If you see John Mulaney having a beer, don’t worry — he hasn’t relapsed on his sobriety. The comedian is a non-alcoholic beer aficionado. So much so, he’s starring a new ad campaign for Years and become a partner in the non-alcoholic business.
In the spot, Mulaney lounges poolside while recalling a time when his wife Olivia Munn thought he may have been drinking again when she spotted him downing several cans of non-alcoholic Years.
However, Mulaney tells me that never actually happened.
“She’s well aware of my enjoyment of Years non-alcoholic beer,” he says. “But I have had friends who have been like, ‘I didn’t want to say anything but…’”
Mulaney has been a Years fan for years. “It’s sold at Wrigley Field,” the Chicago native says of the Chicago Cubs stadium. “It’s that exact Midwest pilsner that I like. Other people make a light non-alcoholic but most of them taste like a drink trying to taste like one versus just being a pilsner or a pale ale that just isn’t fermented.”
Mulaney posted the commercial on his Instagram. I read him one of the comments on the post that hopes to see a “cage match” between him and Tom Holland “to see who is the king of non-alcoholic beers.” The “Spider-Man” star launched non-alcoholic beer brand Bero in 2024, two years into his own sobriety.
“Is a cage fight like a physical fight like UFC because, you know, I fought three 14-year-olds on ‘Everybody’s Live,’” Mulaney says, referring to a skit on his Netflix talk show. “It gets your heart rate going.”
Sure, but is he willing to do the same with Holland? “I’d fight three 14-year-old friends of his,” Mulaney cracks.
What does Mulaney love most about being sober? “When I go to the doctor and I have problems, we don’t have to kind of tiptoe around the minefield,” he says. “It’s like I say, ‘I’m urinating a lot at night, I have some numbness in my left hand.’ We don’t have to then discuss whether it’s all of the cocaine, Adderall, opioids or alcohol. They’ll take you much more seriously at the doctor.”
I ask Mulaney which other sober celebrity he’d like to see in a Years campaign.
“I know Anthony Hopkins has something like 65 years of sobriety,” Mulvaney says. “I think he would be a natural. He can play an acting student of mine. He goes, ‘You’re such a good actor. You were on ‘The Bear’ and not many other things.’ I go, ‘That’s true.’ And then I say to him, ‘You’re getting better, sir,’ and then I hand him one.”