Morning!

Quick admin note here: We’re less than 2 weeks out from launching our 2024 Beer Branding Trends review. 

All 23,000+ words of it. 

Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I wanted to give you a preview of a segment from this report on one of CODO’s favorite beverage segments.

The hard cider market has been interesting to watch.

It’s been quietly growing in the background for as long as the contemporary beer industry, and has actually outperformed beer sales as of late (driven in large part by imperial ciders).

Along the way, several cider outfits have built up impressive empires spanning multi-regional footprints and posting production figures that would put them amongst the top 50 breweries by volume.

And cider itself is an interesting category that mirrors a lot of the self-examining questions the craft beer industry wrestled with in the early 2010s as the category began its rocket ship growth path.

Namely, a (sometimes) heated conversation surrounding defining what hard cider even is.

(Above): Brewery > Cider — I bet we'll see more breweries release Hard Cider brands over the coming years.

Read more about Good George Brewing's cider program here. 

And the City Roots Cider (formerly Harpoon Craft Cider) is a good example of a brewery scaling the Sub Brand Ladder.

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What is hard cider?

– Is it a cloying, apple-forward commodity CPG product with a surly tree adorning each bottle? 

– Or is it an artisan product, made from only the finest fresh-pressed juice and served locally in the Old World tradition? 

– Does independence and ownership matter? 

– Do you have to grow your own apples to be authentic?

– Does hard cider have to be apple-based, or can it follow in beer’s footsteps by continually stretching the bounds of what constitutes the category itself?

This latter point is more compelling when you look at broader Bev Alc trends of setting aside quaint notions like category conventions and TTB classifications to focus more on flavor (!) and ABV (!!) and attitude (!!!).

I could go on and on about this category (I love, love, love) hard cider, but I’ll stop now and outline a few big points we’re seeing in our project work in this space.

(Above): Imperial ciders, like imperial IPAs, are a major category growth driver.

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Parallels between beer and hard cider

We’re seeing a lot of the same trend lines driving growth in cider that are at play in the beer industry, including:

– Flavors, novel and bold, are driving consumer trial. 

– Imperial Ciders are a big growth driver. 

– Adjuncts (especially non-Apple fruits) are expanding cider’s reach. 

– NA ciders could be a viable segment to explore (though, make sure you mind your Brand Architecture in these cases). 

– Better for you / functional ciders (with esoteric ingredients like Adaptogens & Nootropics) could see growth. 

– Light ciders (low cal and crushable) could see growth. 

(Above): Lagers are trending right now as beer consumers look for familiar, easy drinking options. 

Is there an opportunity for light ciders to see the same growth?

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Cider’s halo effect

From a messaging standpoint, cider benefits from a perceived “naturalness.” 

This can’t be bad for you, it’s just apples.

Cider’s innate agricultural provenance and orchard connection lends a halo effect to the category as a whole. 

It’s not quite better for you, though there is an angle here to reach consumers who are looking for a healthy, honest drink.

The same can be said for cider’s gluten free claim. 

This value prop punches way above its weight. (i.e. in CPG packaging, if a consumer sees that something is gluten free, they assume it’s a healthier product overall.)

While not necessarily true (e.g. gluten free Oreo’s exist. lol.), this perception does exist. 

And this is a good thing for folks who are building hard cider brands. 

(Above): We're seeing a lot of the same Fourth Category exploration from cideries as we are from breweries.

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Cider as a beverage platform: Opportunity and risks

We’re seeing the same push into Fourth Category beverages from cideries as we are across the rest of beer and Bev Alc (e.g. cider brands producing sodas, teas, functional beverages, pre and probiotic sodas, RTDs, seltzers, beer, wine and spirits). 

On one hand, I think it’s smart to view cider as a platform for innovation and exploration.

But on the other hand, you have to wonder: 

How far can you push hard cider [away from apples] before a consumer is just buying another (commodity) FMB or RTD cocktail?

I think experimenting with non-apple fruit is a natural, credible play for most cideries, but beyond that, you should think carefully about the positioning and Brand Architecture implications of launching non-cider and further afield products. 

The further away you get from apples as a base, the further you get away from what makes the segment special in the first place.


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Wrapping up

We’ve helped breweries launch basically every type of beverage you can dream up at this point—seltzer, RTDs, coffees, kombucha, NA beer, Hop Water, teas, punches, spirits, and on and on. 

But we haven’t seen too many breweries release hard ciders. 

Yet.

I think hard cider could be a great category for more breweries to explore as they look to diversify their portfolio and find incremental growth.

Conversely, for the cideries and cider industry itself, I think that if (or as) beer’s collective share continues to slide, this is all the more opportunity you need to continue ascending and stealing overall share. 

Either way, I bet we see more breweries get into cider over the coming years. 

And I’m here for it. 

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A few admin items before we get going here:

1. Click here to read this post on our site (and see much larger images).

2. Cody and I recorded a fun podcast with Robby and Michael from Virginia Beer Co. on building the Cold Drinking Beer Sub Brand. Listen to that conversation here.


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Morning! (Glad you're here.)

Today, we’re going to walk through a recent project that sits firmly at the intersection of a few major trends that are happening in craft beer right now.

Namely: Building Sub Brands, the rise of craft lager and lifestyle positioning. 

In mid-2023, Virginia Beer Co. (VBC) reached out to CODO for help branding a new product called Cold Drinking Beer.

Their team was excited about an opportunity they saw to create a standalone beer brand that could travel beyond Virginia state lines.

A few breweries in the mid-Atlantic market are making easy drinking, light(ish) beers, but none that stood apart from their brewery’s parent brand.

So other than a handful of products in that camp, and the entrenched macros, they felt that this was a great opportunity to create something fun that everyone (drinkers, retailers and wholesalers) could get excited about.

This project entailed Brand Strategy and Brand Architecture (so, where does this brand live within the VBC portfolio), brand identity, package design, web design and initial launch / sales assets. 

Let’s walk through the process, highlighting a few important points along the way.

Brand Strategy & Positioning

Brand Strategy is an important part of bringing any new brand to market, but for Cold Drinking Beer, it was mission critical.

This is a very specific play, and if we whiff on any of these foundational pillars, the entire thing won’t go. 

Through this work, we’re framing the following:

– What is Cold Drinking Beer? 
– What style is it? (more on this in a minute…)
– What’s the format / price point?
– How is it positioned?
– What are the brand’s key messaging, tone of voice and personality?
– Who will drink it & what role does it play in their life?
– [In a sea of options,] why does this beer matter?  
 

Here are a few highlights pulled directly from our Brand Strategy work: 

 

On audience definition: 

Cold Drinking Beer will cater to the Fatigued Craft Drinker. “This is a craft beer that doesn’t go out of its way to bill itself as a (capital C, capital B) Craft Beer. We want to appeal to craft drinkers who want a quality beer, but are fatigued by IPAs, industry gimmicks, or scorchingly high ABV. They’re looking for a breather beer that matches their changing palate and lifestyle.” 

 

On messaging & imagery to avoid: 

This is not a brand ripped from the 1970s; we’re not trying to evoke a sense of forced nostalgia (“fauxstalgia”), and we’re not trying to sell the past. Legacy nostalgia brands can come off feeling kind of cheap; this should be the craft answer to that. 


Brand Essences 

We developed three unique Brand Essences to pull all of this messaging and strategy work together for art direction. These included: 

– “Your Old Pal” 
– “Take a Breather” 
– “Celebrate Each Other” 

The feel of the “Old Pal” direction combined with the tone and personality of “Celebrate Each Other” immediately resonated with the Virginia Beer Co. team.

But there were a few other concerns to work through before moving onto design: 

– Make the colors cooler (we skewed warmer in the mood boards to connote warmth and approachability, but the VBC team wasn't feeling it). This beer is cold, after all. 

– Make sure that the beer name is super legible at a glance.

– “We want this beer to have a humble confidence, but are these directions too humble?"

Great feedback here, and it highlights why Brand Strategy and art direction are an important first step in any project.

Had we jumped straight into concept development without these conversations, we would’ve ended up presenting a bunch of stuff that wasn’t right.

And then people’s feelings are hurt and the whole project can go sideways real quick.

Properly framed Brand Strategy prevents this. 

Okay, onto initial concept development (a very churched up way of saying "sketching.")

(Above): Snapshots from our initial sketching. Most of this didn’t make it into the first presentation.

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Initial concepts 

We shared three initial concepts, and there were a few through lines in this work: Minimal, typography-driven, familiar and slightly nostalgic (without trying too hard).

But each direction still had its own special something. 

– The first direction centered around this grocery store window painted sign vibe (e.g. ice, beer, bait)

– The second direction was the most contemporary of the bunch. It was bold, punchy and really, really proud of itself. “As proud of yourself as you can get without being an asshole,” as someone put it during the presentation.

– The third direction was understated and confident. It was supposed to look like it’s existed for decades without trying too hard to evoke that connection.

After a lively conversation, it turned out we were pretty close to the mark, as-is, with direction 2. 

(Cue awkward-CODO-high-fiving montage followed by shuffling to the kegerator for a well-earned lager at — checks watch — 10:45am?)

Onto revisions.

The Revisions Phase

We were in a good spot after our initial presentation, but there was still a lot of work, internal critiques, and several rounds of revisions to get Cold Drinking Beer where the Virginia Beer Co. team was happy and it met CODO's standard. 

We worked through a lot of stuff here: Dialing in the colors and typography, finessing the packaging composition (primary vs. secondary), developing taglines, iconography and other important trade dress to round out the brand identity.

Rather than bore you with 600 variations of slab serifs and tagline build options, here’s a montage gif to give you an idea of how much ground we covered through the revisions phase.

Sweating the (not so) small stuff 

There were a few important points that we discussed in our initial Brand Strategy work that we couldn’t answer early on.

Instead, we had to see how the design took shape and work through them as we went. 

We dialed these in through the revisions phase, so let’s talk about them now.  

 

On Brand Architecture 

We built Cold Drinking Beer as a standalone brand with zero connection to Virginia Beer Co. (We discussed this decision at length in our companion podcast.)

There were two big reasons for this: 

1. VBC wanted to appeal to a broader audience. And tying this product to a respected (capital C) Craft brewery might narrow their reach. 

2. VBC has regional aspirations for this brand. This is one instance where their (otherwise great) name is a hindrance. 

With so many local options to choose from, why would someone in North Carolina or Delaware or Florida care about a beer from Virginia Beer Co.? 



