Theakston

Theakston is a North Yorkshire brewery founded in 1827 in Masham by Robert Theakston, adding its first alcohol-free ale to the range in 2024. The brewery operates from the Black Bull Brewery in Masham and remains an independently family-controlled business, led by Simon Theakston after the four Theakston brothers bought the company back from Scottish and Newcastle in 2003 following a period under corporate ownership. Theakston is among the few remaining breweries to employ a full-time traditional craft cooper and maintain its own cooperage for wooden cask production, a practice most breweries abandoned decades ago.

The alcohol-free ale is a direct adaptation of the brewery's most celebrated dark, malty full-strength beer, designed to carry its rich character into an AF format. The 2024 launch brought Theakston into the alcohol-free category for the first time after nearly two centuries of brewing, responding to the growing demand from sober-curious drinkers for traditional British ale styles in an AF format. Dark ales represent a relatively narrow segment of the AF beer market, where lagers and lighter styles predominate, giving the Theakston offering a distinct position among available options.

Distribution spans both mainstream supermarkets and specialist alcohol-free retailers, a broad footprint for a debut AF product from an independent regional brewery.

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