Its just about the start of the new year, and that means “new you”. A lot of people start the year off with “Dry January” as a way to take control of their drinking, their weight, etc.

Athletic Brewing Company has a new tool to encourage drinkers to ‘Give Dry a Try’ and track the days they don’t consume alcohol.

Track Record

Athletic Brewing Company, America’s largest non-alcoholic brewery, is inviting drinkers to ‘Give Dry a Try’ this January by offering an easy way to track the days they don’t consume alcohol.

Called Track Record, the new alcohol moderation tool will launch on December 27, 2023, in the Athletic Brewing mobile app and on athleticbrewing.com. Track Record will give the millions of Americans looking to cut back on alcohol a guilt-free way of practicing mindfulness and moderation.

We know that one-third of U.S. drinkers are trying to cut back on alcohol, and Track Record will enable users to easily log the days they stay dry. This convenient and easy-to-use tool will help them stay on track and maintain motivation throughout January and beyond.

Andrew Katz – CMO of Athletic Brewing Company

Consumers interested in tracking their dry days can access the Track Record feature by downloading the Athletic Brewing mobile app and tapping the Track Record icon in the navigation bar. From there, users will be able to start a dry streak and view their progress while staying consistent in their quest to establish more mindful drinking behaviors.

We’re all about progress and celebrating wins, no matter how big or small. Whether it’s a month or just a day, Track Record is the ultimate tool for your dry journey. It gives you personalized insights on your progress and lets you choose how to Give Dry a Try.

Andrew Katz

You can find the Track Record at the website, or via the various ways to download apps. The website is: Athletic Brewing Co. – Track Record.

Whether your goals include cutting back on alcohol, becoming more active, or practicing mindfulness in all areas of your life, our athletes will be sharing their Pro Tips for showing up and staying consistent all year long.

Andrew Katz

To help drinkers stay motivated this January, Athletic Brewing’s athlete ambassadors will also be sharing their own Pro Tips for how to Give Dry a Try and encouraging everyone to stay on track with their 2024 goals.

The launch of Athletic Brewing’s Give Dry a Try campaign comes at a time when 34% of Americans over the age of 21 plan to drink less alcohol over the next year. At the same time, a record-high 39% of Americans now believe that consuming one to two drinks per day is bad for one’s health.

Some Non-Alcoholic Beer Related Articles

• I’ve Missed Drinking (A Look at Non Alcoholic Beers)
• Beer Review: Free Wave Hazy IPA (Non – Alcoholic Beer) (Athletic Brewing Company)
• Beer Review: Run Wild IPA (Non – Alcoholic Beer) (Athletic Brewing Company)
• The Rise of Non-Alcoholic Beer: A Guide to the Best Non Alcoholic Brews
• Brewery Review: Otto’s Pub and Brewery
• How Does Beer Affect Studying? Understanding the Impact of Alcohol on Academic Performance
• Breaking Down the Buzz: The Health Benefits of Craft Beer
• Best Non-Alcoholic Beers For 2021
• Surly Releasing Outlook Good Hoppy Non-Alcoholic
• Athletic Brewing Company Promotes Mindful Drinking with Launch of Track Record

About Athletic Brewing Company

Athletic Brewing, founded in 2017 by Bill Shufelt and John Walker, is the 13th largest craft brewer in America and the leading producer of non-alcoholic craft beer. The company’s brews are distributed in all 50 states and available at over 50,000 retail stores nationwide. In 2023, Athletic was ranked as the 4th fastest-growing company in the Americas by Financial Times. Athletic was also ranked as the fastest-growing U.S. beverage manufacturer by Inc. Magazine in 2022, and named one of TIME’s “100 Most Influential Companies.” The company has won over 75 prestigious brewing awards and has earned the title of North American Brewer of the Year in the last four International Beer Challenge competitions. Athletic has custom breweries in Milford, Connecticut, and San Diego, and donates up to $2 million annually to protecting and restoring outdoor spaces across the globe via its Two For The Trails program. Athletic Brewing is proudly a Certified B Corporation™. Its full-flavored near beers and hop-infused sparkling waters are available at www.athleticbrewing.com.