What’s Cold Drinking Beer's style nomenclature? 

This was an important challenge from our earliest conversations.

Cold Drinking Beer isn’t a lager (it’s more of a Cream Ale). But we wanted to position it like a familiar light beer (so, lager-ish) since it would be vying for similar occasions.

So, what do we call this beer? 

Here, we’re not so much concerned with TTB style designations as we are with how beer styles have evolved as a tool for positioning beer brands.

You know what you’re getting with a light / premium / classic / craft lager.

"Lager" is a brand and it immediately orients you so you understand what type of beer this is and where and when you should drink it.

But anything other than that (e.g. Golden Ale, Blonde Ale, Cream Ale) might just get in the way.

Again, we're not positioning Cold Drinking Beer as a traditional Craft Beer. It’s made with craft ingredients, by a well-respected craft brewery, but that’s not the play here.

So the usual craft beer trappings (IBU, SRM, etc.), including esoteric style designations might just get in the way of what we’re trying to accomplish.

Cold Drinking Beer is your classic beer flavored beer. 

But that term is already done to death.

(Quick aside: I remember working with a brewery back in 2012 who wanted to make beer flavored beer to stand apart from other craft breweries. lol.)

So, again, what do we call it?

Is it a Fridge Beer? A Stocker Beer? A Yellow Fizzy Beer? A Light Beer? A Classic Light? A Domestic Beer? A Premium Light?

Our answer: Beer. 

It’s just beer. If you want to get technical, it’s a Cold Drinking Beer. 

We’ll see how people respond to this and adjust as needed moving forward, but our teams really like the simple confidence of this designation.

 

Taglines

The Cold Drinking Beer name itself does a lot of heavy lifting here, but we still felt that an additional qualifier would be helpful for marketing and messaging.

This tagline and accompanying secondary icon ended up being quizzically challenging (maybe only slightly more so than nailing the style designation).

We ended up looking at more than 30 different icons, lockups and taglines before we got it where it needed to be: Serve cold. Chill together. 

Some of my favorite options (that were summarily vetoed) include:

– Chill before serving.
– Just Be(er) Cool
– Keep it cold / cool
– Snap into a Cold One (???)

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Once we had this all wrapped up, we knocked out some other important touch points to help the Virginia Beer Co. team prep for brand launch. This included:

– Initial distributor and chain retail pitch deck support (an oft-overlooked step in this process)
– Sell sheets & POS materials
– Merch mockups 
– Brand Guidelines
– A Microsite

Wrapping up

It’s easy (and fun) to focus on branding and package design. And these things are important. 

But if you’re not getting out there and building a brand day after day, it just won’t go anywhere.

The Virginia Beer Co. team knows this. 

​They’ve already secured several great chain placements (ahead of launch!). Their wholesalers are fully bought in. And they’re going to hit the ground running with heavy on-premise programming. 

So keep your eyes peeled. You may see Cold Drinking Beer in your neighborhood sooner rather than later.

Morning! 

Most of our Brand Architecture work over the last several years has been with established breweries.

We’ve handled Brand Architecture as part of larger rebranding projects, we’ve developed Sub Brands within a brewery’s portfolio, or more often than not, we’ve simply helped to launch a product in a new category. 

And all of these examples are a given: Brand Architecture is an important tool for scaling your brand and exploring new categories—for finding new relevance and growth, incremental or otherwise. 

But what role does Brand Architecture play in a startup brewery’s go-to-market plan?

Does this concept matter for a nascent brewery? 

My (wishy washy) answer is that, well, it depends. 

 

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Historical context 

We’ve seen a sharp rise in inquiries from breweries in planning, and newly-established breweries over the last year or so, that explicitly need Brand Architecture.

This is a marked difference from, say, five years ago. 

(Though, with the proliferation of Fourth Category products, this isn't surprising.)

Brand Architecture for breweries in planning has traditionally been a straight forward concept.

In almost all cases, you would build a monolithic Branded House out of the gate.

This allows you to build your parent brand and brand equity as early and often as possible—a crucial endeavor for a new business in a competitive market. 

The Branded House model made a lot of sense when breweries were predominantly making beer.

But more often than not, the startups we’re talking to and working with today have plans that span beyond beer.

So it’s usually not a question of if, but when these new releases will happen. 

This opens up an entirely new context and is more challenging than simply building a monolithic brewery brand.

Now, you have to consider which consumer these new products will target, which categories you want to live in, and which occasions and lifestyles you might want to target.

And whether or not your parent brand could credibly stretch to meet all these impending demands  

All of these present interesting Brand Strategy and Brand Architecture problems to work through earlier in your business life cycle. 

Three current client examples 

Here are three start up brewery concepts that we’re working with right now (or have branded over the last year).

1. “We’re opening a traditional taproom model brewery (7 barrel system, 12 taps) and plan to sell 90% of our beer across our bar. But we’re also interested in canning a line of tequila RTDs and possibly a few other tequila beverages (likely a year or so in).”

2. “We’re going to contract brew two different beer brands. We think these could relate in some manner, but we’re planning to target specific lifestyles, and positioning opportunities with each one, so I’m not so sure on how much they need to hang together.”

3. “We’re opening a brewpub and will need flagship packaging (plus a crowler and one-off template) intended for sale as carry out only. We’re more interested in opening additional taprooms than we are getting into distribution.”
 

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I'm not highlighting these examples because they run the full gamut of the various Brand Architecture approaches you might need to consider (they don't), but because they're indicative of the types of conversations we’re having with new breweries every other week.

It’s rare that we talk to or work with a brewery that is planning to make only beer out of the gate.

Almost all of our projects these days include some sort of Brand Architecture component.


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Now that we’ve established that today’s start up brewery isn’t the same as yesteryear’s, let’s use each of these examples to examine how Brand Architecture can shape a brewery in planning’s Brand Architecture.

Above: Birdsmouth Beer Co. has a singular focus on lagers. This approach lends itself well to a monolithic, parent brand-forward naming convention. (e.g. Birdsmouth Pils, Birdsmouth Dunkel…)

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Scenario 1: You’re opening a taproom-focused brewery to start, and are planning to eventually package / distribute beyond beer offerings. 

In this case, I still think it makes sense to focus on building your parent brand to start, and consider an overarching Branded House model for your beer releases. 

Yes, you have plans for eventually exploring other categories, but we have no idea to what degree your parent brand will (or should) influence these products yet. 

It is worth thinking about how your parent brand could extend into another category during your foundational Brand Strategy work, but you don’t need to focus too heavily on this now because you need to build a strong foundation first in order to have a brand (and brand equity) that is capable (and worthy) of being effectively leveraged down the line. 

If you’re early enough in the process where you’re still considering a corporate name, it could also be worth considering how a particular name could potentially extend it to other categories.

There are important Intellectual Property considerations here (e.g. can you actually trademark one name in different classes), but you should focus more so on how the messaging might shift as you flex into a different category. 

But here again, you should be focusing on your parent brand first and I’d caution you against making decisions that might not end up serving your parent brand long term.

Don’t let the tail wag the dog here.

 

Scenario 2: You’re contract brewing multiple distinct brands, each with their own audience, occasion and lifestyle focus. 

In this case, it sounds like a true House of Brands model makes the most sense.

Assuming these products are different enough (and target different enough audiences, categories and occasions), then there’s no reason to force them to relate to each other.

And doing so might actually undercut the overall effectiveness of your portfolio.

At the top level (behind the scenes incorporation and legal stuff), you’ll likely form a holding company or “Corporate Brand” vs. a “Parent” Brand.

This entity might not even require branding and just live as an LLC. 

A quick excerpt from The Beyond Beer Handbook on this topic:

In this approach, each brand has its own value proposition, messaging, and positioning, and is completely independent as far as the consumer is concerned. We say “corporate” in this case because “parent” denotes some manner of a relationship with an extension. In a House of Brands model, there is no parent brand connection whatsoever.

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One downside of this approach is that it is OpEx inefficient (an churched up way of saying it’s expensive and takes a lot of effort to execute correctly).

Remember, you will be building completely independent brands.

And you’ll have to maintain and market them separately, each with their own digital footprint and eventually, their own teams.

That doesn’t mean this approach isn’t valid, or highly effective. But make sure you know what you’re getting into before diving head first into this model.

Above: Left Field Brewery has leaned into Sub / Endorsed  Brand development as a portfolio strategy over the last few years. (Note the Ice Cold Beer line extension—a "lime" extension, if you will.)

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Scenario 3: You’re opening a brewpub and intend to sell almost all of your beer across your bar. You will have packaged beer, but this is for carryout and will not end up in distribution.

This is another case where building a monolithic parent brand (aka a Branded House) will likely make the most sense. 

This scenario also induces an interesting question on the importance of package design.

If you’ll be selling your packaged beer solely as carryout—so it won’t end up in retail vying for attention amongst hundreds of other offerings—do you need to invest a significant amount of capital into your can design?

Look, I run a beer and beverage branding firm. 

So I think that everything you put out into the world should properly reflect your story and your positioning and become a special artifact that your customers can enjoy. 

But if you’re not competing out in the off-prem market, it might make more sense to spend your money on your overall brewpub brand and brand experience than on getting gorgeous cans.

(*This isn’t an excuse to produce ugly, shitty packaging. Just consider where your dollars can be better spent.)

Above: Fernson Brewing made a concerted shift away from their parent brand-forward flagship system and towards building Sub Brands within their portfolio.

Read more about this shift here and listen to a podcast conversation with Fernson for even more context here. 

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Closing thoughts

 

On building your parent brand

Unless you’re building a true House of Brands out of the gate, you will want to focus on building a strong parent brand.

Over time, your parent brand will become your most important asset.

It can drive long term growth, and eventually be leveraged into new extensions and categories. 

So even if you intend to explore other beverage categories, make sure you get your parent brand right before you start getting distracted by other opportunities.

Morning.

We had a great question come in from a subscriber and I wanted to field it here.

Feel free to shoot me an email if you have a question that you’d like us to tackle on the newsletter or podcast.

(*Note, I've anonymized this email a touch, so apologies if it reads kind of weird. That's on me and not the sender.)

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Hi, Isaac.

Our brewery has a popular Hazy IPA Sub Brand with an Imperial Line Extension. We've heard from our customers, and seen in taproom trials, that people want more variations of this beer. 

