ice hockey in high school. So I was like, oh, yeah, the penalty box. That’s perfect.

 

46:13

Yeah, no, it’s very real. For sure. It was a really weird feeling like stopping drinking, and then just not having anything to order. And it was always such an awkward experience when like, a waiter would come over and ask like, take like a whole table’s orders and that aspect code, you have any nonalcoholic beer, or nonalcoholic drinks. And they’d be like, what? I need to be like, nonalcoholic beer. And they’d be like, maybe I’ll go check. And like, the whole table would go on hold while they go like check. And it just made me feel like, I don’t have such an alien and outsider and definitely wanted to, like lower the bar towards making those healthy choices.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  46:54

Yeah, absolutely. I remember I went to an Italian restaurant around me and you know, sometimes that those restaurants I always order you know, a nonalcoholic Mojito that, you know, I think it tastes amazing. And they all know how to make Mojito shows and stuff. So the guy brings out my husband’s drink in mind. And he was like, here’s your fake Mojito. And I was just like, What the hell? It’s just a non you know, why is it fake? Anyway, that totally pissed me off. Yeah. But it is cool.

 

47:25

I had one like really similar experience where I was in LA, which has like an amazing food scene and 2019 pre COVID that I was at a really good Italian restaurant. And I was so excited about the meal. And then I was like, what nonalcoholic drinks do you have? Do you have like an alcoholic cocktail menu or nonalcoholic beers? And the guy was like, No. And he was like, we have like diet soda. And I was like, Oh my goodness. I was like this is it’s like such a bad pairing for food. Yeah, when they don’t have good nonalcoholic drinks. And it’s like, I almost feel so exclusionary and low. Yeah, any parents are so important.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  48:06

Like I love that. And also the other thing I found is that typically waiters and waitresses are the ones who kind of give you that like deer in the headlights blank look, bartenders I’ve found are pretty amazing with nonalcoholic drinks. Like they’re used to making cocktails and trying different things and they actually think it’s fun when you ask for something without alcohol like a challenge.

 

48:33

Yeah, and a lot of bartenders don’t drink anymore also like It’s like they’re like they get sick of drinking too and like it’s kind of like the same groundhog day over and over again for them like drinking hungover drinking hungover and I totally agree and it’s like embarrassing for restaurants these days and I think what also I’ve seen much more of these days too is people going from alcoholic to nonalcoholic and like the same seating almost were so like that kind of like flex sobriety and a lot of ways or like the pace or drink also lowers the barrier to stopping drinking if like people in your group are both drinking and non-drinking, either in the same day or different days too.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  49:21

So, yeah, and I loved it when I saw athletic at my local grocery store right down the street my No it’s getting in more restaurants and lots of different places. How are you guys working on that?

 

49:33

Yeah, just kind of start a store and we’ve been really lucky with some great train partners and yeah, anyone from Whole Foods Trader Joe’s. Kroger BMO Total Wine like we’re trying to get out there everywhere.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  49:50

Yeah, well and also you can order online so just in case anyone’s interested because I’m, I’m an ambassador. If you go to athletic Brewing Company the.com And it’s your first order, you can enter in the code KC D 20. And you can get 20% off. So it’s my name, Casey letter D 20.

 

50:13

Oh, I’m going to use that for my next order.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  50:16

I think you get a good discount. So I think you’re okay. I’m a full price paying customer over here. I’ll definitely start.

 

50:23

Are you serious? You don’t get an ambassador discount or anything?

 

50:27

Oh, my God, I just started so much fear. I feel bad using it. So, that’s awesome. Well, so I heard you have your own podcast as well, the without compromise podcast. And I listened to the first episode, which was you being interviewed? And you said that the thing you’re most proud of in life is getting sober quitting drinking eight years ago? Can you tell us a little bit about that? Or why it’s so important to you?

 

50:59

Yeah, for sure. And Mason does an incredible job with the podcast getting on such good guests in all episodes, except that one. But yeah, it was really, it was such an unlock in productivity in my life, too. And it had been just like, such an unproductive habit. And it’s something that I should have realized so much earlier than I had. But it was just like such a habit. And it the world is a stressful place. And like, my job was super stressful. And it was so easy to keep drinking. And it was so hard socially to not drink and all those things. And I wish I’d seen it earlier. But I’m glad I saw it when I did. And in, in the years that followed by like, and even, like, immediately following. Like, my sleep improved so much. My relationship with my wife and like, our quality time was like higher quality and like it wasn’t always like centered around drinks and stuff. When I worked out, I felt like I wanted to accelerate the whole time. And one thing I noticed too, was like, like, yes, drinking alcohol would kind of like numb the stresses of the day. But it would also turn off my intellectual curiosity at night too. And when I stopped drinking, I had this intellectual curiosity turned back on and I haven’t had since like high school. And I found myself like going down like internet rabbit holes, and like education, like looking back on things that I hadn’t looked at in forever. And like the science behind athletic brewing was something I probably would have never explored had, I’ve been drinking style. And I definitely never would have picked up a textbook. And I probably read 10 times as many books since I stopped drinking. And so it’s, it’s definitely just overall been a really positive choice. And the funny thing is, I probably still drink just as much beer and I think I enjoy the beers more now. And the social situations when, in the final few years, my drinking, like when I would go on the bachelor party and see friends I haven’t seen in so long, if it was centered around a lot of drinking, like so much of that would be lost and not really remembered. Well. It’s quality time. But like, I’ve gotten on three or four bachelor parties sober and like when I see my friends, it’s like it’s such great time, like genuinely catching up and remembering those special moments and everything. So yeah, definitely all around a positive decision. And kind of as you were saying before, to like I made sure to replace it with things that I liked and not making it just like a deprivation or some traction from my life, but like something positive to really,