Athletic Brewing Company is making some amazing non – alcoholic beers. You certainly need to check them out, if nothing else than to try them and see if they make a good alternative to soda or other drinks for you at home.

Athletic Brewing Company (as per Untappd) is a regional brewery from Milford, Connecticut. They have 90 unique beers and over 80,000 ratings, with a global average rating of 3.45 (as of 12.20.23). Their Untappd description reads: Athletic Brewing Co. is a non-alcoholic beer company dedicated to making great-tasting craft brews, without compromise. Our lineup of styles lets you enjoy the taste and experience of refreshing craft beer without sacrificing your performance, passions, health, or good taste. They’re fit for all times, made for all palates, and enjoyed by anyone who loves a great beer.

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Hop Culture, a popular site that has organized brewfests and events like Beers With(out) Beards, Juicy Brews, and others, is a digital beer (craft beer) website, blog, and brand. Hop Culture LLC is based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Next Glass is based out of Charlotte, North Carolina. Next Glass has a lot of different software, app, and other systems already in place, and the acquisition of Hop Culture adds to their growing list of websites, apps, and other beer and beverage related brands and products.

From the Forbes article about the acquisition: “Hop Culture founder and CEO Kenny Gould says the partnership will help Next Glass develop a suite of business tools — a “cohesive ecosystem,” if you will — to streamline experiences for consumers and provide operational efficiencies for businesses in the beverage alcohol space, from producers to wholesalers to retailers.”

In a long piece that Kenny Gould published to Hop Culture after the announcement, he stated: “But first — know that I’m not going anywhere. Neither is my team. Although they’re not regularly in the limelight, Hop Culture Managing Editor John A. Paradiso and Head of Partnerships Grace Weitz each played essential roles in Hop Culture’s growth and development, and we all plan to continue our work with the company in expanded roles.”

From the PRNewswire press release about the news: “The Hop Culture team has built an engaging and important platform with voices and events that resonate within the industry,” said Trace Smith, CEO of Next Glass. “We’re excited and proud to welcome a brand and team with values and a vision that so closely mirror our own.”

Founded in 2017 by journalist Kenny Gould, Hop Culture got its start promoting small, independent craft breweries via their Instagram and digital magazine. Over time, the company also grew to include a popular merchandise line and event series.

“Hop Culture couldn’t be more excited about this partnership,” said Gould. “At Next Glass, Trace and his team have put together the largest network of beer drinkers in the world, and we look forward to working with them to continue producing compelling content and world-class events.”

Untappd was founded on October 22nd, 2010 by Greg Avola. From wikipedia: “Untappd is a geosocial networking service and mobile phone application founded by Greg Avola and Tim Mather that allows its users to check in as they drink beers, and share these check-ins and their locations with their friends” As of 2017 it was estimated that Untappd had 9 Million Users and 125 Internal Employees.

Beer Advocate was founded in the early days of the internet (and craft beer) – in 1996 as a website for rating and cataloging beer. It along with Rate Beer (founded in 2000) were the pioneers for beer rating systems, until smart phone technology and apps paved the way for Untappd.

Gould: “Breweries (and other alcohol producers) operating a lot of different systems have to rely on disparate tools, and you start to see why that’s a problem when you look at scale, going forward, they’ll have one company and endless integration for a seamless back end experience.”

Gould claims that Hop Culture will keep its same journalism, with the same editors, and same workers (working from home currently) despite the buy-out. He states that it is a mutual buy-out that will offer Hop Culture and Next Glass much for the future. While Hop Culture gets to stay relatively its own thing, Next Glass gets out of the deal – is someone to oversee branding (both internal and client / external needs), a ready to go team that is already connected to the beer community (and with strong ties to a thriving craft beer scene in Pittsburgh), and a brand that has demonstrated success at hosting small, medium, and large scale events and festivals.

