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For generations, beer has represented far more than what's in the glass. It's been woven into the fabric of society, from celebrations and sporting events to countless social rituals. In recent years, consumers have begun to rethink their relationship with alcohol. Do you have a favorite non-alcoholic beer on the menu? Uh-huh. Raising a new question: Can beer still play the same cultural role if alcohol is no longer a part of the equation? Athletic Brewing believes the answer is yes. But rather than treating non-alcoholic beer as a compromise, the company has helped redefine it as a category built around craft, flavor, and participation.
It was really shifting consumer perceptions of what non-alcoholic beer could be or who it was for. I think a lot of people probably never even considered a non-alcoholic beer until Athletic came around. Since its founding in 2017, Athletic has become the leading non-alcoholic beer brand in the U.S. That's why I'm tapping founder and CEO Bill Schufelt and his team to explore what it really takes to not only launch a competitive product, but to fundamentally alter consumer perceptions surrounding an entire category. Marketing used to be simple: you made a product, you bought attention, and you controlled the message. That world is over. Data sciences, behavioral economics,
and technologies like artificial intelligence are all changing the very nature of marketing. Now brands need to respond to consumers in real time because every moment is an opportunity. I'm Raja Rajamannar, lifelong student of marketing and best-selling author. I'm going inside these companies to explore the systems, the people, and the insights driving this transformation. This is quantum marketing. So, firstly, Bill, what inspired you to start this company? And I was training for my first ultra marathon about 13 years ago now, and I stopped drinking for a month leading up to that, and it was like the biggest life hack I'd ever discovered, and it
was like a virtuous circle in my life. I realized alcohol was a ceiling on everything I was doing. Alcohol was a ceiling? A ceiling, yeah. I decided not to go back to drinking, but here I was living in New York City in finance. I was out to 150 broker dinners a year, research dinners, and then dinner with my wife, social things, bachelor parties, weddings, and I realized very quickly that if you are not drinking alcohol, there was no other side of the menu. There was just nothing there, and the more I looked into that, there were a lot of people like me, and so I was kind of customer zero with a
really authentic pain point in my life. You know, which is very fascinating. So I have been a teetotaler all my life. I never had alcohol, and I always find this, and it's true. Drinking is an integral part of the social fabric. I can relate to what exactly you are saying, and it is so you know spot on. Yeah, the health and wellness mega-trends that are afoot in this country are really just still in the early innings. As hard as that is to believe, I think originally in like why we started the company, I wanted to live this high performing life, but I didn't want the alcohol, and why didn't that exist? After spiking during the COVID-19 pandemic, global
alcohol consumption has declined year over year. Growing awareness of the health risks, along with mounting financial pressures, has accelerated a broader shift toward moderation. All of which opens the door for Athletic to build brand recognition with a sober, curious community. We've had this saying since basically day one at Athletic without compromise, and it's not only on the product side; it's on the social side too. The social, the social experience, fitting in, and how you feel as a customer? There was like an anonymity and a shame around not drinking in this country to some extent, and so there was a social stigma and a wall too,
that doesn't exist in most countries. Like a lot of countries, there is zero friction. In the U.S. there is there was such a stigma, and so we set out to break it down into a world where people don't have to declare whether they're a drinker or non-drinker, and we like to say the word sobriety is dead, and it's outdated and not relevant in today's modern healthy world. On the product side, it was very important to get the product right. This was a lager-only category. So, the industry was approaching it as if every consumer came into non-alcoholic beer would want that one flavor. So, this is our flagship brewery. We've got about 150,000 square feet of manufacturing here. When I met Bill, his
thesis and hope was that we could create a product that didn't really have the alcohol in it in the first place, because by subtracting, you're taking away critical components that people enjoy, and if we didn't have to do that, you could retain all the essences that you put into the beer in the first place intentionally, so that you can enjoy it. And so, Bill and I spent about nine months after we met doing R&D trial batches, pilot batches, after like hundreds of pilot batches, until we honed in on the process that we wanted to come up with a final solution where we don't have to remove anything. So that's kind of what sets us apart.
We had the thesis that if there were great methods existing to make non-alcoholic beer. There would already be great non-alcoholic beer, and so we put aside the existing methods, and we built it from the ground up. Home brewing on Gatorade jugs for nine months. John said when he signed on that he would not ever sell a product if it wasn't great beer. Period. Like alcohol or not, we're not just going to try to make the best non-alcoholic beer. We want to make world-class beer. Period. And so we had to go down to first principles and reinvent how non-alcoholic beer was made, what the perception was it, and it had to be very different in the quality side. And so we not only elevated the taste profile but introduced an incredible
amount of variety, and that naturally opens the aperture of customers that can interact and get excited about the category and relate to a flavor profile or something they love. So, our team developed a way to get non-alcoholic beer on draft, and our sales team is out there now trying to get people to accept and try it because we found that when you can taste a non-alcoholic beer on draft, it really takes the effort out of the risk. And you know, do I want to commit to a six-pack or a 12-pack? And you can just take a sample off of a tap, experience it at a bar, and you realize there's no difference. It's just a delicious beer.