After reading your Sub Brand Summer series, our team has been toying with the idea of pushing this brand even further, possibly beyond the IPA category (would that be a Brand Extension?).

We're not sure how far we want to get away from IPAs (or if we should at all), but would like to release seasonal variants under this Sub Brand, as Line Extensions, that riff on this brand—so a wheat in the summer, a Märzen in fall, etc. 

And that brings us to our issue: Our team is split completely down the middle on this. One half thinks we shouldn't create any non-IPA beers under this brand, and the other half (which includes me), thinks we've built the brand to be broad enough that we could expand it to offer a more diverse range of styles. 

We’ve seen a few other brands do this: Dale’s Pale Ale > Dale’s Lager and Voodoo Ranger > Voodoo Ranger Hard Tea. 

I know we can do this, but want to make sure we're not setting ourselves up for some bigger issue down the line.

What do you think? 

– Jamie


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This is an interesting question and one that I think more breweries should think about as they continue to build and scale Sub Brands within their portfolios. 

Let's start with some quick definitions and then dive into this.

A Line Extension is a strategy for extending a brand within the same family or category. This is usually done with a new flavor, style or seasonal variant. (e.g. Sculpin, Grapefruit Sculpin, Aloha Sculpin)

A Brand Extension is when you use your brewery’s name on any product in a non-beer category. (e.g. Dogfish Head Brewing > Dogfish Head Distilling)

For Jamie’s question specifically, these new releases would be Line Extensions since they still fall within the beer category (though I understand her confusion since they are considering venturing into different beer styles).

If she wanted to push this brand into an RTD cocktail, or some other non-beer category, then this would be a Brand Extension.

(Above, Top): Line Extension examples from Ballast Point.

(Above, Bottom): Brand Extension examples from Dogfish Head and Rogue Ales & Spirits.

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There are no hard and fast rules here, but I will offer a few thoughts. 

Be careful not to reposition, or dilute, what your Sub Brand stands for

One of our main through lines in The Beyond Beer Handbook was that you can launch extensions, but not at the expense of your parent brand’s reputation and positioning.

Your parent brand is your most important asset and needs to be protected at all times, especially when leveraging it to launch new products. 

This isn’t meant to steer you away from releasing new products. Far from it. But it is a warning to take this all seriously. 

And we should apply this same line of thinking to extending your Sub Brand.

Your (Sub) Brand has specific connotations and values (and messaging, positioning, voice and personality), no different than your parent brand.

And the beer style itself—in this case, a Hazy IPA and an Imperial Line Extension—can be a big part of this overall perception.

So we should treat these sorts of decisions like any other Brand Architecture consideration.

– What does releasing this product (say, a Märzen) say about your parent brand (or in this case, the Hazy IPA Sub Brand)?

– Can my Sub Brand credibly release this new variant? Does it align with what your Sub Brand is known for?

– Will releasing this product tied to your Sub Brand brand help or hinder the Sub (or parent) Brand?

– Are you reaching out to your existing audience or branching out to new drinkers with this new product?

– Could this new release cannibalize sales from the original brand (or any other brands in your portfolio)? 

If your Sub Brand is primarily known as an IPA brand, then IPA extensions (hazy, imperial, west coast, etc.) will be an easier leap than a non-IPA style extension.

Again, this doesn’t mean this isn’t possible.

But you have to carefully weigh the upside, and downside, of the move. 

​Can incremental growth be enough to offset any potential longterm damage / confusion you cause to your Sub Brand by extending into a new style?

(Above): The Beverage Extension Assessment Tool (B.E.A.T.) will help you navigate these sorts of decisions.

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Trust is a precious commodity

Your brand, and brand identity, is an assurance that you’ll always deliver.

Your word is bond; a promise.

Your brand is your reputation. And with thousands of options a beer drinker has to choose from today, your reputation is more important than ever. 

Allow me to set a dramatic scene for you to illustrate the risk of Line Extending beyond your Sub Brand's style, and how this can break your brand's promise and harm your reputation.

 

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Maddie has been a loyal customer of yours ever since releasing your XYZ hazy IPA brand. (It's what introduced her to IPAs in the first place.)

She's been happily buying every variant you’ve released for the last few years.

And this Thursday afternoon is no different, as she grabs your new 6-pk from Kroger along with a few odds and ends she needs for this weekend's meals.  

Later that evening, after dinner (and baths, and reading, and story time) and *finally* getting her daughter to bed, she slips downstairs to have a drink and plan for tomorrow. 

She grabs a can from the fridge, cracks it open and takes a long draw and WHAT THE XXXX IS THIS?!? 

She looks at the label and sees that this isn't the Hazy IPA she's accustomed to.

It's not even a West Coast IPA. Upon further inspection, it’s… a… Sour Ale?

Maddie finishes the can because she’s a hard working mom and was looking forward to her night cap. But she won't be drinking the rest. 

And the next time around, she won't be so open to buying what you're selling. 

This brief moment—an important ritual for her—was a let down.

A broken promise. 

Your brand failed to deliver what it has worked so hard to stand for in Maddie's mind.

*end scene*

 

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You get my point here: Your brand, including your Sub or Endorsed Brands stand for something in people's minds.

And beer style—along with guardrails around what’s allowed and not allowed from an accepted flavor profile standpoint—is a big part of this.

It's important to give your customers great products and service that live up to their expectations.

(Above): A few examples of Sub Brands that have ventured beyond their original style.

Sierra Nevada's Little Thing started out as a Hazy IPA brand and has grown to include a Sour Ale, a Wheat Ale and a Light Lager.

Oskar Blue's Dale's Brand has been retooled as a Sub Brand and now includes their eponymous Pale Ale as well as a Double IPA and a Light Lager. (Over/under on seeing a Dale's Hard Tea in 2024?)

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Let’s now look at a few of the examples Jamie mentioned, including Dale’s and Voodoo Ranger, as well as a few other Sub Brands that have expanded beyond their initial style.

– Sierra Nevada's Little Thing line (a hazy IPA brand family) extended to include a Wheat Beer, a Light Lager and a Sour Ale.

– New Belgium's Voodoo Ranger (an IPA brand family) extended to include a Light Lager, a Hard Tea and a pumpkin beer.

And if you want to really get in the weeds, we could even count their Fruit Force as an entirely different style (IPA used to stand for something, man).

– Oskar Blues expanded Dale's from its flagship Pale Ale to include an Imperial IPA and Light Lager extensions. 

A few notes on these: 

 

On Dale's 

Oskar Blues is actively Scaling the Sub Brand Ladder by spinning the Dale's Sub Brand into its own brand family.

​A quick snapshot of this move: 

– They've bumped Dale's up to the Sub Brand level (acting as its own parent brand).

– They've Line Extended with two new variants (an Double IPA and a Light Lager), in addition to their flagship Pale Ale. 

– They've also created a standalone Dale's website, social channels and hashtag.

– And I suspect that they will have Dale's-specific sales reps and ABPs in the coming years, separate from their overarching Oskar Blue's programs, (if they don't already). 

This is a good move right now, or at least it's in-line with what we're seeing some of our biggest clients, and the largest breweries in the country building today. 

The big challenge for Oskar Blues is whether or not they'll be able to break nearly 30 years of people associating Dale's with Pale Ale (say it out loud, it's actually hard to not automatically finish the name: Dale's…).

(Above): A handful of Voodoo Ranger Line and Brand Extensions.

—

 

On Voodoo Ranger

Voodoo Ranger is in a choice position where they've grown so successfully, that a lot of these seemingly weird choices (pumpkin, light lager, hard tea) are likely just their team exploring where they can credibly take the brand. 

As an example, I'm not sure the Voodoo Ranger Devilishly Light Lager ever made it out of trial. (And if this is the case, I’m going to bet that’s not because the quality of the beer, but that the positioning ended up not aligning with the broader Voodoo brand. Not to mention how challenging the light lager segment is).

At this point, Voodoo Ranger is its own brand that has eclipsed New Belgium in every metric that matters.

Yes, there's a small New Belgium Endorsement on pack, but I imagine that this has no real bearing on people's purchasing decisions in 2024.

I think of Voodoo Ranger as an IPA brand, but I imagine they're known more for flavor, novelty, high ABV and fun branding (and brand voice) than that style alone.

In other words, if it hasn't already, Voodoo Ranger has transcended style and become a Lifestyle Brand. 

Again, Voodoo Ranger has the credibility and license to play in whatever categories it wants.

And right now, hard tea is a good bet. (Especially in the convenience channel where they already dominate.)

And if this is the case, that gives their team more freedom to extend into other emergent categories, and do so at scale.

So does a Voodoo Ranger hard tea make sense?  

That's up to Voodoo Ranger drinkers (many of whom are younger and looking for more flavorful, novel, higher ABV options) to decide. 

 

—

 

We've been talking about behind the scenes Brand Strategy and Brand Architecture stuff today, but it's important to not lose sight of your customers in all this.

And especially so with any sort of extension.

​If you're considering a move like this, pause and ask yourself:


Is a —— drinker a —— drinker?


– Is a Voodoo Ranger drinker a Hard Tea drinker? 

– Is a Dale’s Pale Ale drinker a Light Lager drinker?

– Is a Hazy Little Thing drinker a Sour Ale drinker? 

If you think so, and it won't affect your Sub Brand's positioning, then you can move forward and Line Extend with confidence.

Morning! 

Before diving into today's issue, I wanted to announce that CODO will be presenting at CBC in Las Vegas this April.

This is a huge honor, and we'll have more details on the seminar in the coming months.

I'll include a brief overview in the resources section at the bottom of this email in case you'll be there and want to attend our talk or grab a beer.

Anyway, couldn't wait to announce this.

But enough about us. Let's talk about you (and your brewery's packaging).


—


I was on a call with a brewery to discuss a package refresh recently and heard something interesting. 

“We’re not sure what we should feature most prominently on our packaging. We’re all over the place now and can’t decide if it makes sense to highlight our brewery’s logo, or the beer name and illustration, the style or some combination of these things.” 

This is actually a common pain point we hear in our work.

And if properly sorted, it can help you sell more beer. 

So that’s what I want to talk about today: Some thoughts on managing your package design hierarchy based on what we’re seeing in our daily project work here at CODO. 

