Athletic Brewing Alcohol-Free Beers

Athletic Brewing makes nothing but non-alcoholic beer. It describes itself as America’s largest dedicated non-alcoholic brewer, and it is the country’s sixth-largest craft brewer of any kind on the Brewers Association’s latest list. Its beers are brewed in Connecticut and California and imported to the UK, where the core range is Run Wild IPA, Upside Dawn, Free Wave and Athletic Lager.

Who are Athletic Brewing?

Bill Shufelt, a former hedge fund trader who had stopped drinking in 2013, founded Athletic Brewing in 2017 with brewer John Walker. The pair test-brewed in Stratford, Connecticut — Athletic says they made more than 100 batches on homebrew equipment — and opened a brewery and taproom there in May 2018, launching with two beers: Run Wild IPA and Upside Dawn.

Growth since then has been fast. Athletic took over a former Ballast Point brewery in San Diego in 2020, opened a 150,000 sq ft brewery in Milford, Connecticut, in 2022, which it describes as “believed to be the world’s largest dedicated NA brewery”, and bought a second San Diego site in 2024. Forbes reported that it brewed about 400,000 barrels in 2024, and it ranked sixth on the Brewers Association’s list of the largest US craft brewers published in April 2026, up from eighth the year before.

Athletic is a private company with outside backers. Keurig Dr Pepper invested $50 million for a minority stake in 2022, and a $50 million round led by General Atlantic in July 2024 was reported to value the business at about $800 million. It still appears on the Brewers Association’s list of craft brewers, which is limited to brewers the association counts as independent. Its investors also include sportsmen JJ Watt, Justin Tuck and Lance Armstrong and chef David Chang; more on that in our piece on famous names behind alcohol-free beer.

How Athletic makes non-alcoholic beer

Athletic keeps the detail to itself. It describes “an innovative, proprietary method of brewing beer without alcohol” and says that “instead of a single de-alcoholisation step, our mosaic of nuanced changes to the brewing process results in a high-quality finished beverage”. Every beer is labelled less than 0.5% ABV. Our guide to how alcohol-free beer is made explains the main methods brewers use.

The recipes are conventional: water, malted barley, hops and yeast, with wheat in every UK beer, oats in Run Wild and Upside Dawn, and rice in Athletic Lager. Athletic marks all of its UK beers as vegan. None is labelled gluten-free in the UK. Upside Dawn has won medals in gluten-free and gluten-reduced categories at the World Beer Awards, and on its US site Athletic says it is “crafted to remove gluten” and tested to under 20 parts per million, but it also says the gluten content “cannot be verified”, so go by the can in your hand.

Athletic Brewing in the UK

Athletic first went on sale in the UK in 2021, through its own website, Ocado and Whole Foods. Run Wild IPA and Upside Dawn reached more than 300 Tesco stores in October 2022, and in September 2023 the importer James Clay and Sons signed an exclusive deal to distribute Athletic to pubs, bars and shops across the country. By 2025 Athletic was counting more than 2,500 UK stockists. Free Wave, its hazy IPA, went on sale at Whole Foods and Wise Bartender in February 2026.

Everything sold here is brewed in the United States and shipped over; there is no UK brewery. The cans are the American 12 fl oz size, 355ml, which is slightly bigger than the 330ml can most UK craft beer comes in. Keep that in mind when comparing calories per can.

The Arsenal partnership

In August 2024 Athletic became Arsenal’s Official Non-Alcoholic Beer Partner, with Run Wild IPA sold in cans at men’s and women’s matches at Emirates Stadium and on draught at Club Level. The deal was extended in July 2025, when Athletic Lite cans were added to the general concourse bars, and in March 2026 the two launched Clock End, a limited-release red ale named after the Clock End at Highbury. We cover the wider trend in alcohol-free beer and sports sponsorship.

The Athletic Brewing range

The UK core four

Run Wild IPA is the flagship, brewed with a blend of five Northwest hops; Athletic gives its notes as citrus, hoppy and pine. Upside Dawn is the lighter pale ale, sold in the US as a golden, with citrus and honey notes. Free Wave is the hazy IPA, hopped with Amarillo, Citra and Mosaic. Athletic Lager is the light one: 25 kcal per 355ml can and no sugar on the label, and the same beer Athletic sells in the US as Athletic Lite.

Limited and US-only beers

Clock End is the Arsenal red ale, a limited release on sale from March 2026. All Out is Athletic’s stout, now called All Out Dark in the US; it has been sold in the UK before, but when we checked in October 2026 it wasn’t listed by Athletic’s UK shop, Dry Drinker or Wise Bartender.

Athletic’s US range is much wider than what reaches the UK: its UK importer said in 2023 that Athletic makes more than 50 different alcohol-free beers a year.

The range by numbers

Calories and sugar from UK nutrition labels (Athletic’s UK product pages and UK retailers), checked October 2026; per-can figures are the published ones where a label gives one, otherwise our own sums, marked “about”. All Out uses Athletic’s US label. Scores are Unhopped ratings out of 10.

Awards and recognition

• International Beer Challenge 2020: Brewer of the Year for North America, and Free Wave named Supreme Champion Beer, which The Scotsman reported as the first time in the competition’s 24 years that an alcohol-free beer had taken the top prize
• World Beer Awards 2022: Athletic Lite, World’s Best non-alcoholic lager (as listed by Athletic)
• World Beer Awards 2023: gold for Upside Dawn in the gluten-free category and for All Out in No & Low Alcohol Dark (as listed by Athletic)
• Overall: Athletic counted 190 taste awards in total in March 2026

B Corp and Two for the Trails

Athletic has been a Certified B Corporation since April 2022, with a B Impact Score of 87.6 on B Lab’s directory. Through its Two for the Trails programme it gives up to $2 million a year to trail and outdoor-access projects, and it puts the running total at more than $8.4 million.

Where to buy Athletic Brewing in the UK

Alcohol-free specialists carry the full core range: the buy buttons on our beer pages go to Dry Drinker and Wise Bartender, which are affiliate links, and Dry Drinker also sells an Athletic mixed case if you want to try several at once. Ocado lists Run Wild IPA and Upside Dawn in four-packs of 355ml cans, Tesco has carried Athletic since October 2022, and Athletic has its own UK shop, though stock there varies.

For our verdict on the beers, read the Athletic Brewing review, or see how Run Wild fares against BrewDog in Punk AF vs Run Wild. For the wider American scene, see our guide to the best American alcohol-free beers.

Facts checked against Athletic Brewing’s own UK and US websites, B Lab’s directory and trade press reports, October 2026.