This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Bill Shufelt, the founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing. Shufelt founded the nonalcoholic beer company in 2017, which has since has driven over 23% of N/A beer category growth over the last seven years. Shufelt lives in Connecticut, near one of the breweries (he occasionally travels to the other brewery in San Diego). This story has been edited for length and clarity.
I cut back on drinking as my fitness journey accelerated. As a day trader, I was used to taking 4:30 a.m. group boxing classes before I started work at 6:00 a.m. In my late 20s, I started running ultramarathons. I stopped drinking alcohol in 2013, and it was one of the biggest life hacks I ever discovered. I had all this newfound energy, better sleep, better workouts — and no hangovers.
It’s also how I learned there was a real void of good nonalcoholic options. I loved socializing; I love good food and good beer, being out with my colleagues and family. But there was just nothing out there. It was definitely awkward — if I were at a work dinner and had to ask for a non-alcoholic menu, it felt like the whole room would stop and look at me.
When I asked any of my friends or family, no matter how much they drank, from never to very often, almost everyone uniformly and enthusiastically said they’d be interested in nonalcoholic beer options. At the time, N/A beer accounted for 0.3% of the market, but over half the people in any survey I ran expressed interest in it. There was a broken feedback loop between the industry and the consumer.
I set out to change that. After a decade-long hedge fund career, I founded Athletic Brewing in 2017 with our co-founder, John Walker.
I was building from personal experience: I wanted this product to exist. I quit my job without ever having brewed a batch of beer. We had no prototype; just a lot of confidence that I was the future consumer.
Here’s a look at my typical day as the CEO of Athletic Brewing.
I start my day with a peaceful dog walk
I’ve always been a morning person. I really take advantage of the times of day that I can absolutely control, where there aren’t any distractions.
The first thing I do when I wake up is walk our two dogs and meditate. In my head, I lay out three priorities for the day: what are the most key building blocks?
When I get back, I write down those three goals before doing anything else — even pouring my first cup of coffee. I tend to knock them out right at the beginning of the day.
Quick sweats, including burpees and outdoor runs
Before I became a father, I ran about 10 Spartan, or obstacle-course, races a year. I’d love to get back out there in the future.
Now, I try to sweat early in the morning unless I know I have a workout planned later. If I have 10 minutes, it might be something as simple as burpees in my living room or basement, but normally it’s something a little more robust, like running outdoors, jumping on a treadmill or Peloton bike, or doing a quick weights workout.
If I had more time, I would love to do a lot more trail running than I currently do — I usually have time for one six-mile run on the weekends, about one hour. It’s just the current stage of life I’m in.
I cook breakfast for my wife and son every day
I cook breakfast for my wife and son every day. It changes, but generally it’s just healthy, simple stuff from scratch — cheesy eggs, fruit bowls, toast.
It’s a really good way to spend quality time with my family — it leads to natural conversation, figuring out what’s going on in everyone’s day.
After, I drop my son off at school and continue on to the brewery. Then, I’m off and running.
Prioritizing screen-free interaction
I get a lot of my online work done late at night — outside traditional hours — so that I can be as unplugged as possible when I’m with the team.
I find a lot of great collaboration happens in person; there’s stuff that doesn’t rise to the level of a Zoom calendar meeting, like a hallway conversation.
I spend time walking around with our teammates through the brewery, seeing how things are running, trying to figure out if there are any pain points or inefficiencies in people’s days. In general, Athletic Brewing is intended to be a very flat organization — without hierarchies or bureaucracy. Cross-departmental collaboration is encouraged.
I’m also a big believer in getting out and talking to either retailers or distributors. I’ve traveled to about 30 different states per year for the last two years. I like to see our retailers and consumers on their home turf and in their own markets, tasting as much beer as I can, fresh off the draught line to make sure it’s up to our standards.
I drink at least 3 Athletic Brewing beers a day
Lunch and dinner are always beer meals.
I tend to drink our Athletic Light with lunch — today’s was a salad. As someone who wears a Whoop band and strives for a whole-food diet and consistency, healthy eating can feel like I’m having the same thing over and over again. But pairing lunch with a really exciting IPA — one that’s not going to slow you down or get you off your health goals— changes things. Athletic has been a pretty big health unlock for me, just from the consumer side.
I usually have our Run Wild IPA with dinner — it’s the best to pair with food. And in the evenings, I almost always have a Free Wave Hazy IPA while I work. It’s kind of my reward for the day.
Switching gears to family time
Toward the late afternoon, I start to run out of gas and my productivity goes down.
Today, my son asked me before I dropped him off if I was going to be home in time to play football in the backyard this evening. So I’ll try to get home before it’s too dark to do that for at least a little bit.
When I get home, I often cook dinner. I love making all kinds of dishes, including pasta, lasagna, stir fry, cheeseburgers, steak, chicken, and a family favorite we call “Billy’s Carrots.”
I like to spend time with my family before my son goes to bed. It’s a very intentional unplug; I typically leave the phone off and on the counter.
Making use of the late-night calm
Since having a child, I’ve become an evening person as well as a morning person to get everything done.
After my family goes to bed, I find the next three hours are usually some of my most productive hours of the day, where I can really focus, clear my inbox, and take on two or three key projects when the world’s all quiet.
Before I log off for the night, I write down the three most important tasks to accomplish the following day. If you write down three goals over and over every day, it’s really hard, subconsciously, not to make progress toward them. I’ve been doing that for about eight years now.
This is how I find a really good balance in my life. I have a saying I share a lot with our team: going 65 miles an hour in the middle lane. It’s not getting burned out, but it’s extremely consistent. There are a lot of people going 100 miles an hour out there for very short bursts. And I’ll be here day after day, year after year, going 65 miles an hour in the middle lane, covering a ton of ground.
I wind down with British murder mysteries — and gratitude
I don’t like to go to bed thinking about the worst part of the day or stones left unturned — things I’m more privy to as my job is to find what needs improvement. So, I follow a gratitude practice where I highlight 3 to 5 things that were great that day. It helps me end the day on a positive note, taking the wins I don’t naturally stop to appreciate.
I learned during the stress of my finance career that I prefer to work hard, meditate, and then try to shut down. I have a stack of 12 books on my bedside table at night that I always wish I had more time to get to. I recently just finished “1929” by Andrew Ross Sorkin, Michael Dell’s autobiography “Play Nice But Win,” “The Creative Shift” by the former CEO of BBDO, Andrew Robertson, and a murder mystery I’m forgetting the name of.
However, my best life hack for getting a great night’s sleep is “Midsomer Murders,” a sleepy British countryside murder mystery that’s been on air for over 25 years.
I think they’re great. They’re solvable, with small chitchat and beautiful landscapes, and it really takes me out of my life and into this quiet world. I’ve been watching those with my wife for about 15 years. They’ll put anyone to sleep in 15 minutes.
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