We’ll start with a few strategic considerations and then get more tactical and immediately actionable.

This will give you some things to think about in case you’re considering a package refresh sometime soon. 

Let’s get into it.

(Above): Fernson Brewing had a clear understanding of what issues they wanted to address and what opportunities they saw in their market. Read more about how we helped them pivot their portfolio from a monolithic Branded House towards a series of Sub Brands.

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Getting started: Identify your pain points, opportunities and goals

Before making any decisions, you first need to understand your pain points and goals.

You’ll likely do this before deciding that you need to refresh your packaging in the first place. But in case you haven’t, stop and answer the following questions:

– Why are you refreshing your packaging? 

– What isn’t working? 

– What would you like to do better?

– What opportunities do you see to improve things, in small ways and big? 

This may seem like an obvious point, but if you take some time to shake out what exactly it is that you want to address and accomplish through your revamp, you’ll have a clearer road map for how to get there. 

 

You need to understand your broader brand and portfolio strategy, positioning and Brand Architecture

Once you’ve framed your pain points and opportunities, you need to work through your overarching Brand Architecture.

In the interest of not adding another 1,200 words to this issue, you can learn more about this entire subject in our latest book, The Beyond Beer Handbook.

But at a glance, this is an important step because understanding whether you should build a monolithic Branded House vs. a series of Sub / Endorsed Brands vs. a portfolio of standalone brands will drive different design and hierarchy decisions. 

 

—

 

Once you have these initial strategic parameters defined, you can dig into the nuts and bolts of sorting out where all these info types should go on your packaging.
 

(Above): A look at the various info types you'll have to prioritize and layout across your packaging.

—
 

How to organize & prioritize your content

For a quick lay of the land, let’s take a look at all the information you have to balance on your packaging:

– Your brewery's brand identity (your core logo)
– The beer’s fanciful name (if applicable)
– The beer’s style
– The beer’s specific art, e.g. colors, illustrations and iconography (if applicable)
– The beer’s tasting notes and/or description
– The vessel size (e.g. 12 fl oz)
– Tagline / ethos statements
– Misc. violators (e.g. Awards, BA Independent Seal, specific health claims, provenance claims, etc.)
– Admin panel (e.g. Government warning, barcode, Brewed & Canned by statement, adjunct or special ingredient declarations, "please recycle,” be kind, rewind, etc.)
– Born on / best by dates 
– Nutritional Facts (if applicable)
– Quantity (for cartons, if applicable)
– Printer / can manufacturer indicia (if applicable)



—


So… that’s a lot of info to fit on a 12 or 16oz can. And even tougher if you’re bottling (which is essentially a business card-sized canvas). 

Here are a handful of things to think about as you set out to organize and prioritize all of this.

(Above): Bottles present another challenge due to their small canvas size. This usually means the carrier has to carry a lot more info (story, beer description, secondary iconography, etc.). 

—
 

Visit your retail partners and look at packaging in context (how will your beer be merchandised?)

This point has two benefits. 

1. It gives you a zoomed out view of your competitive set. You can see how your competition looks, what strategies (if any) they’re using and spot opportunities for differentiation.

2. It gives you a real world, unglamorous view at how your packaging will be merchandised. 

Why is this important? 

Because you sell beer in the real world (and not the hermetically sealed, and perfectly designed confines of Adobe Illustrator).

Example: There may be lip on a cooler rack that covers up an important piece of info on your packaging (e.g. your beer style or brewery name). 

Similarly, if you’re lucky enough to get a floor stack, will any critical info on your cans / cartons be cut off by the a ~3” side of your tray. (Also, design your trays. I know this is a throwaway piece here, but sweat the details.)

This is also an opportunity to see (and ask) how retailers will merchandise your beer.

Do they orient your 6-pk perfectly up right so the main hero side panel faces out (like you so lovingly envisioned during the design process)?

Or do they shove it in the cold box however, and wherever, it fits? 

A tactical note here: We’ve started making all 6-pk / 12-pk cartons more flexible for this very reason. Our goal is to give a retailer multiple merchandising opportunities, so that wherever, or however they stock your beer, the most pertinent info will be displayed. 

An example is swapping the orientation on each end—so one end of your carton can be displayed upright and the other can work horizontally.

Those, along with a well-designed side and top panels should cover you in all use cases. 

This asymmetry may hurt your sensibilities as a designer (it did ours, at first), but we’re designing this packing to work in the real world and sell more beer, so don’t pull any punches.

Get the important info out front and center where it needs to be.

 

Primary vs. Secondary Packaging

If you don’t use cartons, skip right ahead to the next section. But if you do, then you have a wealth of options when organizing all this information. 

Three points to start off:

1. Your cartons do all of your selling. It’s important to design a beautiful can that can stand on its own, but your carton is what people will see in retail. 

2. Each format has a different use case.

Your cartons need to billboard and jump off the shelf. Whereas your cans (or bottles) provide a more intimate experience (imagine someone drinking it and spinning it in their hand to read the back, or peeling the label, chucking it at a passing train, etc.) 

3. Your cans and cartons can, and likely should contain different information. They don’t have to be identical. 

What this means is that your cartons can be more brand forward—so taking advantage of color blocking, pushing your brewery’s brand (if appropriate), highlight the beer’s style and ABV (if these are important value props), etc.

You have to decide what your most important info is—what you want a consumer to see and immediately grasp so they pick your beer up. 

That’s usually your brewery’s brand, beer name, style, ABV and overall vibe.

Anything beyond this (the more technical / admin TTB-type stuff) can live on your cans (or elsewhere on your carton). 

This also allows you to expand on an illustration or some visual elements that may otherwise be hemmed in on a smaller can. 

And finally, think through how your cartons can billboard on shelf to punch above their weight in retail.

So make sure you think about your portfolio's broader gestalt across your different cartons as you’re designing them—how can they work together to better stand out from the set?

(Above): Your primary and secondary packaging can, and often should contain different information. Your carton is an opportunity to reach out across the aisle and grab someone's attention whereas your can offers a more detailed, intimate experience.

Read more about Good George Brewing's branding and package design process here.

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The bottom of your carton is NOT a junk drawer 

Speaking candidly here: The bottom panel of your cartons can turn into a junk drawer where we throw all the other stuff that didn’t make it into the main panels (sides, ends, top) of your carton, but that you still insist we include.

Don’t do this if you can help it. (We try not to.)

Design your bottom panel with as much intention as the rest of your packaging. 

A few things we like to include here include:

– Your brewery’s story 
– Social media handles / activations 
– A map highlighting various taproom locations (if applicable)
– The barcode (if your retail partners allow you to put it down there)
– Best by / born on date codes (if you have an efficient way to add these to your cartons)
– Some sort of coupon / nudge to get someone to visit your taproom (if legal)
– Easter eggs. Something funny for people to find and share with friends. (Any opportunity to bring more wit and delight into this dark world should be taken. Give your fans a fun aha moment.)

Anything more than this can just clutter everything up. 

Avoid the junk drawer.

(Above): How does your packaging billboard? And how does it hang together if it's not merchandised together (if a retailer organizes beer by style vs. brand)?

You need to plan for all of these use cases and design your packaging to hang together (if strategically appropriate). 

—


On Duping (a tactical point here…)

Another tactical point here: If you’re using Paktechs, Hi-Cones, or any similar can ring packaging, you’ll inevitably run into facing issue in retail (where your cans spin around, preventing a customer from seeing the “front”).

One way we combat this is by “duping” the can design, that is, putting the exact same art on the “front” and “back” of the can.

You’ll still have an admin panel to contend with, but this gives you a much better shot at displaying what you want people to see. 

This isn’t always appropriate, given your can design, goals and competitive set, but it’s a good move if it is.

A final thought: If everything is important, then nothing is important

There’s a meme in the design industry: "Make the logo bigger."

And we’ve seen this in our work as well. 

Can we make the beer name bigger? And our logo? And can the style size be bumped up a bit?

Properly designing your packaging involves determining what info is most important so your potential customer knows why they should grab your product. 

So think about your customers. Create a clear hierarchy that they can easily decipher.

Make their decision easier. 

And sell more beer.

Morning (and happy new year!).

We’re written before about the nuances between Brand Extensions and Sub Brands, as well as the fine line between Sub and Endorsed Brands. 

Today, I want to talk about Endorsed Brands vs. creating a new, standalone brand, and use cases for when you might consider one approach over the other. 

We’re seeing this decision come up more often in our work these days as breweries launch new products (beer or beyond), or bring a new taproom concept online, or figure out how to handle the branding for a business they recently acquired.

This is an interesting topic that you may encounter this year, so let’s get into it.

(Above): Today's issue focuses on the right side of the Beverage Brand Architecture Continuum.

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First, a few quick definitions. From The Beyond Beer Handbook here:

An Endorsed Brand is built to stand mostly on its own, but with some sort of endorsement—an assurance of quality, trust and credibility—from your established parent brand. An Endorsed Brand leverages the mind share and reputation of your parent brand while insulating it to varying degrees.

A standalone, or new brand has zero connection with your parent brand. Under this approach, each brand has its own positioning, brand identity, personality and voice, value props and messaging, and is completely independent as far as the consumer is concerned.

—

Now that you've got a lay of the land, let's explore when an Endorsed Brand can make sense.

(Above): Endorsed Brand examples.

—


An Endorsed Brand can make sense when:

When you are a specialist and planning to make something markedly different than what you’re known for

This point is so important, that it acts as sort of a go / no-go question on our Beverage Extension Assessment Tool (B.E.A.T.). Meaning, if you’re a specialist brewery, that is, you’re known for making a singular style (all lagers, all sours, etc.), then anything you release that runs counter to this style risks muddying your parent brand’s positioning.

So an Endorsed Brand (at the very least) can make sense for your new product if there’s a compelling reason to maintain some tie to your parent brand. That could be that you’re targeting the same audience, but maybe a markedly different occasion, or you want to take advantage of existing distribution channels, or if you expect your parent brand to see a nice boost (the halo effect) by being associated with this exciting, new product.

 

Consider the halo effect & how this can benefit your parent brand 

One of the biggest risks of overextending your brand, via Line / Brand Extensions and overall category creep, is changing what your brewery stands for in people’s minds. This is a phenomenon we refer to as repositioning your parent brand. (E.g. is Bud Light a beer brand, or a hard soda-seltzer-lemonade-cider-chelada brand?)