Yeah. With the emergence of Athletic Brewing and then the non-alcoholic category that we know today, it was really shifting consumer perceptions of what non-alcoholic beer could be or who it was for. I think a lot of people probably never even considered a non-alcoholic beer until Athletic came around, people assumed it wasn't going to taste good, and that's actually one of the number one barriers we have, which is why we harp so much on flavor and quality of the beer, so that
people can trust that this is going to be a great choice for them if they are a beer lover. So what you are marketing is a premium beer, as opposed to an apology for beer. Yes, it's something that you should be proud to hold the label out and have people see. You're not trying to hide the non-alcoholic message because actually, Athletic Brewing says something about you, and you can wear it as a badge. When you look at the brand, which is where the identity of the company and identity of the product manifests, you came up with the name Athletic Brewing Company. It sort of triggers so many positive things in my head. Talk about your branding a little bit.
Naming a company is so hard and such a big decision, and it took us a long time. And I wanted it to be simple, memorable, an easy bar call. You know, I'd been in the customer's shoes when you try to order non-alcoholic beer, either in a crowded, crowded bar, at a table with 12 people, you have difficulty communicating it. And so I wanted an easy bar call that cut through the noise. We had national and global ambition from day one, so it had to be a concept that travels across borders. It was a big journey to get to the right name, but like when I heard it and the light went on, it was like, wow, that is perfect.
So when I go to a counter and ask for your beer, what do I ask? I mean, my hope would be one day it's what kind of Athletic do you have? Like the word non-alcoholic beer starts with a negative, and I hate putting people in that position. I want people to start on their front foot and say, "Do you have Athletic and what kind do you have? Or do you have my favorite Athletic? We really want the category to start at Athletic, and then wherever it can go after that. You're establishing a brand. You're establishing, in fact, a category. And to do this, there is an incredible amount of storytelling that you need to do as a part of your marketing communications. How do you do it?
We want to make consumers feel connected to the brand emotionally. So building some equity around the lifestyle that you can expect to have, and having people be able to see themselves reflected in the brand personality that we convey is really important. It doesn't have to be specific to sport, and then in influencers that we work with. The way Athletic brews their product allows them to keep the flavor and the integrity. Having them showcase from their point of view how Athletic fits into their life and why they love it so much helps build some of the storytelling elements that are more compelling to consumers. Having athletes, chefs talk about what about the
brand they love helps consumers understand how Athletic Brewing could fit into their lives. Now, how do you communicate that to the consumers? I started with like health and wellness and elite athletes, like not pro sports athletes. We couldn't afford those. I started the peak of like endurance athletes. Ooh.even local fitness influencers that people took health advice from, Ironman athletes that a lot of people looked up to and took training tips from, and people who understood our brand intuitively from the second I mentioned it, and a lot of those people reached out to me, and they were looking for ways for them to get
an edge. And when they discovered Athletic, they reached out to us, which was helpful. Then also I was like, where can I get beer in people's hands by the 1000s every weekend for free, importantly? And so I went out to the community and reached out and built relationships with race directors all over New England, and basically said, I will be there at the finish line with a smile, adding energy to your scene. I know your race finishes out of high school. You've probably never been able to have a beer there before. I can be there and give out hundreds of beers. Very quickly build some great relationships, and people invite us to their whole race series. Ironman, Spartan Race were some of our original good
partners, and so I just was driving around giving out hundreds of beers. It wasn't many dollars. It was a lot of our horsepower, but I think it went really far until we could actually afford to start doing some like broader marketing. You know, creating a new category is one of the toughest challenges in marketing. The first element I'm actually wanting to understand better is, so you mentioned that you are showing up, for example, school races, and then give it at the finish line to all these folks. There, did you face any objections to say, "Hey, you are giving away beer," because that's where the first point of perceptual change has to happen. That's where the friction
is. Yeah, I think you know a lot of startups like move really fast and try zillions of things and don't necessarily where they're going and break a lot of things. And in how we brought it to life, like there were a lot of misconceptions and difficult moments and challenges. Like I, I would drive five hours to a race and have my tent set up and have 1000 beers in a cooler, and for whatever reason, there some groups like certain product market fit or something. I'd have really tough time getting anyone to visit the table, and I would have to like go around to the other side of the table and be like, like pretending I was a customer and basically being like, "Does anyone know where this guy is? Like, this looks amazing! Like,
I want to try one. Do you think I can just go grab one from the cooler?" And like people would like get in line behind me. But like, there were times where I would go like an hour without talking to a single person. Hey guys, we're handing out some free brews. Would you like to try one? In that, like I'm so thankful for those moments because I learned so much about the way we communicate about the brand. You guys like to try free non-alcoholic beer? It's only 25 calories, five grams of carbs. And if you only have like five words, 10 words most, as someone's going by very quickly to sell them on trying something they had never considered in their life.
