The Upslope NexDraft system. (Courtesy Sustainable Beverage Technologies)
You walk into a bar and ask for two Guinnesses – one with alcohol and one without.
The bartender nods, pours the first with its usual 4.2% alcohol content and then flips a switch on the draft system. From the same tap, he fills another glass. But this time, the stout’s ABV is 0%.
On the heels of a $6 million raise, Golden-based Sustainable Beverage Technologies thinks this future isn’t far away.
“We’re in an industry that lacks a lot of real disruptive tech innovation, and we’re at the forefront of that,” said Jason Mangone, the business’s chief financial officer.
SBT’s proprietary machine, called NexDraft, has four taps that can pour alcoholic and non-alcoholic brews at the click of a button. Instead of coming in kegs, concentrated beer is shipped around in a bag-in-a-box.
Jason Mangone
Mangone said the process is similar to soda guns at most restaurants, which mixes carbonated water with flavored syrup to get patrons their Coke or Sprite.
He also said this is the first time N/A beer has been able to be freshly poured. Because alcohol is the thing that keeps bacteria from growing in a traditional keg, distributors haven’t been able to craft a solution.
SBT believes its process can help the company capitalize on a nationwide drinking trend.
“With this tectonic shift in consumer preference, it’s crushing the beer industry,” Mangone said. “The N/A space is growing 29% and craft breweries are shrinking 4.”
The first-to-market version, which is set for a limited launch in Q4, only has two options – full strength and N/A – but Mangone said SBT is working on adding a “sessionable” setting right in the middle. He is unsure when that model will debut.
“The consumer is powered to make that decision at point of consumption, which has never been done before,” he said.
Several trial versions that only pour N/A beer are already out there, including at Upslope Brewing Co.’s taps in Boulder and Silverthorne. Owner Dany Page said they’ve been using the system for almost a year and will get the alcohol-by-choice system whenever it releases.
Though he and his customers have enjoyed the N/A West Coast IPA and N/A Lager they can now serve fresh, Page thinks larger, non-craft beer makers and distributors have the most to gain from the upcoming tech. The bagged approach can make transport much more efficient than kegs, he said.
“That’s where things could change big time, especially for bigger companies. I can see a Budweiser saying it doesn’t make any more sense moving kegs. They could save billions of dollars in logistics,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s something that craft beer will do right away because the (upfront) cost of production could cause an inconvenience, but I can see it for big breweries.”
That production cost comes from having to brew on SBT’s brewing system, called BrewVo. Breweries have to make their beverages using that system to be poured on NexDraft.
Mangone said about 20 brands are using BrewVo, with Deschutes Brewery in Oregon and Junction Craft Beverage Co. each having their own BrewVos, which can brew up to 80,000 barrels annually. For smaller operations like Upslope, SBT facilitates the contract brewing process, outsourcing production to one of the two systems.
The business does R&D and pilot brews with a smaller facility at its 8,000 square foot facility in Golden.
“We want to be the largest production platform in the N/A beer space within the next two years,” Mangone said. Athletic is the current leader, with 260,000 barrels brewed in 2023.The Connecticut-based company raised $50 million in 2024.
SBT was founded in 2008 and initially pioneered a beer-making process for backcountry hikers. But after seeing how its beer concentrate could translate into kegless draft systems, SBT shifted its focus to the craft industry as a whole.
“If you applied our model and removed kegs in a typical macro brewery, they would have something like $2 million in savings in labor, around $10 million in savings in truck journeys, and $2 million in savings for kegs each year,” STB’s former CEO Gary Tickle told BusinessDen in 2021. “Most importantly, we are saving around 38,000 acres of rainforest by offsetting that carbon footprint and steel used to make the kegs for one brewer.”
The $6 million raise was led by repeat investor Cleveland Avenue, a Chicago venture firm. Middleby, a publicly traded, Illinois-based foodservice equipment manufacturer, was also a part of the round. Mangone said with many brands on the BrewVo waiting list, ramping up its production space is crucial.
“Our biggest challenge right now is capacity, we just cannot keep up with it,” he said of SBT, which has raised $30 million across five previous rounds.
Mangone expects to kick off another, larger raise to close by the end of the year, though he did not disclose a target number. He said that revenue has grown by an average of 160% each of the last four years, and expects both BrewVo and NexDraft to take off too.
Other potential areas to expand to include sports arenas and cruise ships, which have shown interest in NexDraft to try and reduce the amount of kegs they bring on each trip. Restaurant chains like Applebees or Buffalo Wild Wings would also be good candidates, and Mangone said SBT is in talks with four similar businesses.
“The athletic and arena channel is gonna be a big one for us, baseball stadiums turn alcohol off in the eighth inning and in hockey the third period,” he said, noting that live music will be another target as summer tours kick off.
“We think the BrewVo tech is going to scale,” he added. “But we think the NexDraft tech is going to be exponential.”
