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Reinventing Non-Alcoholic Beer With Athletic Brewing Company

Do you think all non-alcoholic beer sucks but you’re not sure what to order at a restaurant when you go out?

Or are you trying to stop drinking but don’t know what to do with yourself when happy hour rolls around?

Are you tired of pulling out a LaCroix around the firepit or at a football party? 

Today I’ve got you covered because I’m talking to the founder of Athletic Brewing Company about the reinvention of quality non-alcoholic craft beer. 

When I stopped drinking almost 6 years ago there were not a lot of great non-alcoholic beverage options out there. I would go to the grocery store or a bar and my choices would be something like O’Doul’s, Becks or St. Pauli Girl, none of which were very appealing. 

The non-alcoholic beer market hadn’t seen any innovation in 25 years and the non-alcoholic beer category hadn’t grown in over 15 years, despite a booming market in Europe.

But those stats are so 2016

Back in my first year alcohol-free I consumed a lot of ginger beer, La Croix, and virgin mojitos (all of which were good) but I wish I had the amazing selection of non-alcoholic drink options that are available now. 

And if you’ve listened to this podcast, hung out with me around the fire pit, gone camping with me or chatted over happy hour in the last few years you know that I’m a huge fan of Athletic Brewing Company’s non-alcoholic beers. 

My guest today is Bill Shufelt, the Co-Founder + CEO of Athletic Brewing Company.  

When Bill decided to quit drinking, he didn’t want to quit beer but the flavorless, watery options on the market weren’t going to cut it. That’s why he co-founded Athletic Brewing Company to make a line of non-alcoholic craft beers for discerning drinkers. 

Athletic Brewing Company is on a mission to create great tasting non-alcoholic beer, normalize non-alcoholic beer and build a community and culture around it. And it’s working – in the past few years there’s been surging demand for quality non-alcoholic beers with category sales up 39 percent in 2019, and another 38 percent in 2020.

In this episode Bill and I chat about

  • Why health-conscious millennials are drinking less and driving a boom in the non-alcoholic beer market

  • How great tasting (and great looking) non-alcoholic beer makes not drinking easier and normalizes the choice not to drink without a social stigma

  • Why Bill decided that alcohol-drenched nights and hangovers weren’t compatible with the life he wanted
  • How Athletic brews it’s non-alcoholic craft beer and jump started market innovation and demand in the category
  • Why you’ll find Athletic Brewing Company at the end of IRONMAN triathlons, marathons, trailheads and sporting events 
  • Our favorite Athletic Beers including Run Wild, Upside Dawn and Free Wave
  • How to save 20% on your first online Athletic Brewing Company beer order (use code CASEYD20 at checkout!)

Ready to drink less + live more?

Join The Sobriety Starter Kit. It’s the private, on-demand sober coaching course you need to break out of the drinking cycle – without white-knuckling it or hating the process.

Grab the Free 30-Day Guide To Quitting Drinking, 30 Tips For Your First Month Alcohol-Free

If you’re interested in trying Athletic Brewing Company beers you can get 20% off your first order. As an Athletic Brewing Company Ambassador I get to share the love. You can save 20% off your first order online  with the code CASEYD20 at hellosomedaycoaching.com/athletic

More About Bill Shufelt

After quitting drinking, Bill Shufelt started Athletic Brewing Company in 2017 with Co-Founder John Walker after mounting frustration with the lack of non alcoholic beverage options available to him. To Shufelt, there was a penalty box for making healthy choices, and drinking Diet Cokes at a sports bar or cranberry sodas at weddings wasn’t cutting it anymore.

Running the Connecticut-based brewery with John Walker, an award-winning brewer, Shufelt has grown the company to include a staple line of beers plus regular releases that sometimes sell out in 30 seconds.

Follow on Instagram @athleticbrewing

To learn more check out www.athleticbrewingcompany.com

Articles about Athletic Brewing Company and Non-Alcoholic Beer

Health-conscious millennials are driving a boom in non-alcoholic beer

An ex-drinker’s search for a sober buzz

Inside the unlikely rise of non-alcoholic beer

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Want to read the full transcript of this podcast episode? Scroll down on this page. 

