Hartford Business Journal Special Editions

4 6 C T I N N O V A T O R S , 2 0 2 2 ATH L E T IC 'Just Getting Going' Athletic Brewing emerges as industry leader in nonalcoholic beer space Bill Shufelt Co-Founder & CEO Athletic Brewing Education: Bachelor's degree in economics, Middlebury College Age: 39 John Walker Co-Founder & CPO Athletic Brewing Education: Bard College Age: 41 >> BY HARRIET JONES Bill Shufelt never expected to be an entrepreneur. Just a few years ago he was a successful trader, working at Stamford's Point72 Asset Management. "It was extremely intellectually challenging, it was a great career — I thought I would do it the rest of my life," he says, "untiI I had this idea that I just couldn't turn off. It was all I would think about." His career required many occasions — sometimes six nights a week, he recalls — where alcohol was just part of the expectation. "And I wanted to be in all those places, but I didn't want to be drinking because I wanted to be performing highly either aer the work dinner or the next day." It's not that Shufelt didn't like beer. He had gone to college in Vermont, close to several pioneering cra breweries. "I had just totally fallen in love with how great beer could be," he says. What he didn't like, increasingly, was the morning aer. And the nonalcoholic drink selection didn't appeal to him, particularly nonalcoholic beers that didn't taste great and had the image of a "penalty-box beverage." e idea that just wouldn't let him go: a nonalcoholic beer that could compete in the world of high-end cra brews. "When I started talking about that experience, I realized a lot of people wanted to drink less and moderation really just wasn't that accessible because there were no options." Shufelt could feel that he had stumbled on a huge economic op- portunity. But also a chance to do good. "ere are 15 million Americans with documented alcohol-use disorders," he said. "I realized there's a chance to have a huge, pos- itive impact here." e first hurdle in reinventing nonalcoholic beer — Shufelt knew nothing about brewing. He went looking for a partner with expertise. "I found out that I apparently was the only person in the adult beverage industry think- ing nonalcoholic was exciting," he says. "I would go to conferences and no one would want to talk about it." Enter John Walker, a Connecticut native who was, at the time, head brewer at Second Street Brewery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And he admits it was a little sleight of hand that ini- tially got him talking to Shufelt. "He le out some keywords in the help-wanted ad," smiles Walker. "He didn't mention that it was a nonalcoholic position." When they spoke on the phone, Shufelt dropped that shoe — and then begged Walker not to hang up. "Hearing his passion and drive and vision for the brand, com- bined with his ambition to not do it like anybody else, was really exciting to me," says Walker. "Because cra brewing, which I had kind of grown up in, was all about innovation and thinking outside the box." Shufelt flew out to meet Walker and his family, and the partner- ship that launched Athletic Brewing was sealed. ey'd go on to create one of the country's most successful non- alcoholic brewers that's still expanding in Connecticut and beyond. Athletic Brewing is now the 20th largest cra brewery in the U.S. Something special e road to success wasn't an easy one. Shufelt had found angel investors early on who would end up giving the pair an 18-month runway before they had to make a sale. But what exactly were they going to sell? "We broke down the traditional brewing process, dissected it en- tirely," says Walker. "We formulated our finished goal and what we wanted to be drinking and worked backwards." It wasn't glamorous. Shufelt describes standing around in an empty warehouse, home-brewing test batches in plastic jugs for months on end. Fun, to a point, says Walker, but also stressful and scary. "In cra brewing, a lot of what the culture celebrates is sharing and helping and talking to each other," he explains. "And we didn't

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