According to the Forbes article (under why the purchase was made in 2020): “Seven-year-old Next Glass has grown tremendously this year, from buying Hop Culture, Oznr and some of BeerAdvocate’s assets, to naming a new CEO, taking in investment from Providence Strategic Growth, and hiring its first consort of executives and managers.

Just as Gould gets excited talking about his newfound ability to draw on a far greater pool of resources than his four-year-old beer-magazine startup ever allowed, Next Glass CEO Trace Smith says the deal with Providence, which went through in March, gives his business the resources to do more in the future, including boosting its presence in Europe; recover from COVID losses; and launch initiatives to help the hospitality industry much sooner.      

“We certainly hope this is a temporary speed bump, and we understand that the economic conditions might be soft coming out of it,” Smith tells the Greater Wilmington Business Journal. “But that additional capital will help us regrow more quickly post-COVID-19 and will help us bring more (furloughed) team members back.” For his part, the 30-year-old Gould’s instincts haven’t led him astray. The Pittsburgh son and grandson of entrepreneurs started the Hop Culture website in 2017 as a way to highlight positive stories in the craft beer world. As Gould, who also works as a freelance writer and Forbes contributor, says, “I never set out to start a business. I set out to write about beer.”

Gould is hoping that with the purchase, Hop Culture can expand its efforts to be more inclusive in the beer community. With the goal of expanding Beer Kulture (black / African – American promotions), Beers With(out) Beards (women promotions), and starting a queer beer festival.

About Next Glass (from the PRNewswire Article): “Founded in 2013, Next Glass develops software and creates experiences that connect enthusiasts, retailers, and producers in the beverage alcohol industry. The Next Glass family of brands serves the unique and varied needs of the industry via multiple platforms. Its award-winning Untappd mobile application and BeerAdvocate website are used by millions of beer enthusiasts around the world and its menu publishing software tool, Untappd for Business, enables venues to streamline publication and promotion of their beer, wine, cocktail, and food menus while Oznr, the leader in direct to consumer technology for the craft beverage industry, partners with craft producers to manage their membership programs, can/bottle release pre-sales, and event ticketing. The Company’s recently-introduced Untappd Marketplace enables alcohol resellers to streamline ordering of beer, wine, and spirits from wholesalers and self-distributing breweries. The Company’s Live! division produces world class festivals and events for the Untappd and BeerAdvocate communities.”

Kenny Gould wrote a long article on his site, giving a history of Hop Culture, as well as telling why he sold to Next Glass. He details the early years, how they became a business, their first festivals (the first of which was in October 2017),

He goes on to discuss the ‘glory years’, and ‘turning the wheel’, and then goes into the search for his ‘future’ rather than just looking forward to the weekend. As he says in his article: “So I began my search. Luckily, I wasn’t under any sort of deadline. Over the past couple years, the team and I worked against the odds to build an awesome little engine that supported us, our projects, and a great team of freelancers. I could afford to be choosy. I could steward my baby toward a solution that offered the greatest potential for a continuation of the mission, practices, and values we found important.

At first, I thought about approaching venture capital. I gathered my materials and started the research to find a great partner. But before I could send my first email, a Forbes interview changed my life.

Back in 2018, during a Brewers Association dinner at the Union Square Café, I met a Forbes writer who told me her friend in the food and drink section was looking for new contributors. What the hell, I thought. I can always do some more writing. So I threw my name in the hat and started contributing a couple articles a month, mostly highlighting underrepresented voices in brewing and the beer industry.”

You can read more from Kenny Gould at his article on Hop Culture here: “The Next Chapter”.

From his article on Hop Culture, Gould says: “Additionally, thank you. The past four years have exceeded all expectations I had for an exciting life. And I’ve been moved and inspired by every single person I’ve met along the way. From brewers to distributors, from retailers to fans and everyone in between, I’m in your debt. This ride has been nothing short of incredible.

And the best part? We’re only getting started.”

And to think, says Gould, Hop Culture started as a “glorified blog. I was doing it because it was fun.” (This certainly sounds familiar…….. I think I’ve used this line often times when co-workers, friends, and family ask me how my silly ‘blog’ thing is going; I’m just doing it for fun.)