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  53:48

yeah, I can completely see that I did the same thing. I was sort of working full time with kids when I was drinking and sort of barely making it through the day and felt like I was just at the end of my rope, and then suddenly stopped drinking. And after I got through the difficult part. I suddenly had time and energy and curiosity to still work full time and have my kids and go back to coaching school and go on retreats and run a 10k and all these things that you know, I thought I had zero time for because my life was so busy and truly I was just losing three hours kind of every night not remembering shows or conversations and then being pretty hungover most days and just kind of barely getting through or overcompensating to function. And when you take all that away, suddenly you do have your intellectual curiosity back and you do feel well enough to go work out in the mornings and all that good stuff.

 

54:50

Yeah, it is an amazing feeling to having your feet hit the ground like ready for the challenges of a new day every day and yeah, I’ve loved the experience.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  55:02

Awesome. Well, anything else you want to share before we wrap up.

 

55:07

I don’t think so we covered a lot. I Yeah, it’s we’re just so excited about like what we have going on in the future. And, like we’re building another brewery in Connecticut, and more and more available all across the country, but so many fun events. And yeah, just having fun out there.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  55:24

Will you tell me about some of your most fun events, the ones you love that you guys participate in? Or that you’re really looking forward to?

 

55:34

Yeah, for sure. Um, so we’re the worldwide nonalcoholic beer of Ironman. So that’s definitely a big one for us where every Ironman finish line around the globe, where the title sponsors the San Diego Ironman, so we’re looking forward to that in a couple of weeks. But we’re almost every Spartan Race, and we do tons of local marathons and stuff like that. We just had our annual Oktoberfest at the brewery a few weeks ago. So, yeah, we have a bunch of events at the breweries and we’re all over the country at Spartan Races, Ironman, and Ragnar races and a bunch of other stuff, too.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  56:12

Oh, that is so cool. I have to say, I used to watch the Iron Men on TV and like invariably they’d make me cry. Right? They do those montage is of the people of the race and their whole life story of them sort of running across the lava fields. And by the end, I’m always like crying.

56:31

It’s so impressive. I’ve got to work myself up to one of these years.

Casey McGuire Davidson  56:35

Yeah. And I have so many girlfriends who do Ragnar they absolutely love it. So that is very cool,

56:40

as well. Ragnar it’s amazing. It’s such a cool experience. Yeah, and I know you guys also donate a portion of your sales to trails. Can you tell me about that?

56:51

Yeah, for sure. Um, so it’s kind of in our ethos, where our product is inherently health positive. So like the more people consume or the more society consumes that has a positive impact on people’s health. But then in our ethos is the impact on community and the environment also, and we donate 2% of all sales to trail and park cleanups are two for the trails program. And just a couple of weeks ago, we wrote a total of $920,000 of checks to 62 organizations all over the country for like, trailing Park cleanups, trail building trail maintenance, new signs, new bridges, new skate parks, new mountain biking, parks, all sorts of different stuff. And so that was across 29 different states. And, yeah, part of every beer we sell goes to that. And it’s hard coded. And that was, well, bait. So that program is a little over a million dollars this year, which is the biggest corporate trail and park cleanup grant in the country.

Casey McGuire Davidson  57:52

That’s amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It’s been a real honor and super exciting.

58:00

Oh, thank you so much, Casey, I really appreciate you having me on. And thank you so much for being an ambassador. And yeah, it was great to talk to you.

Casey McGuire Davidson  58:07

You too.

Hey there before I jump off this episode, I want to remind you that you can sign up for my brand new 60-minute masterclass, The 5 Secrets To Successfully Take A Break From Drinking, even if you’ve tried and failed in the past, by going to hellosomedaycoaching.com/class. Now, this training will not be around forever. So if you’re interested in figuring out what you’ve been doing up until now, and why it hasn’t been working, and exactly what to do. Instead, I encourage you to take a few moments, sign up, pick a time that works for you, and actually attend the session. I’ll teach you how to shift your thinking. So you can get out of the really shitty cycle of starting and stopping and starting again, and it’s okay if you’re thinking that you don’t actually want to stop drinking. I promise you, if you attend this class, you will change the way you’re approaching this process. So save your spot. Go to hellosomedaycoaching.com/class, and I can’t wait to see you there.

So thank you for coming on here. I couldn’t appreciate it more. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Hello Someday Podcast. If you’re interested in learning more about me or the work I do or accessing free resources and guides to help you build a life you love without alcohol, please visit hellosomedaycoaching.com. And I would be so grateful if you would take a few minutes to rate and review this podcast so that more women can find it and join the conversation about drinking less and living more.