Ripe Pursuit - NA Lemon Radler - 12oz

Ripe Pursuit is Athletic Brewing's non-alcoholic radler beer — a moderately tart wheat beer carrying a heavy pour of lemon concentrate and a touch of cane sugar, poured pale straw with a moderate haze. It's brewed the same way traditional beer is, with real hops, malted barley, water, and yeast, then held under 0.5% ABV so you get the full can without the next-morning tax.

Each 12oz can carries 90 calories, 21g carbohydrates, 1g protein, and 0g fat — noticeably lighter than a traditional beer without stripping out the flavor that makes a radler worth reaching for. The wheat base is substantial enough to carry the citrus instead of disappearing under it, so this isn't a shandy dressed up as a radler. With 21g of carbs from wheat and cane sugar, it doesn't fit keto, paleo, or carnivore eating patterns.

Crack one open with hot wings, pub grub, or a bag of chips at the beach — Ripe Pursuit is built to sit in a cooler all summer, not just for one occasion.

Reviewers keep circling back to the lemon-tart balance, calling out that it skips the heavy hop bitterness some non-alcoholic beers lean on.

• "My favorite Athletic, a perfect summer blend of lemony tartness without being overly fruity." — Tania K., Verified Buyer
• "Great beer my new summer favorite. Not quite a sour but definitely not a shandy — somewhere in between." — SM, Verified Buyer
• "Delicious and refreshing on a summer day. I love that it doesn't have the hoppy taste." — Lisa P., Verified Buyer

Ripe Pursuit fits a vegan diet (no animal-derived ingredients), though it's not gluten-free — wheat and malted barley are both present. It's brewed and canned in the United States, at Athletic's breweries in Milford, CT and San Diego, CA. Store it at room temperature; no refrigeration required until you're ready to pour.

Ingredients: Water, Wheat, Malted Barley, Lemon Concentrate, Cane Sugar, Hops, Natural Flavors, and Yeast.

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Common Questions

How does Ripe Pursuit compare nutritionally to a traditional radler or lager?
A 12oz can of Ripe Pursuit has 90 calories, 21g carbohydrates, 1g protein, and 0g fat. A traditional radler, which is usually a 50/50 blend of lager and lemon soda, typically runs 150-200 calories and 15-20g carbs per 12oz serving, plus 4-5% ABV. A standard American lager averages around 150 calories and 4.5% ABV with roughly 13g carbs. Ripe Pursuit lands lower on calories than both while carrying a bit more carbohydrate than plain lager, since the lemon concentrate and cane sugar that create the radler flavor also add sugar that would otherwise come from beer's fermentable malt sugars converting to alcohol.

How does Athletic Brewing get the ABV below 0.5% without using alcohol-removal chemicals?
Athletic Brewing controls fermentation directly rather than brewing full-strength beer and stripping the alcohol out afterward. They use proprietary yeast strains and a fermentation process that halts before sugars convert into significant alcohol, which is why the ingredient list still shows real malted barley, hops, water, and yeast rather than a dealcoholized beer base. This method avoids the vacuum distillation or reverse osmosis techniques some competitors use to pull alcohol out post-brew, which can also strip flavor compounds. The tradeoff is that residual sugar and carbohydrate content stay a bit higher than in a fully fermented beer, since less sugar gets converted to alcohol and CO2.

Does Ripe Pursuit fit a keto, paleo, or carnivore diet?
No, on the carb count alone. At 21g carbohydrates per can, Ripe Pursuit would use up nearly all of a strict 20-25g daily net carb allowance on keto, and the cane sugar and malted barley run counter to keto's low-glycemic focus. It doesn't fit paleo or carnivore either, since both protocols exclude grains and refined sugar, and this beer's base is wheat and malted barley with added cane sugar. It does fit a vegan diet since there are no animal-derived ingredients, but anyone tracking strict carb limits or avoiding grains should treat this as an occasional treat rather than a diet staple.

What dishes pair well with Ripe Pursuit, and can it be used in cooking?
It's built for the same food a traditional radler goes with: hot wings, fried pub food, tacos, or anything salty and greasy where the lemon-tart edge cuts through the fat. It also works in place of traditional radler or shandy in a michelada-style drink, since the lemon concentrate already does some of the citrus work you'd normally add with lime juice and hot sauce. For cooking, you can use it as a light braising liquid for chicken or fish where you'd want a subtle malt-and-citrus background without adding alcohol to the dish, though the sugar content means it will caramelize a bit faster than water or stock if you're deglazing a hot pan.

What does the non-alcoholic and craft brewed labeling actually guarantee?
Non-alcoholic beer in the US legally means under 0.5% ABV, and Athletic Brewing states Ripe Pursuit falls under that threshold, which is roughly the same trace alcohol level found in some fruit juices or bread from natural fermentation. Craft brewed isn't a regulated federal term the way organic or non-GMO is, so it functions more as a description of process, real hops, malted barley, water, and yeast, rather than a mass-produced adjunct lager. You can verify the ABV and nutrition claims directly on the can label, which is required by TTB labeling rules for malt beverages sold in the US. There's no third-party certification body specifically auditing non-alcoholic beer ABV claims, so the main check is the label itself and the brewery's TTB formula approval on file.

Why doesn't Ripe Pursuit taste like a typical hoppy non-alcoholic beer?
The recipe leans on a wheat and malted barley base with a heavy pour of lemon concentrate, which pushes the flavor toward radler territory instead of the aggressively hopped IPA style many non-alcoholic beers use to mask any thinness in body. Hops are still present as a real ingredient, but they're used for balance rather than as the dominant flavor note, which is why reviewers describe it as tart and citrus-forward rather than bitter. The wheat malt also gives it enough body to carry the lemon without collapsing into something that tastes like spiked lemonade, which is the usual failure point for shandy-style drinks trying to pass as radlers.