Marin resident reflects on the growth of his nonalcoholic beer brand

New Year’s resolutions don’t have to last all year to be considered a success.

And for the nearly 30% of drinking-age Americans who were expected to take part in “Dry January,” the trend where adults give up alcohol for a month, Best Day Brewing founder and CEO had some advice.

“Whether you make it all 31 days is totally irrelevant,” said Tate Huffard, who launched the NA beer brand in Sausalito five years ago. “The point is, even if you make it two days, you are having this reset. You’re taking any amount of time to examine your relationship with alcohol. And in doing that, it has a very sticky behavior for the way you’re going to drink for the whole rest of the year.”

Huffard, the mountain biking, wave-riding Bay Area transplant who started a nonalcoholic beer company that has become one of the fastest-growing brands in the country, said folks should consider what NA beer could do for them all year long.

Drawing from the Bay Area’s active outdoor culture, Huffard was inspired to create Best Day Brewing in 2021. The company is now the third-fastest-growing brand in the adult beverage category, has tripled in volume and revenue in the last 18 months and is now in 90% of Whole Foods locations.

The Marin resident thinks the beer is growing in popularity for two main reasons: one, because it tastes good, and two, because most Americans are cutting back on their drinking.

The Gallup polls from last August revealed that just 54% of Americans of legal drinking age say they drink alcohol — the lowest level recorded in 90 years of polling.

The poll also showed a stat that meant a lot to Huffard: More than 90% of people who drink nonalcoholic beer also consume regular beer.

Huffard’s point: it’s not about abstaining; it’s about cutting back.

“With ‘Dry January,’ we’re not saying, ‘hey, it’s 31 days or bust,’” he said. “We’re just trying to get people to understand the benefits of taking a beat and saying, ‘there’s another alternative out there. I can fit it into my life this way, and if I do that, I’m going to fundamentally change my life.’”

Here’s more from a Q&A with Huffard. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length:

Q: Why do you think the NA beer market is exploding?

A: There’s a difference between the perception and the reality of what’s going on in this drinking market.

The perception is still one of, ‘am I in or am I out? Am I drinking or am I not drinking?’ That’s what nonalcoholic beer has always been. It’s been around since prohibition. And it’s held this stagnant space in the drinking market basically of people that don’t drink. And so there’s always been this perception of abstinence and sobriety.

But the reality is there’s something fundamentally different going on right now. And when you actually unpack it, over 90% of people that are drinking nonalcoholic beer are also still drinking, myself included. They’re just drinking differently.

Q: What has your personal relationship with alcohol been like?

A: I was a drinker. In my 20s, the math was pretty simple: more, more, more. Wake up, rinse and repeat. And somehow life works. You struggle through it and push through it when you need to. And when I rounded the corner into my 30s, that all started to change. The math was different.

Especially when you start throwing kids into the mix. Nothing makes you want to reconsider a hangover like doing it with a 2-year-old.

Beer for me has always been this really critical part of our culture where it brings people together. It’s a great thing when it’s done well, and it has always been that way. But I was exploring alternatives like kombuchas, sparkling waters, those things, which are all great in their own right, but they’re not at all like drinking a beer.

Q: Did you try other NA beers?

A: The very serendipitous thing that happened in my life is my father-in-law brought over a six-pack of O’Doul’s. He choked down one and parked the other five in my fridge. And the light bulb moment for me was opening up the fridge and seeing the beers that I love drinking, which have 4%, 5% or 7% alcohol, with the Odoul’s next to it. No wonder no one’s drinking this stuff.

But in the same instance, that feels like a problem that I should solve. If I could make a great-tasting beer that happened to have no alcohol in it, there’s a really cool brand story to tell around that.

Q: What’s the story?

A: It’s one of a lifestyle. It’s not one of abstinence. It’s not one of sobriety. It’s not one of giving stuff up. You’re opening up a whole bunch of new occasions that deserve a beer.

It’s a once-in-a-generation moment, what’s happening here. We’re not trying to tell people something’s bad so they stop doing it. We’re trying to show them something’s good so they do more of it.

Q:  What do you think of the new trend of “zebra striping,” where people alternate alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages while they’re out drinking?

A: It’s one of these behaviors that’s defining the future of drinking. And we see a ton of it happening here on the premises. Someone will come in, they’ll have a nice tequila and they’ll have our Mexican lager with it. Because they can. And they’re like, ‘Wow, this allows me to maybe have another tequila.’

Q: And there’s this trend of young people moving away from alcohol. Why do you think that is?

A: Gen Z people that we talk to in our consumer base, they’re drinking, they’re just coming up the curve later. They’re just kind of getting to these occasions later in life. On average, about five years later. In terms of the total amount of income that they’re spending, all of that is trending in the same way that millennials were and other generations before them. It’s just happening later in life.

And I think they’ve got options like Best Day, which those were not available to us. If we have a really fun, optimistic brand that appeals to a whole lot of people, good things are going to happen.

Do I hope that that ultimately yields more people being social and getting together around beers and going to bars? (Expletive)-yeah, I do.

Q: A lot of experts feel the loneliness epidemic is one reason the alcohol numbers are dropping amongst young people. They aren’t going out. What do you think of that?

A: This really worries me. I have kids. I want them to grow up in a social environment that beer has always fostered for me. And that’s one of getting people together. It could be at a music show. It could be around a table with a bunch of pizzas. It could be at a parking lot after surfing or out skiing. Beer has such a broad and wide-ranging reach.

We’ve got to get people together. We see it a lot in bars when we do trivia nights on a Tuesday night. And if we sponsor that night of trivia, all of a sudden people show up because they’re like, ‘ah, this is great that I don’t feel pressured to drink. There’s an option here. And that is allowing me to get out and go to a bar.’

Tate Huffard

Job: Founder and CEO Best Day Brewing

Age: 39

Grew up in: The Northeast, but moved to San Francisco in 2010

Residence: Marin

Education: Brown University, BA in economics

Family: Wife, Gray, and four kids, Wick (7), Boone (5), Rip (3) and Daisy (1), and a black lab named Mudge

5 fun facts

• Decided to name the company Best Day Brewing because he wanted consumers to think of every day as their “best day yet.”

• Loves to surf at Ocean Beach.

• Regularly mountain bikes in Marin.

• Likes to ski in Tahoe.

• Hoping to soon do all three activities with his kids.