READ THE TRANSCRIPT OF THIS PODCAST INTERVIEW

Reinventing Non-Alcoholic Beer With Bill Shufelt

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, beer, nonalcoholic beer, alcohol, people, athletic, life, stop, amazing, big, brewery, excited, ingredient, occasion, years, non-alcoholic drinks, totally, athlete, feel

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Bill Shufelt

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a bus, how to sit with your emotions, when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

Hi there. If you’re listening to this podcast, I’m betting you’ve been going back and forth for a while now on whether or not you should stop drinking. And I want you to raise your hand. If you’ve had any one of these thoughts. You might have been thinking, I’m not that bad. I actually don’t want to stop drinking completely. I just want to drink like a normal person. Or maybe you come home after work. And you think I know I shouldn’t drink tonight. But I literally can’t relax or have fun without it. It’s really common to say I’ve tried to take a break from drinking before. But it’s just too hard. I always give up anyway. So what’s the point in trying again, or here’s one I hear all the time from women, everyone I know drinks. If I stopped drinking, I will be bored. Or I’ll be boring, I’ll have no fun. I’ll never be invited anywhere. I’ll just sit home and be miserable. Or maybe you can insert Whatever your reason is there. So is your hand up? If it is, that is totally okay. And that’s because taking a break from drinking and changing your relationship with alcohol. This shit is hard. And that’s why I’m really pumped to invite you to my brand new, completely free 60-minute master class, The 5 Secrets To Successfully Take A Break From Drinking. Even if you’ve tried and you failed in the past. After you take this free class, you’ll realize why what you’ve been doing up until now hasn’t been working and what to do. Instead, we’re going to cover all the juicy topics, including what questions you need to stop asking yourself, because they’re setting you up for self-sabotage, not for success. We’re going to talk about exactly what you need to do differently. So you can stop the exhausting cycle of stopping drinking and then saying Screw it and starting again. And we’re going to talk about the real reasons you haven’t been successful. And I’m betting they’re not what you think they are. And this isn’t surface level stuff. I am handing over the strategies and the mindset shifts I go through every day with my private coaching clients. If you’re listening to this podcast, I really encourage you to take a moment and sign up for this completely free masterclass. It will help you on your journey to drink class, and with more to feeling better. So if you want to save your spot, go to hellosomedaycoaching.com/class while the class is still available, and I really hope to see you there…

Hi there. Today my guest is the co-founder of athletic Brewing Company Bill Shufelt and I invited bill onto this show because I am a huge fan of athletic Brewing Company beer. Today Bill and I are going to talk about the growth and the demand for quality craft nonalcoholic beers that actually taste and look really good and how the growth in nonalcoholic beer options and other options really normalizes The choice not to drink both for people who are stopping drinking completely, but also for athletes and other people who want to feel good. And drinking is just really not supporting their health initiatives or how they want to feel every day, Bill co-founded athletic Brewing Company with John Walker, back in 2017. And he quit drinking eight years ago, after built stopped drinking, he was increasingly frustrated with the lack of nonalcoholic options available to him, he talks about that there’s a penalty box for making healthy choices where you go to a sports bar and drink Diet Cokes, or you go to a wedding and get cranberry sodas. And that’s just not cutting it anymore. And we have a really interesting conversation about the fact that 50% of Americans don’t drink, which to me is insane, right, because everybody I know or hung out with, who isn’t sober, is or was a big drinker. But among that 50%, who do drink alcohol 60% have fewer than one drink a week. So the portion of the population who was drinking but wanted a nonalcoholic option was really underserved. And then for those of us who love to drink, but decided to not drink alcohol anymore, there was a real lack of quality options for what you could drink. And in the last three years, four years, those options have exploded in terms of really cool nonalcoholic beer options or cocktail options or wine options. And I really celebrate that, because I think it’s exciting and interesting. So please take a listen to this episode. And if you’re interested in trying out athletic Brewing Company beers, I am an ambassador for the program I actually applied because I’m just a huge fan of them. And you can get 20% off your first order. If you go to athletic brewing company.com and put in the code KC D 20. So it’s ca se y. D is in Davidson, the number 20. And you’ll get 20% off your first order. So I hope you learn a lot in tuning into this conversation with Bill Schuh felt. So Bill, welcome to the show.

07:32

Casey, thanks so much for having me on. I’m excited to be here.

Casey McGuire Davidson  07:35

Yeah, I was mentioning in the intro that I found athletic Brewing Company beer about a year and a half ago. And I absolutely love it. I quit drinking almost six years ago. And I feel like at the time I did, there wasn’t any great sort of nonalcoholic options that I really loved. So did a lot of ginger beer and Lacroix and sparkling water, which was awesome. But when I found your beer is, I was like, Okay, I needed this.

