The NA beer segment is getting a boost from the A-list.
Hollywood star Tom Holland’s new non-alcoholic (NA) beer brand Bero debuts today with three styles, backed by consumer product-centric investment firm Imaginary Ventures and led by CEO John Herman, an energy drink veteran with 20 years of experience.
“For me, Bero is personal,” Holland said in a press release. “After two years on my sobriety journey, I wanted to create something that reflected my lifestyle and values. This beer isn’t just for those on a similar path, but for everyone who appreciates quality, craftsmanship and living life to the fullest. Bero delivers the taste and experience of a great brew, and never asks you to settle for less.”
The brand launch portfolio includes Kingston Golden Pils, Edge Hill Hazy IPA and Noon Wheat. All are pasteurized and available in 12 oz. can 6-, 12-, 18- and 24-packs, as well as variety 12-packs, according to the release.
Bero is selling directly to consumers (DTC) on its own website, with plans to launch nationally in Target in early 2025 via an in-progress network of beer distributors.
For a single-flavor pack, DTC retail prices are $15.98 for a 6-pack, $29.98 for a 12-pack, $44.98 for an 18-pack, and $54.98 for a 24-pack. Variety 12-packs cost $33.50, excluding shipping.
For the remainder of the fourth quarter of 2024, Bero’s strategy is to focus on the on-premise with a concentration on New York City and Los Angeles, Herman told Brewbound.
“In a world of excess, Bero represents a shift toward discernment,” he said in the release. “People are filtering out what doesn’t add value and choosing things that enrich their lives. We believe that non-alcoholic beer can be more than just a substitute – it can be a bridge to a more balanced life and it can taste incredible. Bero is here to celebrate moderation without sacrificing pleasure, offering a lifestyle that everyone can aspire to.”
With Holland instantly recognizable to fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (he has played Spider-Man in Marvel films since 2015), the Bero team includes beverage industry veterans instantly recognizable to professionals in both beer and non-alcoholic beverages.
Herman tapped craft beer veteran Grant Wood as brewmaster. Wood co-founded Revolver, which Molson Coors acquired in 2016 and sold to Tilray this summer. Nutrabolt veteran Declan Duggan is serving as SVP of sales and distribution. Anheuser-Busch InBev alumna Jackie Widmann is Bero’s VP, head of marketing.
Bero has a contract production partner in Colorado, and is seeking other facilities on the East Coast, Herman said.
NA beer is the only segment to achieve double-digit growth in the last 52 weeks (through September 8), according to market research firm Circana. Dollar sales of NA beer increased +29.1%, to $440.8 million, in multi-outlet grocery, mass retail, club and convenience stores (MULO+C) tracked by Circana. In MULO+C channels, NA beer holds a 0.97% share of beer category dollars. The segment’s share more than doubles in grocery stores (2.37%), but under-indexes in c-stores (0.2%), according to Circana.
Herman, who was president of C4 energy maker Nutrabolt and departed in June 2023 after delivering the company to a partnership with Keurig Dr Pepper, discussed the brand, its aspirations and what it’s like to build a company alongside one of the most famous actors in the world.
Here are snippets from our conversation, which have been lightly edited for clarity.
On creating Bero with Holland: Truly – truly – building it hand in hand with him. He’s as much of a visionary of what the brand will be. We text, we talk daily. He’s involved in the creative of the brand positioning. He’s been involved infinitely in the tasting and positioning of the actual styles with myself and our brewmaster. This isn’t a brand that we built and then we said ‘Hey, let’s find a celebrity.’ It’s his baby.
On Holland’s input in the beers themselves: The three of them are really named after ties to Tom’s life. Kingston is his hometown where he’s from in the U.K. Edge Hill happens to be the name of the first school that he went to where he really picked up acting. The color of that can is a maroon, which was the color of the lapel of the school jacket. Noon is the name of his little dog that he shares with his girlfriend. [Editor’s note: that’s the perhaps even more famous Zendaya.]
On how Herman landed in NA beer after nearly a decade in energy: I was really fascinated by the non-alcoholic beer category, because it felt a lot like energy to me. Athletic was breaking down the walls for people to think differently and retailers to think differently.
