After launching his company Hoplark to create an alternative to beer, Dean Eberhardt is going after the real thing.
Known for its four-SKU line of RTD hopped teas, the Boulder, Colorado-based beverage company has announced its entrance into the non-alcoholic “beer” market with the launch of Hoplark 0.0, a zero-calorie, zero-proof craft brew line that arrives in stores this month.
The launch was hastened by Hoplark’s own strong momentum: Having debuted in 2018, the brand’s flagship hopped teas have grown into the second best-selling tea product at Whole Foods Market, which gave it runway to introduce a second line of hop-infused sparkling waters. Having now established its credentials of offering “game changing real ingredient flavor experience,” expanding the platform with a product that complements its existing releases opens new paths to retail and distribution.
“From the success that we’ve had with the tea product, we have been learning from our customers and that has led us to this knowledge that the ‘0.0’ product is a more dialed, streamlined connection to the customer on shelf,” said Eberhardt, Hoplark’s co-founder and CEO. “It’s an opportunity to talk specifically to that non-alc beer customer, rather than coming through a different product.”
In other words, after skirting the edges of the category with its previous releases, Hoplark has permission to create a beverage that more explicitly captures the feel and flavors of traditional beer. Thanks to the presence of caffeine, Hoplark’s teas lend itself to use occasions throughout the day, while emphasizing the “incredible interplay between ancient tea and modern hops,” Eberhardt said. In contrast, Hoplark 0.0 aims to deliver “in-your-face craft beer experiences,” starting with the double dry-hopped Citra Hops.
With no fermentation involved, however, it should be noted that Hoplark 0.0. isn’t technically a beer. But with just three ingredients — Citra hops, sparkling water and citric acid — the product is distinguished as much by what is left out than what is included.
“As amazing as what everyone has done in NA beer, they aren’t diet products. They have calories and gluten,” he said. “We view this opportunity as this totally unique flavor technology and what we’ve been able to do in our brewery to pull flavor and aroma out of hops without any of the bitter or off flavors. That can be applied to this problem in a really powerful way.”
As Hoplark makes inroads from natural retail to more mainstream channels, the 0.0 line gives the company another path forward. The product is rolling out to BevMo, Natural Grocers, Sprouts, Fry’s Food Stores and King Soopers locations, with an initial focus on the West Coast, Southeast and Northeast, all “large craft beer geographies,” Eberhardt said. This will also mark Hoplark’s first foray into DSD with “several really well-known beer distributors,” but, like its other drinks, it will also be sold online at hoplarkzero.com via subscription or single orders for $28 per case.
“Unlike some new boundary pushing products in Whole Foods, craft beer drinkers aren’t limited to that,” he noted. “Because we’ve seen success in channels outside of high-end natural,
we know that this can go a lot more mainstream.”
The launch of Hoplark 0.0 signals a new chapter for the fast-growing company, which was named a Rising Star by BevNET in 2021. Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the brand has grown from 12 to more than 70 full-time employees and moved into a new 50,000 sq. ft. production facility in Boulder. That growth is being fueled in part by new investment, as the company recently closed an $8 million funding round led by existing investor Goat Rodeo Capital.
“We’ve built a team and structure way faster than what I’ve seen in the startup world,” said Eberhardt. “I’m so lucky to have this senior leadership team around me; my world, if anything, has gotten less complicated, and I’m able to play more in strategy and disruption.”