The Upslope NexDraft system. (Courtesy Sustainable Beverage Technologies)
You walk into a bar and ask for two Guinnesses – one with alcohol and one without.
The bartender nods, pours the first with its usual 4.2% alcohol content and then flips a switch on the draft system. From the same tap, he fills another glass. But this time, the stout’s ABV is 0%.
On the heels of a $6 million raise, Golden-based Sustainable Beverage Technologies thinks this future isn’t far away.
“We’re in an industry that lacks a lot of real disruptive tech innovation, and we’re at the forefront of that,” said Jason Mangone, the business’s chief financial officer.
SBT’s proprietary machine, called NexDraft, has four taps that can pour alcoholic and non-alcoholic brews at the click of a button. Instead of coming in kegs, concentrated beer is shipped around in a bag-in-a-box.
Jason Mangone
Mangone said the process is similar to soda guns at most restaurants, which mixes carbonated water with flavored syrup to get patrons their Coke or Sprite.
He also said this is the first time N/A beer has been able to be freshly poured. Because alcohol is the thing that keeps bacteria from growing in a traditional keg, distributors haven’t been able to craft a solution.
SBT believes its process can help the company capitalize on a nationwide drinking trend.
“With this tectonic shift in consumer preference, it’s crushing the beer industry,” Mangone said. “The N/A space is growing 29% and craft breweries are shrinking 4.”
The first-to-market version, which is set for a limited launch in Q4, only has two options – full strength and N/A – but Mangone said SBT is working on adding a “sessionable” setting right in the middle. He is unsure when that model will debut.
“The consumer is powered to make that decision at point of consumption, which has never been done before,” he said.
Several trial versions that only pour N/A beer are already out there, including at Upslope Brewing Co.’s taps in Boulder and Silverthorne. Owner Dany Page said they’ve been using the system for almost a year and will get the alcohol-by-choice system whenever it releases.
Though he and his customers have enjoyed the N/A West Coast IPA and N/A Lager they can now serve fresh, Page thinks larger, non-craft beer makers and distributors have the most to gain from the upcoming tech. The bagged approach can make transport much more efficient than kegs, he said.
“That’s where things could change big time, especially for bigger companies. I can see a Budweiser saying it doesn’t make any more sense moving kegs. They could save billions of dollars in logistics,” he said. “I don’t know if that’s something that craft beer will do right away because the (upfront) cost of production could cause an inconvenience, but I can see it for big breweries.”
That production cost comes from having to brew on SBT’s brewing system, called BrewVo. Breweries have to make their beverages using that system to be poured on NexDraft.
Mangone said about 20 brands are using BrewVo, with Deschutes Brewery in Oregon and Junction Craft Beverage Co. each having their own BrewVos, which can brew up to 80,000 barrels annually. For smaller operations like Upslope, SBT facilitates the contract brewing process, outsourcing production to one of the two systems.
The business does R&D and pilot brews with a smaller facility at its 8,000 square foot facility in Golden.
“We want to be the largest production platform in the N/A beer space within the next two years,” Mangone said. Athletic is the current leader, with 260,000 barrels brewed in 2023.The Connecticut-based company raised $50 million in 2024.
SBT was founded in 2008 and initially pioneered a beer-making process for backcountry hikers. But after seeing how its beer concentrate could translate into kegless draft systems, SBT shifted its focus to the craft industry as a whole.
“If you applied our model and removed kegs in a typical macro brewery, they would have something like $2 million in savings in labor, around $10 million in savings in truck journeys, and $2 million in savings for kegs each year,” STB’s former CEO Gary Tickle told BusinessDen in 2021. “Most importantly, we are saving around 38,000 acres of rainforest by offsetting that carbon footprint and steel used to make the kegs for one brewer.”
The $6 million raise was led by repeat investor Cleveland Avenue, a Chicago venture firm. Middleby, a publicly traded, Illinois-based foodservice equipment manufacturer, was also a part of the round. Mangone said with many brands on the BrewVo waiting list, ramping up its production space is crucial.
“Our biggest challenge right now is capacity, we just cannot keep up with it,” he said of SBT, which has raised $30 million across five previous rounds.
Mangone expects to kick off another, larger raise to close by the end of the year, though he did not disclose a target number. He said that revenue has grown by an average of 160% each of the last four years, and expects both BrewVo and NexDraft to take off too.
Other potential areas to expand to include sports arenas and cruise ships, which have shown interest in NexDraft to try and reduce the amount of kegs they bring on each trip. Restaurant chains like Applebees or Buffalo Wild Wings would also be good candidates, and Mangone said SBT is in talks with four similar businesses.
“The athletic and arena channel is gonna be a big one for us, baseball stadiums turn alcohol off in the eighth inning and in hockey the third period,” he said, noting that live music will be another target as summer tours kick off.
“We think the BrewVo tech is going to scale,” he added. “But we think the NexDraft tech is going to be exponential.”
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