We’re currently writing a standalone BBT issue on this topic—stay tuned—but we can touch on it here briefly. 

Repositioning your parent brand (due to misaligned extensions) is almost always framed as a negative thing. But there are instances where you can positively reposition your parent brand via association with a wildly successful new product.

And this is one variable you may consider when deciding between launching a new product with an Endorsement vs. as a standalone brand. What benefits can your parent brand see from this association? 

I use (and will continue using—see below) Bud Light as an overtly negative example here.

A positive example would be Voodoo Ranger, which still maintains a small Endorsement from New Belgium even though, I would wager that functionally, this brings nothing to the table at this point in terms of nudging people to trial the Voodoo line itself.

Instead, this Endorsement exists to invite Voodoo Ranger drinkers to look into other New Belgium products.

(Above, Top): Note the simple New Belgium Endorsement on all Voodoo Ranger products.

(Above, Bottom): Is Bud Light a beer brand, or a hard soda-seltzer-lemonade-cider-chelada brand? ABI has hollowed out this brand with countless Brand and Line Extensions. An Endorsed approach could have taken some of the sharper edges off of some of these new products (Bud Light Seltzer Hard Soda… what are we doing here?).

—

A standalone (new) brand can make sense when: 

 

A link to your parent brand just doesn’t make sense 

An obvious point here is when any tie to your parent brand will hurt the credibility of the new product, or your parent brand 

This can be due to misaligned values, target audience, occasion, category, price point—whatever the reason—a connection doesn’t make sense.

 

When you want to create a brand that can travel 

We’re seeing a small trend right now, especially amongst our Legacy and Regional Brewery clients of re-entrenching in their home territory. That is, pulling back from further afield markets to focus on their backyard. 

And this makes perfect sense in a world with ~10k breweries. But even with these moves happening, there’s still a desire to find growth by reaching into neighboring markets, if you have a product that consumers actually want—that has an actual reason for existing—and if that brand can credibly travel into those adjacent markets to serve them.

One specific tactic we’re seeing here is launching a new brand, with zero tie to your parent brand, specifically to go out into neighboring markets in a way that your parent brand might not credibly be able to do. 

Here, you're still facing the long term work of building up a new brand, but at least you're not doing so under the yoke of your parent brand's reputation.

(Above): Sierra Nevada's growing beyond beer range gives us some great examples of these different Brand Architecture approaches. 

Their Little Thing line is an Endorsed Brand, whereas Strainge Beast Kombucha is an entirely new brand. The former is a beer that aligns well with their current positioning, whereas the latter is an entirely new product. And Kombucha, in particular, is a tough positioning challenge, at the category level. So much better to swing wide and not tie this to their parent brand.

—


Some finer points & caveats 

 

Is there a cost difference between these approaches? 

Functionally, an Endorsed Brand and a new standalone brand will require the same level of budget and time and energy to get off the ground.

Counterintuitively, an Endorsed Brand may be more difficult (from a design perspective) because you have to sort out to what degree you bring the parent brand into the fold vs. creating a new brand where you can just design something to stand on its own from the jump without having to resolve this relationship.


Do you have the capacity to pull this off? 

One reason you might choose a Sub Brand vs. an Endorsed Brand is that you generally don’t need as much capacity (time, budget, staff) to promote and build a brand that is closely aligned with your parent band. This is one of the Sub Brand's main draws—any move you make to build your parent brand, or the Sub, can work hand-in-hand to raise awareness of your entire enterprise. 

This becomes an important distinction for considering an Endorsed Brand or a standalone brand. In either case you'll have to bring the same resources to the table to build this brand as you do your parent brand.

That means you’ll need people and budgets and annual planning to build a new brand.

So if you’re a smaller brewery with limited resources, you may want to consider some level of Endorsement instead of creating a new brand (at least initially) because this gives you an important connection with your parent brand that can act as a force multiplier for a smaller team. 

Though if you're really resource strapped, it may make more sense to firmly align this new release with your parent brand as a Sub Brand (assuming doing so won't harm your parent brand and will set up the new brand for success).


Be wary of Brand Dilution

A final caveat here: As with any of Brand Architecture move (e.g. Line and Brand Extensions, Sub Brands, Hybrid Brands), balance is key. An Endorsed Brand can be a great way to extend into another category, but if you overuse this and launch dozens of Endorsed Brands, you can start to weaken the strength of the parent brand in the minds of your customers, no different than if you release a series of misguided Line Extensions. 

Morning!

If you haven't already, please take our year end survey (less than 3 minutes).

This will help to shape our content in 2024.

And as a thanks for your time, we'll give you a code for 20% off any of our books.

Okay, let's talk year end planning.
 

—
 

I wanted to talk with you one more time before CODO goes dark for our year end break. 

Year end is always an interesting time: I personally go back and forth between wanting to burn the ships and sprint into the new year like a maniac aaaaand not doing anything but hang out with my kids and catch my breath.

No matter where you fall on that spectrum, this is a good time to look ahead to the new year.

I originally sat down to write about how CODO conducts its annual business review, but figured that would be boring. And besides, we’re a branding firm and not (checks notes) a brewery. So I'm not sure how useful our process would be for your business.

Instead, I want to give you a few valuable things you can do to improve your branding and marketing as you head into 2024. These are all ideas that we’ve run across in our project work this year with breweries and Bev Alc companies across America and around the world.

Call these gifts to yourself and your team, or, new year’s resolutions. However you want to frame them, these items will help to make your brand and marketing stronger next year. 

Check this all out and share with your team if you see anything you want to act on (have them subscribe to the newsletter here).

And in case you don’t make it all the way to the end of this issue, I wanted to thank you for reading BBT this year.

It’s rewarding hearing back from you after sending these out each month. I appreciate you being here, and I hope you have a lovely, restful holiday break.

Let’s come back recharged and get after it in 2024.

1. Start building your newsletter subscriber list

I believe we're going to see a bevy of new regulations on how Bev Alc companies can market themselves in the coming decade, including which social channels they can and can't use, specific language requirements, new rules on how they're merchandised in retail, and so forth.

Through these changes, it will become more critical than ever to stay in contact with your customers. And I believe email marketing will be one of your most important promotional channels because of this.

But you can't can't begin email marketing unless you have a list of subscribers (revelatory insights here at BBT, I know). 

That makes building your email marketing list one of the most valuable things you can do in 2024. 

Even if you already have a healthy number of subscribers—2k, 5k, 10k+, you need to continually be building (and maintaining) your list. I’m starting with a low bar here: At a minimum, you need to be collecting email addresses. This should be a central CTA on your website and through your POS system if possible.


2. Create a rough content marketing plan / engine (& define your key communication pillars)

This idea can be intimidating when you’re first starting out. What channels do we use? What do we write about? Do we need to use video? Etc.

And indeed, many of our clients have multiple employees on their marketing team (CMO, brand director(s), in-house designer(s), social media lead, eComm lead) to share the load.

But let’s set all that aside and in a broad strokes way, sketch out the 3 or 4 big messages that you want people to take away from your brewery's marketing.

What do you want people to think about when they hear your brewery’s name? How do you want them to describe your brand to their friends?

Have everyone on your team answer this question: If you could go into someone’s head and put 3 or 4 big messages about your brand in there, what would those be?

Once you’ve defined these points, create a note (in whatever app you prefer: e.g. Apple Notes, Drive, Evernote, Notion) and begin charting out all the different topics and ideas that you could write about that fall into these buckets. 

Here’s an example: 

Pillar 1: We make world class barrel aged beer.

Content ideas to support this message:

– What is the history of barrel-aged beers? 
– Why are you passionate about this program? 
– What is a Cooperage?
– Brandy vs. Whiskey barrels
– What is char?
– What is a bung? (lol)
– What is the best type of lumber for barrels? 
– Why is barrel-aged beer so expensive? 
– How does time in the barrel affect flavor?
– Why does barrel aged barley wine make me want to fight my uncle?
– Food & barrel aged beer pairing ides

… you get the idea, and you can probably come up with 15 more compelling ideas on this in the next three minutes.

Continue building this list daily. Anytime an interesting idea pops into your head, you have to write it down or it will disappear forever.

Once you have a system for documenting your ideas in place, your next step is to figure out how you want to craft these stories and where you should put them (newsletter vs. social channel vs. blog vs. podcast vs. YouTube vs. …)

I’m going to cut this short here because actually implementing this plan is a major investment in time and energy. 

Some homework for you: Look into how to develop an Editorial Calendar. This can make your content planning a much easier process.

But for now, just start collecting ideas and organizing your thoughts on what sorts of stories interest you and your team.


3. Start emailing your list 

Notice I didn’t say, “start email marketing.” No, just email your list, and do it in a way that’s sustainable for you.

This can be once a month, daily, every two weeks (like we try to do)—you pick the cadence. But whatever it is, make sure you can keep it up over the next year. 

What should you send them?

There are two big buckets you can start with. Eventually, these can be broken into different segmented lists that people can join over time: 

– Utilitarian Info = new beers, menu changes, news & events 

– Lifestyle Stuff = behind the scenes, stories about your people and products, how you shape your community, any interesting stories (especially from that list you made in the last point)

This is all broad stroke. Eventually, you'll have a well thought out content marketing plan and a clearer picture of what you need to be sending, when you need to be sending it, and get more granular with your segmentation.

But worry about that later. For now, just get going.


4. Build your media library 

Here’s a small, tactical point that can make your life easier: Create a central repository for all of your important digital and marketing assets. 

This can include sales sheets and label die lines and working files, typography files, Brand Guidelines—all the things you need to effectively run your brewery's marketing. 

But more germane to our conversation here would be clearly labeled folders with product photography, videos, text docs—anything you use to sell your beer and tell your story, put it here so you can go back and reference it later. 

You’d be surprised just how much good content you can accrue over a year and this will come in handy down the line when you go to redesign your website, or put together new posters, etc. 

Where do you put this info? This doesn't really matter so long as it's on the cloud and accessible by everyone on your team (and shareable). So that can be Dropbox, Drive, Brandfolder, or any other relevant DAM system. 


5. Intellectual Property (IP) Hygiene

One of the more common issues we run into during the course of our work is IP troubles. And unfortunately, this is usually uncovered later in an engagement.

