Your Beer Now Has Protein

In brief

• ChampionSips launched on 9 September 2026 from Optimum Nutrition (Glanbia) and Wisconsin Brewing Company: a non-alcoholic American pils with 10g plant protein (pea and rice), 90 calories, 11g carbs and 0g fat per 16oz can, under 0.5% ABV.
• It costs $14.99 for a four-pack, about $3.75 a can, online only at OptimumNutrition.com, limited edition, 21+ to buy, and not shipping to seven states.
• The protein is real but modest: roughly a protein bar’s worth, and about five to ten times what a normal beer contains. The calorie saving against a regular pils is the bigger win.
• It is not the first protein beer; Britain already has Thrive and Lifted. It is the first from a major sports-nutrition brand, which is the point.

What it actually is

It is a real brew, which surprised me. ChampionSips is made by Wisconsin Brewing Company from water, malted barley and hops in the style of an American pilsner, the clean, crisp, lightly hoppy lager that is the default beer of the United States, and if you want the difference between that and the ales I usually prefer it is in my ale versus lager explainer. The alcohol is kept under 0.5%, the same threshold as every non-alcoholic beer on the market, and then the interesting part happens: a blend of pea and rice protein is worked into the liquid without, according to the brewery, wrecking its clarity or its crispness. That is the technical achievement here. Protein in a clear, carbonated, beer-textured drink is not trivial; most protein drinks are opaque and heavy for a reason.

Optimum Nutrition’s framing is the tell. The tagline is “keep the plan and raise a can,” and the occasions it lists are tailgates, post-race celebrations, watch parties and after-work wind-downs, “the moments after the plan.” Glanbia’s innovation director, Jeff Schoenfield, has described it as opening an entirely new drinking occasion for the brand. Translate that from corporate: a protein company has noticed that its customers stop being its customers the moment they walk into a bar, and it would like to follow them in.

Is 10 grams of protein actually a lot?

Yes and no, and the no matters. Ten grams is roughly what you get from a protein bar, a large egg and a half, or a third of a scoop of the company’s own whey. A normal beer has one to two grams, so ChampionSips carries five to ten times as much, which is a genuine difference. But anyone drinking this because they lift is aiming at something like 1.6 grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight a day, which for an 80kg lifter is around 130 grams. One can is eight per cent of that. Two cans is a snack. Nobody is hitting a macro target with beer, and Optimum Nutrition knows it, because it sells the tub that does.

So the honest reading, which Men’s Fitness got to first and I agree with, is that the calorie math is better than the protein math. A regular pils is about 150 calories at 5%; this is 90 at under 0.5%. Swap it in for two Saturday beers and you save 120 calories, the sleep disruption, and the well-documented dent that alcohol at any real dose puts in muscle recovery. The protein is a garnish on that. A nice garnish. But the reason a lifter should drink this over a Bud is the thing it takes out, not the thing it puts in.

Is it a beer?

This is the question that interests me more than the macros, because it goes to what non-alcoholic beer is for. The genius of the good NA beers is that they let you participate in the ritual without explaining yourself: a pint glass with something the right colour in it, and nobody at the table needs to have a conversation about your choices. ChampionSips is the opposite of that. It is a beer that announces itself. The can says protein on it. The brand is a supplement company. Drinking one at a tailgate is a statement about your routine in exactly the way that a Peroni Zero is not, and whether that is a feature or a bug depends entirely on whether you want your beer to say something about you.

I suspect Optimum Nutrition understands this perfectly and has priced it accordingly. At $3.75 a can it sits with premium craft NA beer, but it is not sold in the beer aisle; it is sold on the supplement company’s own website, online only, limited edition, adult signature on delivery. That is not how you sell beer. That is how you sell merchandise to a community, and the community in question has never met a functional product it did not want to try once. The limited drop is the strategy: test the occasion, sell out, come back bigger if it works. The RTD playbook, run by people who have never had a distributor.

What does it taste like?

I have not had one, and I am not going to pretend otherwise: it is online-only in the United States and I am in Hertfordshire. So here is what the people who have tried it report. Food Network’s tester found it recognisably beer-like, crisp and citrusy, with the protein not announcing itself on the palate the way it does in a shake. Men’s Fitness called it a crisp non-alcoholic pils that drinks like one. The brewery’s own claim is citrus and hop notes with a familiar finish, and the specific point of pride is that it is clear and light rather than cloudy and thick. If that holds, it is a better piece of engineering than most functional drinks manage. I will update this when I get one in a glass, and I will taste it blind against a regular NA pils, because that is the only fair test.

Why this is happening now

Because every line on this can has been drawn by a trend that was already moving. Non-alcoholic beer went from punchline to the fastest-growing thing in the beer aisle, and alcohol-free is now a normal order in a pub rather than a confession. Protein went from bodybuilders to everyone; it is in yoghurt, in pasta, in water. And the drinks people actually want are increasingly sold on outcome, which is why Kendall Jenner is investing in calming sodas and why a whey company is brewing lager. ChampionSips is what you get when all three trends arrive at the same tailgate. It was inevitable. It is only slightly surprising that it took until September 2026.

There is a bigger point underneath it for the beer industry, and it is not a comfortable one. The people Optimum Nutrition is selling to are the people beer has been losing: young, fit, image-conscious, counting something. Beer’s answer has been NA versions of its own brands, which are excellent and which I drink. But a supplement company walking in from outside and saying “your beer occasion is now a nutrition occasion” is a different kind of competition, and the six-pint night did not die so that its replacement could come with a macro breakdown. Or maybe it did. That would explain a lot.

Should you buy it?

If you are in the US, you lift, you like a cold beer after, and you have been drinking NA beer anyway: yes, once, out of curiosity, and because 90 calories with a little protein is a strictly better post-workout can than 150 with alcohol. If you are buying it for the protein, no; buy the tub, drink a Guinness Zero, and save the money. If you are buying it because you want a beer, the best non-alcoholic beers taste more like beer and cost less. And if you are in Britain, it is not available, Thrive and Lifted are, and the wider low-and-no shelf has plenty to try in the meantime. Read the label, as ever: non-alcoholic means under 0.5%, not zero, which matters to some people and not to most.

Quick answers

What is ChampionSips?

A limited-edition non-alcoholic American pils-style brew from Optimum Nutrition and Wisconsin Brewing Company, launched 9 September 2026, with 10g of pea-and-rice protein, 90 calories, 11g carbs and 0g fat per 16oz can, and under 0.5% ABV.

How much protein is in ChampionSips?

10 grams per 16-ounce can, from pea and rice protein. That is about five to ten times a regular beer and roughly the same as a protein bar.

Is ChampionSips alcoholic?

No. It contains less than 0.5% alcohol by volume, the standard threshold for non-alcoholic beer in the US. Buyers must still be 21 or over.

How much does ChampionSips cost and where can you buy it?

$14.99 for a four-pack of 16oz cans, about $3.75 a can, sold online only at OptimumNutrition.com while stocks last. It does not ship to Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska or South Carolina.

Is protein beer new?

Not entirely. Thrive and Lifted are established non-alcoholic protein beers in the UK, and Protochol is a US protein hard seltzer. ChampionSips is the first from a major sports-nutrition brand.

Is ChampionSips good for you after a workout?

It is a better post-workout can than a regular beer mainly because it removes the alcohol and about 60 calories, not because of the protein, which is modest. A protein shake or meal is still the way to hit a daily protein target.