For more information on the purchase, you can check out the following links:

• Forbes: Untappd and Beer Advocate’s Parent Company Accelerates its Buying Spree with Purchase of Hop Culture
• PRNewswire.com: Next Glass Acquires Hop Culture
• Hop Culture: Kenny Gould: The Next Chapter, or Why I Sold Hop Culture
• WRAL Tech Wire: Wilmington’s Next Glass showing a taste for deals, with latest buy
• Craft Brewing Business: Next Glass adds excellent craft beer hub Hop Culture to its portfolio

You can check out some of our latest craft beer news, brewery news, and industry news here: “BREWERY / INDUSTRY NEWS”. Including our latest about the BREW – The Museum of Beer, which is set to have an online exhibit opening on December 15th (Tuesday), 2020. The Museum will eventually be open in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Please be sure to follow us on our social media accounts – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Influence. Please be sure to also follow, like, subscribe to the blog here itself to keep updated. We love to hear from you guys, so be sure to leave a comment and let us know what you think!

Thank you everyone for reading. Any comments, questions, or anything you want to discuss at all, just leave a comment and I’ll make sure to get right back at ya. Love chatting with you guys about craft beer and breweries! Be sure to stay safe out there and keep supporting your small breweries and businesses, times are getting tough again, and all your support, no matter how little, can make the difference in a brewery staying open or shuttering their doors for good. Cheers everyone!

-B. Kline

For more information, you can check these references:
www.untappd.com
www.untappd.com/business
www.beeradvocate.com
www.oznr.com
www.untappd.tv
www.hopculture.com
www.instagram.com/hopculturemag

Be sure to check out our other articles on brewery openings:

• A Sneak Preview of Rubber Soul Brewing (Hummelstown)
• Midwest Coast Brewing Opens (Chicago)
• Rally Point – Cox Brewing Taproom Opens (Elizabethtown)
• Boneshire Brew Works to Open Second Taproom in Harrisburg (Harrisburg)
• Irv’s Pub Rebranded as Rotunda Brewing Pub (Hershey)
• Official BBQ (Pizza Boy Secondary Location) (Rutherford)
• The Grand Opening of Hemauer Brewing
• Pilger Ruh Brewing Needs Your Help (Pottsville)
• Highway Manor Brewing Co. (Camp Hill)
• Grand Opening: Rubber Soul Brewing Company (Hummelstown)
• Tap Room Opening: Howling Henry’s Brewery (Hummelstown)
• Little Fish Brewing Extending into Dayton
• Levity Brewing Expanding Taproom and Opening Second Location in Altoona
• BREW – The Museum of Beer

You can read about more brewery closures here:

• Stoudt’s Brewing Closing
• Crystal Ball Brewing Closes
• Voodoo Brewery Lancaster Closes
• Spigot Brewing Closes
• Full Pint Brewing Closes
• Night Shift Brewing Cancels Expansion
• Mikkeller Brewing NYC Closes Permanently

Finally, a Dauphin county centralized beer trail and beer app has been released. Created by Visit Hershey and Harrisburg PA, its the first beer trail app for the greater Harrisburg and Hershey area. It launched Monday (July 13th, 2020) and its called Beer Barons Beer Trail. You can find it in the Google Play and Android stores on your phones, tablets, etc.

Back in March I met with Rick Dunlap of Visit Hershey and Harrisburg PA. We discussed many things while enjoying a lovely dinner and a couple (that turned into a few) beers at the Tattered Flag Distillery Lounge in Hershey (the former Hershey Biergarten). We discussed my blog – The Beer Thrillers – the upcoming openings of a few breweries in the area (notably Rubber Soul) and we discussed their app; which I had to keep under wraps until now.

There is a ton of features, and a lot of great things to really like about this new app, so definitely be sure to check it out and download it. I’ll break some things down here, and discuss in greater detail in an upcoming article – giving it a full in-depth review.

