Beverage of the Week: Athletic's Suped Up pre-workout coffee brew is, phew, a whole ride

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

When it comes to non-alcoholic beer, Athletic Brewing Company quickly established itself as the top option in a stale market. No longer would you have to subject yourself to O’Doul’s or Clausthaler if you were looking to replicate all the rituals of a cold one without (most) of the booze. Athletic’s NA offerings couldn’t fully lock down the taste of a great pale ale or Mexican lager, but they came closer than anyone else.

This success led to a broad expansion, which led to a partnership with Super Coffee, which led to this week’s installment of BotW. Friends, it’s a weird one. Athletic leaned in to its “beer for fit people” tendencies dark to create a dark, coffee-infused brew that isn’t just an NA offering but also a protein-enriched pre-workout concoction.

Weird sentence, I know.

I’m not generally a pre-workout drink guy in the first place. Something about that niacin-induced tingling gets me anxious. Sure, it makes me want to work out to get rid of it, but it also makes me want to rub up against the walls like an itchy bear in hopes of shedding whatever top layer of skin has suddenly decided it’s time to party.

Regardless, I jumped in with high hopes when I cracked this beer at 9 a.m. in preparation of a morning workout. It was … an experience, certainly.