Today we’d like to introduce you to Mark Ruf
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Back around 2017, my father was diagnosed with a genetic heart condition called dilated cardiomyopathy. His doctor told him he had to quit drinking alcohol or face serious consequences.
He and I used to spend a lot of time together growing up going out to bars and pubs, particularly The Brazenhead in Dublin. Hanging out at the pub and drinking beer together was our way of bonding.
With his diagnosis, we weren’t able to drink beer together anymore. Fortunately, he found non-alcoholic beer.
At the time, there were a handful of NA beers on the market. Whenever we’d go to a new place, we’d be eager to see if they had any NA beers on the menu and would enjoy trying them as a sort of “collect them all” game.
It was getting close to his birthday and my brother suggested getting him a subscription to a non-alcoholic beer-of-the-month club so he could sample even more NA beers. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any. My brother, sort of jokingly, suggested starting our own.
We put a loose plan together, launched a website, but paused while we tried to figure out operations/storage/shipping/etc.
As it got closer to the holidays, it felt like every day we received an email from someone in a similar situation as us. They had a father/husband/brother who quit drinking but still loved beer and they wanted to introduce them to different NA brews.
At the same time, we started seeing a few more NA beer brands pop up. We realized both the supply and demand for a subscription service was growing and decided to move forward with launching NA Beer Club.
Now NA Beer Club is a resource for discovering your new favorite non-alcoholic beer.
Our non-alcoholic beer-of-the-month subscription service lets people discover new and unique NA beers they can’t find at their local grocery store. Our online directory of NA beers also lets people browse, learn, and review various NA beers.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We think we started like any other startup. We had no idea what we were doing at first but figured it out along the way.
We couldn’t quite figure out how to balance a palatable price for our service with managing costs of procuring beer, packing it, and shipping it to consumers. It turns out, shipping heavy liquids can be expensive. We started with a subscription box that was just 1 can of beer each month… at the time, given the all the costs associated, it made sense. But looking back I’m not sure why people still ordered. However, they still seemed to love it and had great feedback.
We ordered NA beer to my house, spent many late nights packing up boxes, and angered post-office employees by dumping dozens and dozens of boxes in the drop-off bin each month.
Over the years we’ve grown and learned a lot. We’ve graduated out of my basement into a real warehouse operation for all our storage, shipping, and handling of our boxes.
We’ve also grown our subscription box to 5 pairs of NA beers in each box (10 cans total) instead of just one can.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about NA Beer Club?
NA Beer Club is your resource for discovering your new favorite non-alcoholic beer.
We offer the nation’s first non-alcoholic beer-of-the-month subscription service that lets people discover and sample new and unique NA craft beers that they can’t find at their local grocery store.
Each month they receive a variety box of 5 pairs of NA beers they’ve likely never heard of before. Each box comes with information on each beer and where they can find more of it.
We’ve designed our subscription offering so that it makes a great gift. Most of our customers purchase a subscription for friends/family, many who then in turn, purchase one for someone else.
We’ve become a major resource for introducing people to the idea that non-alcoholic beer can taste great and how they can discover what’s available to them.
We’ve helped thousands of people discover a love for NA beer and that they have a healthy alternative to drinking alcohol that helps improve their lives in almost all aspects.
We’d like to think that we’ve played a role in the booming industry of non-alcoholic beer as we’re seeing more and more people open to the idea.
We’ve been featured in publications like The Food Network, Taste of Home Magazine, and Bloomberg Businessweek to help educate the world about non-alcoholic beer.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
None in particular… however, I have been using a lot of the new AI technology to help my business create content and run operations effectively.
Pricing:
- Our monthly subscription is $59 per month which includes shipping. We like to say it works out to about the same price per beer as buying someone a beer at the bar, but delivered to their doorstep.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://nabeerclub.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nabeerclub/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NonAlcoholicBeerClub/