08:05

Thank you so much. And I mean, so much of that has like really common threads with my experience, too. I mean, I stopped drinking about eight years ago as well. And really, there was nothing out there. And all the options that were on the market were over 25 years old, somewhere over 50 years old. And it was very much the same post prohibition near beer category. And obviously came with the same baggage of those types of offerings. And it was like the only group of grocery store that hadn’t turned over in that timeframe where everything was organic, local, exciting, had like great marketing around it. And then there’s this one totally passed over corner of the grocery store, which was crazy. And then anything else I tried like you said ginger beer like, but that is like 35 grams of sugar and sweet. I like every beverage had a drawback and I didn’t want to have like a soda with a nice dinner. And I just felt like I was given the kids menu everywhere else going. And it’s funny, I like it became such a pain point in my life.

Casey McGuire Davidson  09:10

Yeah, I know. I used to always and nothing against duels. But that was like the one choice and I was like, I don’t want to No deal. You know, so it’s really fun to see all the new options out there.

09:25

Oh, thank you. I’m and I’m definitely like customer number one I like definitely. I’m still like such a passionate customer of every beer we come out with. And I get excited when I get the emails and like I drink our beers all day. And so it’s like, kind of exact. It wasn’t like we were a marketing department who was like, oh, like, let me try to guess what the customer needs and like do a focus group and then try to make a product to meet that it’s like these are actually like weird. I never wanted to be in food and had no intention of being an entrepreneur anything like definitely not nonalcoholic beer. Like, I’d never even thought about nonalcoholic beer before really. It was just I was, it was like such an authentic need. And I missed having like a good adult beverage that I was excited about. And it was such a ritual in the day. And so before I knew it, I was like reading brewing textbooks and trying to figure out like, better ways to make them alcoholic beer. So it’s so crazy. I never intended to be here, but I’m definitely like, like our top customer, probably. And like, so it’s like, definitely an authentic need in my life.

Casey McGuire Davidson  10:31

Yeah. And what I love is, I’ve heard you say that, eight years ago, when you were looking around and trying to improve your life and health and fitness, you found one area that was incompatible with the rest, which was those like alcohol drench nights and weekends and hangovers? And so tell me a little bit about that. And what made you decide that you know, you needed to remove alcohol from your life versus what we all do, which is like, let me just cut back.

11:03

Yeah, and I definitely like tried to cut back from time to time too. And I’m definitely just like, I have a big appetite. I’m a huge foodie. I love beer. I love food. I love social occasions, and like I never knew when to stop to and you can go in with the best laid plans. And if you have one beer, the plan kind of goes out the window. And I also like every occasion, there was an excuse to drink to like to be at a I was going out to like three work dinners a week or dinner with my wife, sports bars with friends and different things. And like everything could be a drinking occasion. And as soon as I stopped making them a drinking occasion, I realized I loved all of it just as much as I ever had. And none of my friends really cared if I was drinking or not. They just cared if I was there and having a good time as well. And I had something in my hand that I was excited about. And so very easily I moved away from that. Or, well, I like kind of had the realization in my life that I didn’t really like it wasn’t like the functional ingredient out alcohol I was after. I was just after like something to have in my hand that I was excited about.

Casey McGuire Davidson  12:16

Yeah, I mean, I totally get what you’re saying about there always been an occasion to drink because that was my experience, too. I kind of drank seven nights a week. And when you drink you surround yourself with drinkers and sort of unconsciously structure your social life. So it’s always a part of your activities. And one of the things I like about athletic is when you walk in and you say, oh, no, thanks. I’m not drinking and ask for something else. There is sort of this stigma or people don’t quite know what to do with you. They’re sort of like, oh, we’ll just have one euro. Okay. And you’re right, you just really need something in your hand and just be like, Oh, no, actually, I’m really excited about this, you should try it kind of thing.

13:04

That’s exactly what we are. Like, our whole motto is brew without compromise like that. You don’t have to compromise on taste or experience and like, you know that exactly. We want people to be able to go back and be like, overly excited about like, you’ve actually got to try this. It’s awesome. And you’re gonna wake up feeling great tomorrow, you get a good night’s sleep. It’s made from organic grains like, or like, check this like fruited sour out or like, it’s like, we’re really just trying to make people so excited and like delighted about like, what they’re consuming. And everything about nonalcoholic beer has always been penalty box and less than and like even the word nonalcoholic has like it starts with a negative. And like, it’s kind of got one like, foot in the hole before it starts. And everything we’ve done is try to make that positive and aspirational and exciting and, like healthy. And so yeah, just trying to kind of turn all those like stigmas on said, Well, yeah, and you started I mean, you named it athletic, and then you really started bringing these nonalcoholic beers to races right at the end of races.

