Athletic Brewing wins big at craft beer festival
Stratford company gets silver, bronze in nonalcoholic category
Athletic Brewing Company of Stratford, which focuses exclusively on nonalcoholic beers, won two awards at the 2021 Great American Beer Festival, which recognizes outstanding beers made by craft breweries from around the country.
Athletic was the only Connecticut brewery to win medals in this year’s event.
The 35th annual competition is presented by the Brewers Association, the trade association for small and independent American brewers. At the contest, held in Boulder, Colorado, 170 judges evaluated 9,680 entries from 2,192 breweries. Judges awarded 290 medals to 265 breweries in 97 beer categories.
In the nonalcoholic beer category, Athletic’s Closer By the Mile won a silver medal and its Downwinder Gose won a bronze. In that category, the gold was won by the Enough Said Helles from Two Roots Brewing in San Diego.
Closer By the Mile, an IPA, has
flavors of grapefruit, pineapple and malt with notes of tropical fruits.
That beer was created for the Pan-mass Challenge annual bikea-thon. Sales of that beer benefit that athletic event, which raises money for the Dana-farber Cancer Institute.
On the Athletic company website, Downwinder Gose is described as having “a soft wheat body and crisp tart finish, with
hints of sea salt, coriander and lime leaf.”
The awards extended Athletic’s winning streak.
At the World Beer Awards, the brewery’s Upside Dawn, All-out Stout, Cream Ale and Downwinder Gose were named “Best in Country’’ in Round 1. Wit’s Peak won a silver medal.
At the U.S. Open Beer Championship, Run Wild, All Out Stout and Raspberry Gose all earned gold medals. Downwinder Gose won a silver.
Bill Shufelt, CEO of Athletic Brewing, founded the company in 2017 and started selling beers in 2018, with brewmaster John Walker. He said he founded it as “beer for the modern adult.”
“Humans have been drinking beer for thousands of years, but alcohol has less and less [of ] a place in high-performance, modern-day lifestyles,” Shufelt said. “I had no intention of ever being in the beverage industry, but my life demanded a healthier, better-for-you adult beverage and there really wasn’t one out there in the market.”
Athletic’s sales boomed from the start, reflecting the steadily growing popularity of nonalcoholic beers. Today, some Athletic beers are still brewed in Stratford’s 10,000 barrel-capacity brewery, but 90% are made in a 125,000 barrel-capacity facility opened in 2020 in San Diego, California.
Shufelt said a 150,000 barrel-capacity brewery-tasting room will open next spring in Milford.
“We’re selling all the beer we can make right now,” Shufelt said. “It’s hard to keep up.”