If you didn't know it was non-alcoholic beer, would you have known, by tasting? I would have no idea. That's where I learned how to communicate to customers really clearly and concisely also. Thank you. Now we're going to sense the beer. We're in our sensory room, and this is where we and our whole team takes the time to evaluate every single beer that we make over 50 times during the life of each tank. Okay. Let's go bottom left. All right.
Mildly bitter, mildly sweet. Yeah. Is there an orange kind of a smell? Isn't it orange or grapefruit? You're definitely on the right track. Over the last decade, Shufelt and team have helped drive the non-alcoholic beer category from 100 million to over a billion dollars annually in revenue. But they are now shifting their focus to the future while facing significant challenges of awareness and distribution. Currently, the company says awareness for Athletic hovers around 25% nationally, with distribution under 40%. So you're not asking consumers just to try a new beer. You're asking them to reconsider and reframe what
beer culture itself is. How do you do that marketing? It's a great question. I mean, what we know is our retention rates are best in class. Over three out of four consumers who try Athletic stay with Athletic. So the name of the game is recruiting customers, building awareness, so more people come into the category and our brand. And what's interesting is over 30% of the people who have shopped the non-alcoholic beer aisle haven't been there in the last six months. So they haven't tried any form of beer. Correct. So they haven't been in the beer aisle in the last six months, so we're not just simply trading from alcohol beer to non-alcoholic beer. We're also bringing people back into the
category at large, and that's good for the entire beer industry. At this stage, how do you get more consumers into the tent? How do you make them stick with you? How do you make them drink more of your beverage? Yeah, I think a huge part of the how is being authentic and being truthful, and customers trusting the brand. That's why it's like so important for us to build our all our own breweries, own all our own quality. All of our teammates are full-time teammates doing everything in the company. We outsource as little as we can. Authenticity and honesty is ultimately the
best attractor. Like in this day and age, consumers love to know more about the companies they're purchasing from, and there's so many corporates that you know you scratch a little bit and you're through the whole concept, and there's absolutely nothing there beyond it. And we wanted to be the opposite of that. From day one, we've always thought about it as like an onion, and I want people the further and the more layers they scratch into Athletic, the more they love the brand. And then, how do we reach new people? Like I, you know, I, I would love Athletic to be the name of the category and the first word of the category, and we're working on that. But if I'm being realistic, if I go out to dinner in my own town. It's probably a
70% chance that the people in that restaurant don't know what Athletic is. So, like, it's awareness is really hard to drive, and that's a time variable mostly. And it's, it's also being consistent and honest as a brand, not chasing every trend, not trying to be like funnier and funnier every year. Rather than chasing the latest trends or following traditional beer tropes, Athletic's approach leans towards being present in places that feel organic to the brand. What is the central insight that shaped your marketing strategy? It's to be the best part of people's day every day. We want to be in their high affinity moments, their celebrations, their relaxations, their favorite meals, and we want to
deliver on that every day and not get in the way of them living the rest of their life. We want to tell great aspirational brand stories that motivate and inspire our customers over and over again. Like as budgets grow and the company grows, you get to move on to some bigger and bigger mediums every year. Excuse me. Do you have that great non-alcoholic beer? Okay. As fun as it is to do TV ads and digital stuff these days, we still haven't gotten away from the core. Like, you know, me at a race handing out beers, talking to customers, isn't scalable unless you just keep doing it. Like, if you just keep
like, yeah, the amount of things you can get done in one hour, one day is very small, but in a full calendar year, in five years, in 10 years, we can do an unbelievable amount of stuff. I think we talked face to face with over 250,000 consumers in the world at events in quarter one alone of this year. And so, being out there in the world doing unscalable things, you turn around at the end of the year and it's really scaled. I'm a big believer in 1000 true fans or 1000 super fans. It's a Kevin Kelly concept, and just like growing that out from there, like all of our teammates were growing and learning, and so invested in the brand. I think that passion fused way beyond me to our customers, to our team, and we're all having a lot of
fun in it together, growing and learning, and really delivering for our customers. So, when you look at competition, who is really a competition? We want to be our own competition every year. That being said, we're not trying to bring back prohibition, so we're not trying to kill alcohol, but we are trying to make moderation accessible. There are tons of people, and then tons of people who drink alcohol too, who want beer many more nights a week or many more hours of the day, because it fits their lifestyle. And so we want to win all those occasions too. So there's, like, I think about a positive sum from the opportunity side, the
occasion side, the population side, the people we can bring into beer. Then within non-alcoholic beer itself, there are macro and international brewers. We're competing against the biggest brewers in the world. There needs to be really well-developed brand identities, product availability that speaks to all different kinds of customers to develop it healthfully, not only in this country but internationally. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you coming. For Athletic Brewing, creating a better-tasting, non-alcoholic beer was just the beginning. By meeting consumers where they are and tapping into a generational shift toward moderation, the
company helped redefine the category. Its long-term success now depends on continued innovation, expanding distribution, and continuing to shape the way people drink.