I’ve gotten to ‘test drive’ it a little bit, hitting three breweries so far with it and gotten to try out a few features. This weekend being off, I’m going to be trying out a few more stops and hopefully hitting the first ‘goal’ of the rewards section.

Firstly, let’s take a look at the opening screen page of the app. At the top the menu is all clickable and will redirect you to the screens you want, and on the opening screen the big blocks are clickable too – they are: How To Play, Beer Trail Hotel Packages, and Explore Hershey and Harrisburg.

First, you will need to create an account, and I recommend checking out the “How to Play” section first. This will let you create the account and learn about the app.

If you click on Beer Trail, you can see a list of the participating breweries. And it will list them by distance from your current location. (Do note, you need to have location set on for this app.) as you can see I visited a few breweries and it shows which ones I’ve checked-in at.

A great feature of the app is the map. Which shows you where each participating brewery is. This is great for new people to the area or if you want to play your own day-trip and hit several breweries in a given area. As you can see, its not directly Harrisburg and Hershey, the map and participating breweries extends to Mt. Gretna brewery in Campbelltown as well as Tattered Flag and The Vineyard of Hershey in Middletown and out to Pizza Boy in Enola and Liquid Noise in Marysville.

Something to note – Newfangled Brew Works does not appear on this because they chose not to participate in the app.

All told there is 19 locations participating, with more to come as they open. As it shows The Watershed (The Millworks soon to be opened second location) will soon be opening. Rubber Soul Brewing in Hummelstown will also be added to the list once they open soon. There is other new breweries opening soon; and hopefully they will likewise get added (The Englewood, Howling Henry, Ever Grain Farms, and Wolf Brewing).

The app was created by Jason Meckes, a craft beer enthusiast; he has dedicated quite a bit of time to creating this app and is extremely proud of it. While recently discussing the app with Jason, he said: “Some breweries, like Rubber Soul and new Zeroday locations, are in a holding pattern until they open, but will be added once they can have people inside. We are hoping to add thousands of visitors to these breweries, and we have just been waiting for the right time when a good majority of them were OK to welcome guests again. The framework with so many breweries will help spread out that demand, too.”

The app definitely has a chance to help out many local breweries and restaurants as well. Something Jason made sure to point out to me, one of his favorite little features to the app – “One of the coolest ‘hidden’ features is the restaurants tab, which lists all Dauphin County eateries, ordered by closest to you.”

There is definitely a lot to see in this app and it looks tremendous. As I have said and shown above, I’ve already gotten to check-in and visit three breweries, and looking at adding a few more on the weekend which coincides with my days off. So I will be able to give a much more in-depth review. So be sure to look for that companion piece to go along with this. That article will provide even more information and give a much more documented look at the features involved in the app.

Its fun to see new apps pop up in the beer and brewing industry, especially local ones. With the loss of HopPlotter and the Breweries in PA app not being the greatest, its really nice to see this well done, intuitive, and easy to use app pop up for the Central PA (Dauphin county specifically) area. So if you are in the area be sure to take advantage of it. There’s also some great prizes to be ‘won’ by checking in at different locations – from decks of cards to glasses, to even better swag. Which I’ll go into more detail in the next article.

For more information, you can also read The Burg’s launch release on the Brew Barons Beer Trail App, which has some more direct quotes with creator Jason Meckes.

As always, thanks everyone for checking this out. Be sure to check out some of our other recent industry news articles below, and please stay safe, keep your distance, wash your hands, and enjoy some great craft beers at some great local craft breweries! Cheers!

• A Sneak Peak at the New Rubber Soul Brewery in Hummelstown
• Boneshire Brew Works Set to Open Second Tap Room in Harrisburg
• Voodoo Brewing Closes in Lancaster
• Night Shift Brewing Cancels Expansion in Philadelphia
• Grand Opening of Hemauer Brewing in Mechanicsburg

Additional source:

• The Burg: Brew Barons Beer Trail App Launches by Visit Hershey and Harrisburg PA

Cheers!

-B. Kline