If you were going to start a brewery, you couldn’t pick a better spot than Hailey, Idaho. 

It starts with the water. “You can look up the road and see Sun Valley’s big mountain,” says Atmos Brewing Co. founder and brewer Paul Holle, referring to Sun Valley’s 9,150-foot Bald Mountain. Starting high in the Sawtooth Range, the Big Wood River delivers last year’s snowpack to Hailey in the form of fresh, clean, cold water that has traveled no more than 40 miles—and hasn’t had to content with any industry, any towns, any big ag operations that might have screwed it up. 

Hailey also sits in the second-biggest hop-producing state in the nation (Idaho recently bypassed Oregon but is still way behind Washington). At the northern tip of the state, within a day’s drive, is the famed 1,700-acre Elk Mountain Farms, which grows of 50 types of hops. More hop fields sit outside of Parma, Idaho, just three hours to the west. As for grains, the malted barley that goes into Atmos brews comes from near Pocatello and Idaho Falls, just a couple hours to the east.  

Three main ingredients, all from within hours. It’s a luxury most brewers would kill for.  

Paul has been making beer in Hailey for over a decade. He founded Sawtooth Brewery, Atmos’s parent outfit, back in 2011. Sawtooth Brewery is traditional—meaning they make beer with alcohol—and Paul expanded to non-alcoholic with the encouragement of several staff members who were underwhelmed by their N/A options. Since a couple of key guests had been in Paul’s ear about it too, he assembled some equipment, worked out a process, and put the brews out to their clientele.  

They were a hit. That’s not a huge surprise in Hailey, which has what Paul calls a “huge human-powered athlete culture.” The place is teeming with climbers, runners, skiers, snowboarders, pro mountain bikers, and all sorts of badass thrill-seekers who, for a variety of reasons, don’t consume alcohol.  

Our question: With Paul and the Atmos team pumping out top-quality N/A brews from pristine ingredients right there in town, who needs the booze?