Simultaneously, I ended up meeting the team at Imaginary Ventures, which is the VC fund that is really helping to fund us long-term. They’re a great consumer fund. They’ve worked on amazing brands. And their thought was, we think NA beer is the next big thing. We think that there’s an opportunity from a lifestyle and branding standpoint. And if we can fund a business with an operator that knows how to do that, with a celebrity that has a real story there for involvement, we think it could be special.
Enter Tom, who’s going on his third year of sobriety, and he started on his own – independent of me or Imaginary – thinking celebrities are always being approached to start up liquor brands that doesn’t feel real or something like I would do, but I love beer, and on my journey, I’ve really missed having a brand that speaks to me. I’d like to create this.
You literally have three streams coinciding, where I met Imaginary, we hit it off, we were thinking similarly. And then I met Tom, and we hit it off, and it’s been an 11-month run of building this thing, and it’s been a lot of fun.
On why quality assurance means more with a big name attached to the brand: Quality is a big non-negotiable differentiator for me. And then you layer on top of that, Tom Holland. Quite frankly, he’s wonderful, but his reputation is spotless. So we can’t take any chances on doing anything below the line.
On why starting in the on-premise and experiential world makes sense: We think we can really build our brand in those influential and aspirational accounts and key metropolitan areas. We’ll be having national partnerships with some of the more affluential clubs, where we’re going to do different events and things of that nature, so social, influencer, really building community through events and activations.
With lower distribution, it’s not going to be about cans and hand sampling. It will be more about, one to one, building those events in the bar scene. Then, as we get into next year, I think we’ll look at broader cross-partnerships and collaborations within different branded spaces that live in the adjacent world with us.
On how performance energy startups reinvigorated the category: When we started C4, what they now call performance energy was less than 5% of the total category, and it was really comprised of a brand called VPX, Bang Energy. They were the first brand to come out and actually show through velocity, and distribution and consumer demand that the untouchable brands like Monster and Red Bull and Rockstar weren’t untouchable.
Consumers were looking for traits in their products that the legacy leaders weren’t offering – zero sugar, functional ingredients, new flavors that aren’t acquired taste. They were looking for a different brand than what those brands could represent. And even though Monster and Red Bull had zero sugar, it still presented itself as a bit of a cigarette where it was like, ‘I know I shouldn’t have this, but I do it because I want to.’ And the younger generation, quite frankly, weren’t interacting with that. So Bang did the hard work for the category.
They got beer wholesalers to say ‘OK, we can get over the Monster departure from us and how non-alcs leave us. We can get over that because we see the potential.’ And then on top of that, they made retailers think differently about expanding their sets, all while the marketing invited a younger, more affluent and educated customer to the category. So today in energy drinks, that performance energy set is about 30% of the total category. Within that the category as a whole went from being about $13 billion in the U.S. to being over $20 billion so completely expanded the category.
And how NA beer may be able to do the same: You have legacy alcoholic beer full-strength that right now is not growing. The reports come out all the time about the pressures that it’s facing. And I don’t think alcohol or beer is going away. But the reality is the only way that brands are showing growth right now is a bit of a shell game. One brand has a marketing misstep, the other one takes advantage, but the total category is stuck.
I think NA beer can be the catalyst for a segmentation within greater beer. While it might represent a negligible and nascent part of the category today, I think fast forward, there’s no reason why non-alcoholic beer can’t do to beer what performance energy did to energy.
Athletic has made consumers realize that non-alc can be cool, but the branding is speaking very much to a specific consumer. And I think we can speak to a different lifestyle moment and different consumer. Ultimately, together – and there will probably be one or two other brands that can do this with us – we can expand the category as a whole and get into a spot where it’s not just the fast growing category that people think is interesting, but becomes a very meaningful part of the total industry.
On why several brands are needed to ensure NA beer’s success: If the future of the non-alcoholic beer category is purely carried by Athletic – it’s not that I don’t believe in their brand and their leadership and what they’ve done, because I truly do think they’re wonderful – but I don’t think the category can hit its full potential just with one brand.
Brands are personal. It’s the same thing happening in carbonated soft drinks you have Olipop and Poppi. It takes a few brands to build it out to its full potential and go from being a nice one-off idea to becoming a true trend that will stay.