Work happy hours. Lunch at a brewery. Holiday parties. Dinner with friends. Imagine each of these scenarios. Now picture them without any alcohol.

It’s nearly impossible, right? For those who partake in the occasional drink, having fun often seems to go hand-in-hand with alcohol — and it can be pretty exclusionary for those who don’t drink for one reason or another. Jeff Stevens, founder of the WellBeing Brewing Company, is working to change that.

Jeff spent years marketing top beer brands before founding WellBeing Brewing in 2017. The company is the first craft brewery in the country dedicated to brewing non-alcoholic beer.

Jeff has been in recovery from the age of 24. As a self-described “non-alcoholic,” Wellbeing Brewing scratched his own itch. But he’s realized there are many different people who want a great-tasting beverage without alcohol.

“There are lots of people who don't drink. There are lots of people who aren't drinking at a particular time — that particular night, this particular round — and to have some thoughtful beverages for them just makes complete sense,” Jeff says on this episode of The Empowered Challenger.

To create appealing non-alcoholic options that look and sound cool, Jeff was inspired by the “fun, funky aesthetic” on Cherokee Street in St. Louis. Bold names for beverages — like its dark amber beverage “Hellraiser” — add to the appeal.

Jeff has also worked hard to ensure the drinks actually taste good — not so easy for non-alcoholic beers.

He says, “We all want to try something better than O’Doul’s.”

Prentice’s Takeaway👉 ‘Question assumptions.’ Jeff reinvented not only the product but the use occasion. Whether you drink alcohol or you don’t drink alcohol, he’s created many reasons to enjoy a great tasting non-alcoholic beer.

Featured Challenger👨 Name: Jeff Stevens

⚙️ How he challenges: As the founder of WellBeing Brewing, Jeff challenges the notion that you have to drink alcohol to have fun.

🍺 Company: WellBeing Brewing Company

💎 Noteworthy: To ensure the beer tastes good, WellBeing uses equipment from Germany that lowers the temperature of fermented beer to avoid scorching it.

🔍 Where to find Jeff: Twitter | LinkedIn

Challenger Wisdom 💡 Product love in unexpected places “I knew that there were probably people like me who just didn't drink, that would love to have someone thoughtfully make an awesome beer for them. But the people that I was surprised — and I guess I shouldn't be — was how many people who love an IPA. But man, you can't drink three of those on a Wednesday night. It's just too much. … And so you switch over and I think that's where we've gotten a lot of people who have tried our product.”

💡 Getting the right balance with branding “I think there was a path for us to go down where it could have become too preachy and too cold and a little too much for people. While I think it's a hugely powerful idea, we wanted it to still be about connection and fun and all the things that make beer great. So it needed to feel craft.”

💡 When your customers are willing to pay more “We started an online store and we started shipping with the bottles … I look back on us packing bottles in our living room, which was the funniest thing. But people wanted to try it and I knew we would be successful because people were paying obscene, shipping charges in glass bottles to have this beer shipped to them. … We all want to try something better than O’Doul’s … So there was a lot of heart for this category. And I think a lot of people that were like, please send us the beer!”

💡 Getting the word out to consumers “We do a lot of influencer marketing … I guess the new term is micro-influencers — it's all kind of based on how many followers they have, but there are so many people doing so many great things in the alcohol-free space — in the digital recovery space, in the training space, in the wellbeing space, and the eating better space. There are a lot of people out there who just are natural fits for this product.”

💡 Being a market maker and adding shelf space “[Total Wine & More] is in 22 states — they're a very progressive and smart retailer. What they have told us is … we've created a whole other section of the store just for you. They have seen the category of non-alcoholic drinks rise. That was really telling to me — we weren't really taking space from anyone. We were literally creating a whole new space.”

💡 More competition is great, but it’s also a threat “I know that the big brewers — the Miller’s and Anheuser-Busch — those guys are jumping into our category. Budweiser Zero just launched this year; Heineken 0.0 launched last year. I think so far that's been a positive thing cause it's really legitimized the category. … Between all the other craft brewers that could get into this and all the other startup companies, I think there's going to be more competition as this category grows … How do you keep your brand at the forefront? You're not going to be the newest anymore. But what kinds of things can you do to keep your brand vital? … I think all those things — we all stay up at night worrying about.”

Top quotes from the episode:Jeff Stevens:

“Until we made an IPA, I had never tasted an IPA … I felt like I had really missed something in the world by not being able to enjoy craft beer.”

“We all want to try something better than O’Doul’s and [people who have been sober for years] have completely missed the craft beer revolution, so there was a lot of heart for this [product].”

“With the movements of dry January and sober October … I think there’s a much larger world of [an] alcohol-free lifestyle that isn’t necessarily tied into alcoholism, but for people who are looking to make a change in their life. It’s making a conscious choice to mindfully drink, or to really examine what role alcohol has and is playing in [their] life.”