Even when Joe Chura was just starting to eye the possibility of fashioning his own nonalcoholic beer business, he had his sights set high.
He wanted to make the best nonalcoholic brew on the planet.
Just over a year and a half into the venture, Chura hasn’t quite taken the world by storm yet. But he’s on his way.
Chura’s Naperville-based nonalcoholic brand Go Brewing has had quite the ascendance since launching in late 2022.
Year to date since launch, Go Brewing has seen 370% year-over-year growth. Over the span of its short tenure, its brewery at 1665 Quincy Ave. has hit capacity and its products are now in 2,500 outlets across the country — from grocery stores to dry bars to restaurants.
And momentum is still building.
Last month, Go Brewing announced it had entered into a joint venture agreement with Lombard-based Noon Whistle Brewing to create a new entity that will substantially up its production capacity. At the same time, the company revealed it had received its first outside strategic investment from a local venture capital firm.
The two partnerships will propel Go Brewing towards a new phase of growth, Chura said. By the end of the year, the company is planning to hit a goal of distributing in 19 states, Chura said.
“I’d say I’m very, very grateful,” Chura said. “It’s humbling. … (But) it’s somewhat what I envisioned.
“I wanted to be a national business. I wanted to be able to do the things we’re doing. What I’m pleasantly surprised about is that we’ve executed on our goals and our ideas when we really had no idea what we were doing every step of the way. We’ve just been figuring it out as we’ve been going, and that’s been incredible.”
Running a brewery may have had a learning curve, but the adapt-as-you-go approach is something Chura knows well. He’s made a life out of it.
Joe Chura, founder of Go Brewing in Naperville, pictured in 2023. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
Born and raised in the Chicago area, Chura said that growing up, he was “just a complete recluse kid.” But when he found out he was going to be a father at 19, he knew he needed a job so he could take care of his daughter.
By 20, he was working at Ford’s Chicago assembly plant, out on the line helping put together the 1998 Ford Taurus. He realized, though, he didn’t want to build cars forever. So he enrolled in college. It took five years of balancing school work with the assembly line, but Chura graduated with a degree in business and marketing.
He eventually worked his way up the corporate ladder, snagging jobs on Ford’s regional sales team and as general manager of two car dealerships. Ultimately, Chura’s experience led him to found two tech startups in Naperville, where he’s lived since 2013. The startups, Launch Digital Marketing and Deal Inspire, were both acquired by Cars.com in 2018 in a deal worth $165 million.
All the while, Chura had personal obstacles to contend with. In 2006, Chura watched his father succumb to alcoholism, a disease his brother also battled. Chura himself had his own challenges with alcohol.
“I was 100 pounds overweight and I started to feel like I was having issues,” he said, adding that the problem neared a tipping point right around the COVID-19 pandemic. It was then that Chura knew he needed to do something.
“I didn’t want to follow in the footsteps of my father,” he said.
Change, like his career, was a step-by-step process. It started with Chura and his wife challenging themselves not to drink alcohol for 75 days. A month in, he felt the impact.
“I felt like I had superpowers,” he said. “Before that, I was under the cloud of alcohol.”
Still, cravings crept in. That’s when Chura discovered nonalcoholic beer. It helped him make it the whole 75 days sober. And by the end of the challenge, Chura figured, why not keep it going? More than that, he realized there was an opportunity to meld his business background with his personal health goals to create something beneficial — and tasty too — for those who wanted more tempered drinking habits or help staying sober.
Chura began toying with the idea of launching his own nonalcoholic brewery in 2021. Early on, Chura didn’t know where to start. “The only thing I knew about beer at the time was that I was good at drinking it,” he said.
He went with compiling a small team first. He hired a brewer and brought in a partner he knew from a previous venture. Then they got to experimenting. Through most of 2022, they worked out of Chura’s garage just playing around with beer recipes until they had five down to a science. Go Brewing was pouring out its taproom by late 2022 and available online in early 2023.
Go Brewing sold 8,000 cases of beer in 2023. For 2024, the brand is on pace to sell more than 100,000 by year’s end.
In general, nonalcoholic beer has been enjoying a spike in popularity in recent years. From July 2022 to July 2023, off-premise nonalcoholic beverage sales saw a 31.2% jump over the year before, according to data from the market research firm Nielsen IQ.
With Go Brewing, Chura knew by a year in that to keep up with demand, an expansion was due — and soon.
Not wanting to outsource production, Chura decided to look for a local brewery with underutilized space that they could take advantage of for its capacity needs. Noon Whistle, which has a location in Naperville, fit the bill. Together, they have formed a new joint entity, called Craftsmith Beverage, to operate out of extra space at Noon Whistle that will help bolster production and reduce costs for both breweries, Chura said. Go Brewing now can make eight times the amount of beer, he said.
Chura also lauded the growth potential in Go Brewing’s first outside investment from Chicago-based venture capital firm Listen. The investment is twofold, Chura says.
Not only is Listen helping contribute financially, he said, but the firm is also contributing creatively and administratively.
“They’re helping us with the redesign of our packaging right now. They’ve just been super helpful in a lot of things. And it also creates an accountability partner. When you’re bootstrapped and you’re running everything, sometimes you’re so in the business that it’s hard to get out of it. … Now I have someone to talk to and get counsel from.”
Looking ahead, Chura said what fuels him is the prospect of reaching “as many people as possible.”
“I’m so proud of what we’re doing here. And every night, I go to bed and I cannot wait to wake up to go to work on this.”