Example: we’re working through Brand Strategy as part of a rebrand and it turns out that the name for your best selling IPA isn’t federally trademarked. Oh, and there’s a brewery who did trademark that name a few states over. (Cue foghorn)

If you've got an IP issue that you’re aware of, and have been kicking it down the road until now, you should consider tackling it today.

Yes, knockout searches and trademark work costs money. But this is an investment that protects your most important asset as you grow. 

Shoot me an email if you’d like a beer & beverage IP attorney referral. We work with one of the best and would be happy to pass their info along.


6. Take your brand and Brand Architecture seriously

I know, the beer and beverage branding firm guy telling you to consider updating your brand is like asking a barber if you need a haircut. But hear me out.

We're seeing a litany of complex Brand Strategy and Architecture issues in our work right now. And we're helping breweries across the country unspool issues that, in some cases, have been building for decades.

If you have, over the last few years…

– Opened a new location 
– Purchased another brewery (or a brand)
– Built a Sub Brand
– Launched a beyond beer product 
– Rationalized your portfolio
– Experienced a change in leadership 
– Tried to evolve your eCommerce platform 
– Signed with a new distributor 

… and you haven't paused to think about how these changes impact your brewery's brand and positioning, you may want to consider doing so. 

Does your current portfolio align with your brand story and positioning? (Do you know your brewery's brand story?) Does your messaging support these things? Do you have a clear idea of your brewery's values?

I want you to take your brewery's brand seriously in 2024.

Think about where your business is today, and where you want to take it over the coming years.

And take the steps to begin that journey.

(Above): Craft Beer, Rebranded and its companion workbook are a step-by-step guide to help you map out a successful strategy for rebranding your brewery.

—
 

Some quick hits here: 


If you’re thinking about a rebrand…

If you’re thinking about some sort of refresh in 2024—a subtle brand evolution, a package revamp or a wholesale rebrand, here are a few things you should be thinking about now.

– What do you want to accomplish? What pain points are you trying to address and/or what opportunities are you wanting to move on? 

– You should think about your team: Who needs to be involved to ensure a successful project?

– You should think about your visual and Brand Equity: What visual signifiers and reputational considerations do you own that are sacrosanct? And what can be jettisoned? 

– Start thinking about how you will launch your rebrand. (Yes, even before kicking the project off.).

– Read Craft Beer, Rebranded for a complete roadmap for this process.

(Above): How we refreshed Fernson Brewing's packaging.  

—


If you’re thinking about launching some sort of Extension… 

– Get a handle on your overall Brand Architecture system. Our Beyond Beer Handbook will make quick work of this. 

– If you're considering some sort of Sub Brand (e.g. Sub / Endorsed Brand), revisit our Sub Brand Summer series. Read issues 1, 2 and 3.

– If you have a drilled down product idea and just need quick orientation for how to launch it within your portfolio, take the Beverage Extension Assessment Tool.
 

If you might buy a brewery or brand (or form a JV)…

We're fielding several new inquiries each month from brewery owners who have acquired another brewery or specific brand. This has been happening steadily for the last 18 months, but we're seeing (anecdotally) a major uptick in this activity. 

There are deals to be had if you're looking. And if you are, here are a few resources to make sure you go into this situation with a better idea of what you want to accomplish: 

– Revisit our thinking on buying a brewery.

– Read about our work with Mission Brewing after their ownership changed hands. And here's a companion podcast if you'd prefer that medium.

– We're working on a deep dive series on this topic slated to roll out in summer 2024. It's gonna be a good one. Stay tuned.

(Above): Some fun feedback on our post-acquisition rebranding work with Mission Brewing.

—


(and finally) Take care of yourself

I'm not going to be so bold as to tell you how much alcohol you should or shouldn't drink, or how many times per week you should work out, or how much screen time you should get. (I'm still figuring these out myself.)

But do make sure you’re taking time away from work to recharge regularly—to fill your cup. Whatever that means to you, take this seriously.

In the end, all we really have is our health and our family anyway. So make sure you practice whatever self care you need to to better show up wherever you're needed.


—


Thanks again for reading BBT this year. We'll catch back up with you after the new year.

Hi, there.

If you get a chance, we'd love if you could take our year end survey (~3 minutes). This will help to shape our content in 2024.

And as a thanks for your time, we'll give you a 20% off code applicable to any of our books.

Or if you already have all of our books, I can email you the joke my 6 year old gleefully told me the other day (it's a banger). 

Okay, let's discuss Brand Strategy and alchemy. 

Defining your brewery’s Brand Strategy is a critical business function. This process will map out how you intend to differentiate your business in the long term, and outlines all the components your team needs to help you achieve that objective—so how to get from here to there. 

A proper Brand Strategy process will frame things like your positioning and key differentiator(s), brand personality and voice, your brand values (all three levels), your key messaging as well as your day-to-day mission.

But from a practical standpoint, all of this work doesn’t help you if it’s not wrapped up in a story and art direction. Even the best documented, all-killer-no-filler 2 or 3 page Brand Strategy doc won’t give your team anything to execute against if it’s not accessible and immediately actionable. It’ll just join the other digital miscellanea you've collected over the years, and languish in the cloud. 

The lynchpin that allows your team to put this strategy into action is your Brand Essence.

So I want to explore this today, in case you’re thinking about rebranding, or bringing a new brand to market in the coming year.

Let’s define Brand Essence and examine the role it plays in your Brand Strategy and positioning process as well as its role in art directing your identity (via creative alchemy!).

(Above): The top image is how we initial shared the 'Utilitarian Beer' Brand Essence to the Birdsmouth Beer team. And you can see how that idea evolved and took shape as we made our way through their brand identity and package design process. 

Read more about our work with Birdsmouth here.

—

 

What is your Brand Essence?

Your Brand Essence is a distillation of the most compelling idea behind your brewery. It’s your why and your mission, vision, values and positioning all wrapped up into a concise statement. 

It is mostly an internal tool used to capture the spirit of your brewery as opposed to a public-facing statement or tagline (though it can transform into a public-facing asset in some contexts—we'll circle back to this in a bit). Think of it as a way of driving every decision you make from the moment of its definition through the entire (re)branding process. 

It serves as a touchstone against which we can weigh any design concepts. (e.g. Does this packaging direction reinforce our essence, or does it stray?) If we can get super-specific and granular on your messaging now, it will make all downstream branding work—the graphic design portion—more consistent and clear.

Here are a handful of brand essences we’ve developed over the years:

– Squared Away Advocate
– Relaxed Fit
– San Diego Icon
– Here Be Dragons
– Your Favorite Uncle
– PNW Provenance
– Cider Renegade
– Flyover Craft
– Indiana Jones, Minus the Tweed 
– Blue Collar Scientists
– Working Class Hero 
– Relentless Tinkerer

(Above): Prost Brewing's Brand Essence, Berlin Modern, blends traditional German aesthetics with more contemporary trappings to immediately convey their core differentiator (authentic German-style beer) in a way that resonates with younger Colorado (and now far beyond) drinkers. Read more about how we blended these ideas here.

—


Some notes on format ( + blending compelling ideas )

Our first major presentation during a branding, or rebranding project, is Brand Strategy. This includes all of our due diligence—notes, findings and recommendations—from our field work and research. Along with this, we’ll usually share two or three Brand Essences. 

But if a Brand Essence is the single most compelling idea behind your brewery, why would you show two or three options? 

That’s a great question (and I’m glad you asked). 

It almost all projects, multiple compelling ideas will emerge from our research. And they are often all contenders for viable differentiators and Essences. So by pulling these out and examining them individually, we can weigh the merits of each one on its own, and then blend the other ones in from there as needed.

This is the first bit of alchemy that occurs during the branding process: Where we’re codifying and putting onto paper something that has, here-to-fore, lived entirely in your team's head(s). 

From a process standpoint: This also allows our clients to weigh in at a critical juncture and gut check everything. Are these ideas good to go or have we missed something important along the way?

In either case, this gives us a good opportunity to make sure we’re aligned as we move into the next phase of the process: Visual art direction.

(Above): Here are several examples of how we present initial Brand Essences. You’ll see a title—the Essence itself—the beginnings of a brand story (so what problem are you solving for people, what role will you play in their life, what is your point of view and how are you uniquely different from your competitors) as well as your brand personality and visual cues.

—

 

Moving from concept to visuals ( art direction, rapid prototyping & alchemy ) 

If defining your Brand Essence is the first bit of alchemy that happens during the branding process, then the next piece of alchemy—the real magic—lies in actually figuring out what these ideas should look and feel like. 

The leap from a well defined Brand Strategy and creative brief to developing a Modular Brand Identity System and packaging that works in the market and helps you build your business is a major (major) hurdle. 

Imagine going straight from a kickoff conversation to looking at initial logo concepts a few weeks later. That doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room to make sure your branding partner understands what you're trying to accomplish (or even what your team is envisioning). 

It’s this point in the creative process where most of your process hiccups (i.e. seeing stuff you don't like) will occur. 

Mood Boards allow us to smooth over this transition and once again ensure that we’re aligned with our clients as to what your brand should look like.

 

Mood Boards 

A Mood Board is a collage that art directs what your brand could look and feel like.

The type of imagery we curate will shift depending on what we're slated to tackle once we're wrapped up with Strategy. e.g. If we're revamping your entire portfolio from the ground up, then we'll gather more packaging and print examples to demonstrate what a particular direction can look like. A website revamp will include more digital examples, and so forth.

This approach has two benefits: 

1. From a process standpoint ( emotional intelligence + aligning your team )

Your team has a vision in mind (often, different visions amongst the various stakeholders). And our team, as external subject matter experts, will also develop a vision and point of view for what your brand should look like as we progress through the process. 

Once we’ve defined your Brand Essence, the next challenge will be to work together as a team to art direct that idea. And sharing and discussing multiple Mood Board options is a great way for your team to weigh in and shape the process (and more often than not, work through any disagreements you may have amongst your group). 

Some of the liveliest debates in our work happens in these presentations because now it’s time to put up or shut up. We’ve worked through Brand Strategy and defined your Essence, an now your team has to fully commit: What does this all look like? And do we all still agree that this is the correct path?


2. Mood Boards as a rapid prototyping tool 

The second major benefit of using Mood Boards to transition from strategy to visual art direction is that it allows you to rapidly prototype what your brand identity (or packaging, merch, website) can look and feel like without spending weeks and tens of thousands of dollars to get to that initial (shiny) presentation.

