11 May 2026
Athletic Brewing brews its sixth season with the PLL into a can
Athletic Brewing and the Premier Lacrosse League just dropped Crease Crusher, a limited hoppy pale with tropical fruit, blueberry, and citrus notes, developed alongside PLL player ambassadors Rob Pannell, Brett Makar, and Asher Nolting. It's available now on Athletic's site and at PLL games through All-Star Weekend.
Co-founder and CEO Bill Shufelt on the collab:
"As we enter our sixth season as the official non-alcoholic beer of the PLL, we're proud to keep raising the bar for how players and fans experience the game. Crafted alongside PLL athletes, Crease Crusher is built for the intensity that defines the lacrosse community."
Six seasons in, Athletic isn't just sponsoring the PLL, they're co-creating product with the athletes. That's a different kind of partnership.
04 May 2026
Coors finally makes a non-alcoholic beer
Coors 0.0 is rolling out in select Northeast markets this month, marking the first non-alcoholic beer in the brand's 150-year history. A nationwide launch is planned for 2027. The timing is deliberate: Molson Coors is leaning into the 2026 FIFA World Cup, positioning Coors 0.0 as the beer for fans who want to stay in the moment.
Matt Carpenter, Coors' VP of marketing, on why now:
"Launching it during the biggest soccer summer North America has ever seen felt like the perfect occasion."
When the last major American macro lager finally shows up to the NA party, you know the category has fully arrived. Whether it actually tastes like anything is a separate question, and one worth asking.
27 Apr 2026
The 2026 World Beer Cup handed NA beer three golds. America won zero of them.
The 2026 World Beer Cup wrapped in Philadelphia last week, and across three non-alcoholic categories, every gold medal went overseas: Mash Gang's 'Chug' Hazy IPA took Hoppy NA for the UK, Tripel Karmeliet Alcohol Free claimed Specialty NA for Belgium, and Fresh Beer 30 Kilometres won Classic NA for China. Illinois's Go Brewing was the American bright spot, landing both silver and bronze in Specialty NA, while Boulevard Brewing and Big Grove Brewery each medaled in the Hoppy category.
World Beer Cup competition director Chris Williams on the milestone 30th edition:
Thirty years in, the World Beer Cup remains a powerful reflection of how far global brewing has come, and where it's headed.
When a NA-specialist brewery out of Exeter, England beats every American entry in the hop-forward category, the category has officially outgrown its roots.
08 Apr 2026
Vermont's Switchback Brewing builds its own NA infrastructure
Vermont's Switchback Brewing has installed a BrewVo de-alcoholization system in its Burlington facility, making it the only East Coast brewery capable of running the technology in-house. The first product out of the new setup is Krush N.A. IPA, a hop-forward collaboration with Sustainable Beverage Technologies and Yakima Chief Hops, which the brewery is showcasing at the Craft Brewers Conference in Philadelphia this week.
Founder Bill Cherry on what the investment unlocks:
We've always approached beer with a focus on drinkability and balance. What BrewVo unlocks is the ability to bring that same approach to non-alcoholic beer, without compromise, and to do it not just for ourselves, but alongside partners.
Most regional breweries bolt on an NA offering as an afterthought. Switchback is building NA production as a core capability, with an eye toward contract brewing for other East Coast players. That's worth watching.
06 Apr 2026
Athletic sweeps the NA category at the San Diego Beer News Awards
The 2026 San Diego Beer News Awards wrapped up at Harland Brewing in Scripps Ranch last month, with 400 people showing up across 34 categories to recognize the best of the local craft scene. In the Best Non-Alcoholic Beer category, Athletic went 1-2: Run Wild IPA took first, Athletic Lite took second, and AleSmith's Non-Alcoholic Speedway claimed third.
Athletic running the table on a community-voted San Diego award is one thing. AleSmith, the brewery that built its reputation on the original Speedway Stout, landing on the podium with an NA variant is the more interesting development.
I haven't tried the Non-Alcoholic Speedway yet, but looking to seak out more dark NA beers for sure.
09 Mar 2026
The guys who sold Casamigos for $1B just launched an NA beer
George Clooney, Rande Gerber, and Mike Meldman, the trio behind Casamigos tequila, have launched Crazy Mountain, a non-alcoholic lager brewed in the US and available in original and lime. At 65 calories a can, it's built around a brewing process that limits alcohol formation while keeping the crispness of a traditional lager. Gerber on what sparked the idea:
People still love the ritual of cracking a cold one with friends, after a surf, a round of golf, a long ride, or just sitting around at the end of the day, but a lot of the time they don't actually want the alcohol.
The Casamigos founders moving into NA beer is either the category's coming-of-age moment or its jump-the-shark one, probably both.
07 Mar 2026
Heineken 0.0 bets on flavor as the next NA frontier
Heineken has expanded its 0.0 lineup with two new flavors, Cold Pressed Lime and Nectarine Juniper, now rolling out across California, Texas, and Florida. The flavored NA subsegment is growing at twice the rate of the broader NA category, and HEINEKEN USA CEO Maggie Timoney made clear this isn't a casual experiment:
When we introduced Heineken 0.0, we proved that 'alcohol-free' and 'great taste' can go hand in hand. Innovation is in our DNA and we see flavors as the next chapter of growth.
One in three NA shoppers say taste variety is their top reason to buy, and Heineken is paying close attention.
03 Mar 2026
Founders Brewing puts $3M behind its first NA beer
Founders Brewing, one of America's most storied craft breweries, has invested $3 million in their Grand Rapids facility to install a de-alcoholizer and launch their first non-alcoholic beer, Nonetheless Golden, which hit select markets in December 2025. Head Brewmaster Jeremy Kosmicki set the bar high from the start:
Our goal was simple: brew a non-alcoholic beer that is unmistakably Founders. As with all our beers over the years, we were unwilling to compromise on flavor or quality.
A $3 million de-alcoholizer isn't a toe in the water. Founders is all in.
27 Feb 2026
Athletic Brewing debuts its first nitro NA beer
After 18 months of R&D, including bench trials, infrastructure upgrades, and a full retrofit of their Connecticut brewery, Athletic Brewing has launched Nitro Emerald Cliffs, their first nitrogen-infused non-alcoholic beer. The Irish dark brew delivers chocolate, coffee, and wood notes in a creamy, velvety pour at under 0.5% ABV. Co-founder and COO John Walker on what made it so hard to get right:
Striking the right balance and achieving those sensory elements in a way that also worked operationally was the primary technical hurdle.
Nitrogen infusion is notoriously difficult to pull off even with alcohol in the mix, and doing it without is a genuine technical milestone. Athletic just cleared it.
18 Feb 2026
Germany's NA beer market hits 10% for first time
Germany, the spiritual home of beer, has hit a new milestone: non-alcoholic beer now accounts for 10% of the market, making it the largest NA beer market in Europe. DBB president Christian Weber put it simply:
The 1,500 breweries in Germany offer an enormous variety of non-alcoholic brands, which are also brewed according to the German Purity Law.
If even Germany is all-in, the rest of the world doesn't have much of an excuse.