If you check the tap list at Story Hill BKC this week you might notice a new brew on draft: Athletic Brewing’s Run Wild IPA – a non-alcoholic beer.

It’s rare to see an NA beer on tap in anywhere, including in Milwaukee, where even the local brewers making non-alcoholic beer, like Lakefront, offer their products only in cans.

“We just tapped the Athletic Run Wild IPA yesterday,” Black Shoe Hospitality Beverage Director Jason Kerstein told me Thursday.  (Black Shoe owns Story Hill BKC.)

“This is the first Athletic they released on tap. I think it’s quite good for an NA. (Distributor) Beechwood (Sales & Service) brought in a limited amount to start.

“We sell a lot of Athletic at Story Hill, so I thought it would be worth a try on tap. We have 21 taps, so we have space to try it. NA beverages in general have really trended up this year at all our restaurants.”

According to Beechwood's Mike McLaughlin, the beer is also available on tap at Mr. B's Steakhouse in Brookfield, Gary’s Place in West Bend and Burnheart’s in Milwaukee.

Athletic Brewing Company was founded in 2017 in Connecticut and by 2022 it was selling nearly half of all NA craft beer in the country. It is the 10th biggest craft brewer in the U.S. and currently has about 20 percent of the non-alcoholic beer market, according to this article.

This past May, the company took over, from Ballast Point, the largest brewery facility in San Diego.

Athletic also recently expanded its Connecticut brewery and can now make 450,000 barrels a year there. The San Diego facility has 300- and 150-barrel brewhouses, but is not currently running as Athletic is undertaking renovations there.

According to an Athletic spokesperson, the Connecticut capacity growth has allowed the company to expand its pilot draft program, which began about 18 months ago.

The NA beers have always been on tap at the Athletic brewery and taproom, and became available in some New York City bars in 2019.

The kegs of Run Wild IPA – one of the brewery’s flagships – were expanded in New York, Connecticut and the San Diego area in March 2023 and to other markets in the months since. The beer is not, however, available on tap nationwide.

The kegs arrived in Milwaukee last month.

"We’re excited to be pioneering non-alcoholic draft beer at scale in the U.S. and are pleased with the early success of our pilot program,” says Athletic co-founder and COO John Walker. “While many bar and restaurant operators are still coming around to the idea of serving non-alcoholic beer on draft, we’re encouraged by the enthusiastic response we’re seeing thus far.

“Although we expect the adoption of non-alcoholic draft beer to happen gradually, we’re ready for the challenge and investing for a future where Athletic brews on draft are just as commonplace as full-strength beer."

The equipment required to remove alcohol from beer is complicated and expensive and is the reason why most breweries – including Lakefront – have their NA beers brewed on a contract basis.

Currently, Lakefront’s contract doesn’t include draft beer, only packaging in cans.

Athletic does not brew traditional beer and then remove the alcohol. Instead, it has developed its own process for fermenting its beer to non-alcoholic (less than .5 percent ABV) levels.

Kegging non-alcoholic beer also has special requirements in terms of food safety.

"We conducted two years of internal research and development to validate the route-to-market for serving non-alcoholic draft beer at scale,” says Walker.

"We have an exhaustive program that informs stakeholders at all levels – both internally and in-market – to ensure that Athletic’s best-in-class food safety and draft quality measures are being practiced."