If your Mood Boards are built properly, you can get a sense of how your logo and typography and colors will look and feel. And you can quickly determine what feels right and what feels wrong. 

Again, this gets everyone on the same page so you know what to expect when we doing finally get to share (graphic) design work.

(Above, Top): Mood board examples.

(Above, Bottom): A few examples of how we document the final Brand Essence in our Brand Guidelines. We're constantly tinkering with how we design and deliver these docs so that they're more useful. Here's a fun podcast we recorded on guidelines a while back if you want our unvarnished opinion on this subject. 

—


Wrapping up

I mentioned earlier that your Brand Essence is usually an internal process tool—a way to put name to an idea so that we can efficiently move onto art direction and build your identity.

But sometimes, your Essence can become public-facing. Though it's worth mentioning that developing a tagline is an important process in its own right—one that blends your Essence with a direct value prop in a short, quippy, available-to-be-trademarked way. So it's never a guarantee that your Essence can be pressed into service this way. 

Whether or not your Essence becomes public, I think the most important role this concept plays is as an internal battle flag for your team.

Your Brand Essence should serve as an ongoing touchstone that guides important business decisions (Where do we open our next taproom? What sort of extensions should we consider? What sort of businesses and/or brands could it make sense to acquire down the line?). 

And many of our clients have used this language to recruit and train new employees, wrapping it up as part of their larger indoctrination onboarding process to teach people (this can be C-suite hires down to taproom staff) why their brewery is so special and how to tell that story to everyone they meet. 

This gets everyone rowing in the same direction and can engender a powerful esprit de corps throughout your business.

And with enough of that, you can conquer the world.

Hi, there. 

We’ve spent a lot of time focusing on how your brewery can build Sub Brands this year. This was spurred by two major trends:

1. Shoppers are increasingly buying beer based on brand more than style (e.g. “I want a 6-pk of Voodoo Ranger,” vs. “I want a 6-pk of IPA”), a concept that supports building more individualized brands within your broader portfolio. We first detailed this shift in our 2023 Annual Beer Branding Trends Review. 

2. Anecdotally, we’re seeing this every day in our project work here at CODO. After brewery rebrands and package refreshes, building some sort of Sub Brand (e.g. an IPA family, a craft lager or a Hop Water) has been one of our most common engagements over the last year. 

So Sub Brands have been top of mind around the shop for a while now. (Revisit our Sub Brand Summer series for a full run down on this subject.)

And while this is an important Brand Architecture strategy for craft breweries right now, I worry that by focusing too heavily on this specific idea, you may lose sight of the importance of continuing to build your brewery’s parent brand itself. 

And there’s no better way to do that than by building a robust Branded House, for at least part of your portfolio.

So that's what we're going to discuss today: The merits of the Branded House Brand Architecture model. What is it, when does it make sense, and why should your brewery—whether you're 25+ years old or still in-planning—might want to consider it as you build, or rebuild your portfolio.

(Above): Your brewery's parent brand is most prominent on the left side of the Beverage Brand Architecture Continuum, under the Branded House model.

As you make your way further to the right on the Continuum, into Endorsed Brand and House of Brands territory, your parent brand's role diminishes until it's no longer present anywhere.

—

 

Starting out: What is a Branded House? 

From The Beyond Beer Handbook:

A Branded House architecture centers around a strong parent brand (corporate name and brand identity) that is prominently displayed on all products.

A Branded House creates a consistent experience across all your brands and touch points, building equity and recognition for the parent brand every step of the way. Visually, this manifests in the consistent and intentional use of logos, icons, typography, color and packaging composition.

Under this approach, your parent brand is the main purchasing driver (the reason someone is buying your product) for customers.

—

Read more about the role your parent brand plays in your Brand Architecture here.

(Above): A brewery with a clear point of view and positioning is in a good place to fly under a Branded House, so long as any new products align with their established messaging.

Great examples:

– Dogfish Head focuses on culinary ingredients and processes, and this approach (and brand) naturally extended to their distillery business. 

– Prost is an all German-style brewery, so their flagship line can safely carry the same identity across the board.

– Athletic Brewing is 100% NA, so you know exactly what you're getting if you see an Athletic can in the cooler.

—

When can a Branded House make sense for your brewery? 
 

For the new brewery / brewery-in-planning (a Branded House offers recognition through clarity and repetition)

A Branded House is the most common Brand Architecture system in the craft beer industry, and it’s particularly valuable for startup breweries. 

And this isn’t by accident. 

As a new brewery, you're fighting a pitched battle from day one. You're competing with established local breweries, not to mention Big Craft, Big Beer and beyond beer products for customer mindshare (general awareness), draft lines and space in the cold box.

(You’re also competing with local bars and restaurants, though that’s a conversation for another day.) 

By uniting all of your products under your single parent brand—under a singular banner—you can make a bigger impact at launch. Through repetition and consistency, a Branded House will lend a feeling of reliability over time.

In other words, whenever someone comes across your brand in the wild (online or on a draft list), they will see your parent brand (again and again and again…). And all of these impressions add up to help you stay top of mind next time they go out to buy beer.  

This is such an important benefit that, unless you have a clear vision for a single product brand, or you intend to build a true House of Brands (a portfolio of disparate products with zero tie to each other), then the Branded House should (in almost all cases) be your default operating system when coming to market.
 

When you have a crystal clear point of view and will use that idea to guide future new product development (NPD)

If you have a well known point of view and positioning (e.g. Athletic Brewing's focus on NA beer or Prost's all-German-style portfolio), then a Branded House can be an effective way of uniting everything you do under that idea. 

Another great example here is Dogfish Head's historic focus on culinary ingredients and boundary-pushing product development. This differentiated point of view lends itself well to a Branded House that starts at their flagship beer portfolio and seamlessly carries through (via Brand Extensions) to their distillery and canned cocktails.


For the established brewery with too many disparate offerings that have become unwieldy to manage

A Branded House can also be a great model for an established brewery that wants to rein in and focus its portfolio.

This is a common pain point we see in our brewery rebranding work. If you’ve spent years releasing beers with fanciful names and marketed more on their own, you may have skipped over building your parent brand equity along the way. 

Throw in a few broader economic drivers like SKU rationalization, changing consumer preferences and breweries taking a hard look at their COGS to determine which beers they can (or can't) continue to profitably produce, and you have an opportunity to restructure your portfolio. Sometimes dramatically. 

And segmenting your lineup, if even partially, can allow you to build a more consistent “house” look so that you show up more consistently in retail.


Sub point to this last idea:


A Branded House can be a great way to re-introduce a brewery's portfolio coming out of a rebrand

While every brewery will have a different competitive set, project context and Brand Equity to consider, rolling out your flagship packaging under a monolithic Branded House after a rebrand can be a great way of introducing your new look and feel to your fans. 

We wrote about this tactic specifically in our Mission Brewing rebrand case study: "This first wave of package design is purpose-built to reintroduce Mission Brewing to the market, and to help customers become acquainted with the revived look and feel."


—

(Below): We built Mission Brewing's flagship lineup specifically to introduce their updated brand identity. We'll push this look for a few years before considering any updates (e.g. fleshing out additional Sub Brands and extensions).

(Above): Big Lug Brewing released their flagship line under a Branded House model explicitly to leverage their renowned brewpub experience—to better connect their own-premise vibe with the off-premise. 

—



On the Branded House: A few benefits + a drawback 

 

A benefit: A Branded House allows you to quickly (and affordably) generate new brands and labels

A Branded House, or more specifically, a global label template, can be valuable when your brewery team has limited internal capacity and needs an efficient way to generate ongoing new packaging on tight timelines.

From an internal process standpoint, rolling out new products is easier (than, say, developing a Sub Brand) under a monolithic Branded House because you’re never starting from scratch. Your messaging is already defined and customers know what to expect. You may already have a package design template set up, or at least know the cues that need to be present in order to carry the message of the parent brand.

And all of this helps you more effectively manage tight timelines.

A quick note: It's important not to conflate a label template system with a Branded House. To wit, you can build a Branded House without using templates and while still using individualized labels. However, your lineup will lose some of its punch, and perceptual billboarding ability, out on shelf without some semblance of consistency.

Read more about the pros and cons of creating label templates here.

 

A benefit: A Branded House allows for greater economies of scale

Focusing all of your effort and budget into building your parent brand can help you gain traction sooner than if you're dividing your time (and resources) across multiple brands. 

Every packaging decision you make, every event you host, every community partnership you make, every beer you release—all of these things help to develop your parent brand’s reputation and solidify your positioning.

This makes the Branded House the most cost-effective operating expense (OpEx) model available.

 

A drawback: If one touch point falters, your entire brand can be affected

A Branded House approach can be a double-edged sword.

It can help you efficiently build a strong brand and gain consumer mindshare. But an otherwise annoying issue—PR blunder, QC problem, etc.— can cause your broader portfolio to take a hit simply by association.

Fair or unfair, this is an important consideration to keep in mind when building a Branded House.

(Above): Good George Brewing reined in their expansive portfolio by introducing a Branded House at flagship level. Then, they extend via Sub or Endorsed Brands depending on which category they're entering and consumer group they're targeting.

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Conclusion (On Branded Houses and Hybrid Brands)

Your brewery's Brand Architecture will rarely present a black or white decision.

Are Sub Brands a prevalent and important strategy in craft beer right now? Yes. Is the Branded House still an important foundational pillar for most craft brewery's portfolios? Yes!

I wanted to close here by mentioning the Hybrid Brand Architecture system. (We're dedicating a future BBT issue to this topic, so stay tuned.)

A Hybrid Brand Architecture model gives you the leeway to blend whichever Architecture strategies make the most sense for your parent brand and a given new release. E.g. You can have a flagship lineup that falls under a Branded House as well as an Endorsed Brand with its own series of brand-specific house-branded Line Extensions. And so on. 

This insight isn't an excuse to take your branding and positioning decisions lightly—let's just create a new brand. It doesn't matter, we're Hybrid now!

Far from it. 

A Hybrid model better equips your team to make the right decisions that honor your parent brand while also setting your new products up for as much success as possible.

And I bet if you look at your brand, and your positioning, and your competitive set, and your customers, that you'll find a place for a Branded House somewhere in your portfolio no matter which other strategies you already have in place or intend to build.

Morning!

We were on a call with a brewery recently to discuss a possible rebrand. 