14:13

Yeah. And my wife poses jokes, she’s like, barely would have said yes to anything. Like anyone who asked anything to be like, the first year I did like 75 athletic events where I would usually like run the race and then get behind the booth and hand out beers after but I really just wanted to find like nonalcoholic beer dough has been this thing where it would be in a bar and like people would try to find the designated drivers and get it in their hands and market to really specific situations. I wanted to find people who are like happy, sweaty, celebratory and in a really good mood and get it in their hand then and like associate nonalcoholic beer with those types of moments rather than these like really weird like lesser than occasion. And of course, we know we’re gonna sell beer to all the traditional use cases of nonalcoholic beer. And we’ll do that by just being the best option on the market. But really, we want to be out there like opening this whole new, broader category of positive, aspirational occasion. So yeah, every weekend, I would wake up at three or four in the morning drive somewhere within six hours that Connecticut handout 1000 beers and come back and do it again the next day. And now we have our team all over the country and our amazing group of ambassadors, which you’re in. And it’s like, really such a strong community and so awesome. And yeah, we’re a huge believer of like, 1000 true fans, and just like, it really is, like so much more than the product, like, we want to have a positive impact on people’s lives, and then their communities and the environment beyond that.

Casey McGuire Davidson  15:53

Yeah. And I also, I used to love it, of course, when I was drinking when I would like to do a triathlon, and then there would be like the beer tent at the end of the race. But once I stopped drinking, I was like, wow, that’s really counterintuitive, right? You did this huge athletic effort. And then the option at the end is like Gatorade, or alcohol. And I played rugby in college. So if you know the rugby culture, it’s like, you play rugby. And then you immediately have this like, huge keg party, with everyone from every team and sing songs and stuff. So there was that really strong correlation between team sports, big athletic activities, and alcohol. And I completely think it’s awesome that you guys are bringing the NA beer to the end of those races. Because, you know, drinking alcohol is actually really bad for your athletic performance.

16:49

Yeah, celebratory occasions are great. But if people are serious about their performance and recovery, alcohol is really counterproductive. Alcohol is a diuretic, which essentially means like when you consume it, the body tries to flush it out. And so the hydrates you and, but also like in terms of training, and like working with our Ironman athletes and stuff, and LeBron has like, all sorts of different fitness wearables these days from Iowa watches to whoop bands and everything. And we can see how alcohol like affects sleep and all these other variables. Like the process of working out is like, all like small micro tears of muscles and your body recovers when you sleep. And when you like, it’s, it’s not necessarily while you’re working out, you make the games, it’s when you sleep, you make the games, but alcohol affects sleep. And so you don’t really recover, and the human body makes human growth hormone when it sleeps. So if you’re not getting good sleep and recovery, it can be really counterproductive. So that’s like some of the science behind why swapping nonalcoholic beer for alcoholic beer in those athletic occasions is actually really positive also.

Casey McGuire Davidson  18:05

If you’re listening to this episode and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, The Sobriety Starter Kit. The Sobriety Starter Kit is an online self study, sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step-by-step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one-on-one coaching. And The Sobriety Starter Kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it, when it fits into your schedule.  You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time. This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step-by-step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life. You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better, you’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course.

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. 

ABOUT THE HELLO SOMEDAY PODCAST

The Hello Someday Podcast helps busy and successful women build a life they love without alcohol. Host Casey McGuire Davidson, a certified life coach and creator of The 30-Day Guide to Quitting Drinking, brings together her experience of quitting drinking while navigating work and motherhood, along with the voices of experts in personal development, self-care, addiction and recovery and self-improvement. 

Whether you know you want to stop drinking and live an alcohol free life, are sober curious, or are in recovery this podcast is for you.

In each episode Casey will share the tried and true secrets of how to drink less and live more. 

Learn how to let go of alcohol as a coping mechanism, how to shift your mindset about sobriety and change your drinking habits, how to create healthy routines to cope with anxiety, people pleasing and perfectionism, the importance of self-care in early sobriety, and why you don’t need to be an alcoholic to live an alcohol free life. 

Be sure to grab the Free 30-Day Guide To Quitting Drinking right here.

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