They’ve been open for 13 years and have a very distinctive look (character-driven and heavily-illustrated). They’ve partnered with the same illustrator since day one, and have built up a lot of visual equity because of this.

But none of that look feels right anymore. 

Even though their aesthetic has major recognition and equity—it's been plastered all over their market and vehicles and packaging for more than a decade—they’re not sure they want to stick with this look moving forward. And that’s an important question:

When can it make sense to jettison your Brand Equity?

This is a situation we’re seeing more often in our brewery rebranding work today as people are look to reinvent themselves for the next phase of their business. To that point, what if you’ve built up a phenomenal amount of visual and Brand Equity over the years, but…

1. You’re not sure it makes sense to build on this equity (identity, packaging, story) given where you want to take your business, but… 

2. You’re also afraid that you'll lose a good portion of your current fans if you walk away from this (hard earned) equity.

This is a great question and legitimate concern for any brewery that is considering a rebrand.

So let's get into it.

(Above): Craft Beer, Rebranded and its companion workbook lay out a step-by-step guide to help you map out a successful strategy for rebranding your brewery.

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First, some definitions: 

Brand Equity is the total amount of goodwill your brand has with its customers. This is more brand-level stuff focused on your messaging, positioning, values, value props, voice, personality and key communication pillars. How do people talk about your brewery? What's your reputation? What role do you play in your community? 

Like your brand itself, these connotations, associations and stories live inside your customers’ minds. These things inform your visual identity and packaging, but are upstream of them.
 

Visual equity are all the cues that, if lost through a rebrand, could set you back in the off-premise (e.g. people may not be able to easily find your iconic packaging because you’ve changed it too drastically). This usually includes things like SKU-specific colors, unique packaging compositions, custom typography and other iconography.

—

Your visual equity and Brand Equity are different things, however I’ll use these terms interchangeably throughout this issue as a catchall phrase to mean how people generally recognize your brand in the market. 

It’s also worth revisiting our writing on rebrands vs. refreshes here, a concept we framed as “Evolution vs. Revolution” in Craft Beer, Rebranded. 

 

—

 

Okay. So Brand Equity and visual equity are both important to weigh and consider through your rebrand. 

Generally, the more Brand Equity you have, the more likely you are to refresh your brand (so, evolution more so than revolution). 

But when can it make sense to jettison your equity—no matter how well-recognized it is—during a rebrand? 

The following points are all situations where it might make sense for your brewery to disregard its equity, no matter how recognized it is. 

(Above): Prost Brewing had built up 6+ years worth of visual equity around their packaging's flag patterning. But even though their customers knew to look for this element out on shelf, we determined that it was too kitsch and misaligned with their overall quality and vision for the brand. Read more about Prost's rebrand here.

—

 

1. 

If your current look is actively hurting your business

Let’s start with an obvious point: If your current identity and packaging are actively harming your business, then you should consider a dramatic shift, no matter how much equity you’ve banked. 

A few examples we’ve seen where a brewery’s branding was actively hurting its business:

– Poorly done (ugly) illustrations 

– Sexist / immature names 

– Problematic labels or elements that have aged poorly (depictions of people, particularly women, are a common one here) 

– Basic, illegible typography in a logo or on packaging 


Some ways this can harm your business include:

– Flat sales due to never attracting new customers

– Retailers are reluctant to carry your beer

– Prevents you from attracting top talent 

– Attracts the wrong type of attention to your business 
 

If any of these apply to your brewery's branding, then walking away from your Brand Equity becomes a more viable move.

 

2.

If your current identity doesn't accurately represent where you want to take your business in the future 

So you've built up a lot of Brand Equity over the years. Great! But does this look and feel align with your vision for where you want to take your business? 

If not, you need to consider whether or not it makes sense to continue building on it, or just ripping the bandaid off and repositioning yourself for the next phase of your business.

Our work with Fernson Brewing (below) is a good example of this dynamic. Read more about their package refresh here.

3. 

If you're making, or planning to make major changes within your company 

This is related to the last point, but we'll pull it out here to expand on it.

Your branding is your story and reputation—and it's how you shape how you're perceived in the world. And if you're making major internal changes—shifting your positioning, rebuilding your org chart, or restructuring your portfolio, then you need to consider whether or not your Brand Equity is still relevant to the new you. 

 

4. 

If you’re self conscious of your branding or packaging 

We’ve heard this many times over the years, either sheepishly mentioned in a meeting or implied, as we kickoff a brewery rebrand. 

Sometimes, you can read between the lines when you hear things like, “I hate wearing our shirts to festivals and conferences,” or “Our festival setup looks terrible compared to everyone else.” There’s no need to be shy about this. You care about what you do and should want to put your best foot forward. If you don’t feel like your identity is doing that for you now, it could be time to make a change, no matter how recognizable your packaging is. 

 

5. 

You're making some Brand Architecture moves

If your brewery is planning to make some important Brand Architecture shifts, such as:

– Acquire another business

– Open a new concept or location 

– Launch a beyond beer product 

– Launch a Sub Brand (or scale an existing one) 

… then you need to take a harder look at your Brand Equity to determine whether or not it will serve your business as you step into these more evolved strategies. 

Will your identity—built for a specific brewery concept—work across multiple locations and businesses and categories? Will it support a Sub Brand?

If not, then any equity you've built up may not be as important to retain.

(Above): I've been in dozens of conversations with clients, or prospective clients, where someone has cited Anchor's rebrand and its panned reception as something they were worried about for their update.

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Let's discuss a sacred cow: What about losing your current fans through a rebrand?

I've lost count of how many conversations we've been in where a brewery's marketing director will mention Anchor’s rebrand as a major concern. "We don't want to do that." (It’s actually become a shorthand for a worst case scenario—the sort of thing that keeps people up at night.)

But Anchor didn't go out of business because of their rebrand, no matter how terrible it was. And they probably didn't lose scores of customers because of it either. And while this is an edge case: High profile, beloved brewery + terrible rebrand = sad outcome—I bring it up to address the idea of losing your current customers after a rebrand. 

Allow me to address a sacred cow here. 

Not updating your brand identity and packaging—so undergoing a formal rebrand—when you need to because you’re worried about losing your current customers isn’t a compelling enough reason for retaining mis-aligned Brand Equity.

Here's the thing: If it's a substantial enough change, you'll always (always) upset some people through your update. But you shouldn't worry about those folks. You should worry about the new people that you could be reaching out to and turning into customers that currently aren’t considering you.

This doesn't mean you completely turn you back on your current customers. But if your sales are flat, and you're struggling to turn things around, then you likely need to expand your reach anyway.

So you should honor your current customers with great beer and experiences. But you’re not beholden to them with regard to how you position your brewery's identity and packaging.

(Above): KettleHouse had built up a lot of visual equity with their typography, illustrations and homespun logo. But these elements, if subtly updated, still wouldn't have billboarded on shelf and represented their brewery the way their team envisioned. Read more about how we managed KettleHouse's visual equity here.

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In closing

Your visual and Brand Equity are important.

But if that equity isn't serving you, then why are you hanging on to it? 

Rebranding is a balancing act: You're honoring your past and all the hard work that got you where you are today, but you're also looking ahead to where you want your business to be in the coming years. 

Don't sacrifice your brewery's future on the altar of Brand Equity.

Good morning. (And happy Spooky Season to those who observe.)

We’ve written a lot about brewery rebrands this year and today, I wanted to discuss a somewhat unsexy, yet extremely important element of making sure these projects are successful: Organizing your internal and external team.

It’s easy (and fun!) to look at the beautiful identity design and packaging work that can come out of a brewery’s rebrand. But none of that can happen if you don’t have a solid project team in place as well as identify other key stakeholders to engage throughout the process.

This is important for research and gathering project context as well as critical emotional intelligence considerations later on.

So let’s discuss the various stakeholder groups you need to engage throughout your project to ensure your rebrand (or new product launch) is set up for success.

(Above): We dive into more detail on today's topic in our Craft Beer, Rebranded book and companion Workbook.

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It all begins with your Executive Team 

The most important group of people involved in your rebrand will be your Executive Team. These are the folks who are directly responsible for approving and/or vetoing strategic recommendations and design concepts throughout the project. 

Among this group will be a project sponsor (or "driver")—usually a Marketing Director—whose role is to champion the project internally, remove barriers, gather feedback and build consensus along the way.  

Each brewery will have a different management makeup, and titles, but we usually see people from the following roles on the Executive Team:

– CMO (marketing lead)

– CSO (sales lead)

– COO (logistics lead)

– CEO (vision & culture lead)

– XYZ other communication person (Head of Brand, eCommerce lead, Brand Director, In-house designer(s), etc.)

+

– Founder(s) and/or Owner(s)* (*if they’re still involved in the brewery’s day-to-day goings-on)

 

How big should your Executive Team be?

One of the biggest threats you’ll face during your rebrand isn’t your competition, or rapidly shifting economic market forces, or even losing your long time fans as you roll out the update. 

No, the biggest foe you’re squaring up against will be the dreaded committee. 

Whether this is an actual committee who has to approve design work (or a board of directors), or just something that arises organically as a desire to make everyone on your team happy (usually via compromise), any decision made by committee will drive great creative work into the ground until it is heartbreakingly bland if not outright bad. 

How do we prevent this?

By making sure that the number of real decision makers—your Executive Team—is small. How small?

As small as possible.

Smaller. 

Yes! That’s it!!

We like an Executive Team to be somewhere between 4–6 people. 5 is better than 6. And 4 is better than 5. Anymore than 6 people and you run the risk of designing by committee. 

I can keep beating this drum, but you get my point. The larger your Executive Team gets, the harder it becomes to make bold decisions and create work that is strategically-sound and beautiful and that stands out and that will help your brewery move the needle. 

Your Executive Team (along with your branding partner) sets the tone for this project—what do you want to accomplish? What pain points are we working to resolve? What are your broader positioning and messaging goals?

Don’t compromise on these important objectives. 

Keep your Executive Team small. 

 

—

There are other important stakeholders who can offer valuable insights and opinions through this process as well. But before we outline those groups, let’s stay in quasi-Executive Team territory and discuss the Shadow Council.

Hidden Stakeholders (aka, the Shadow Council)

OooOooh the Shadow Council. (Does this sound menacing? I’m going for menacing and foreboding here.)

A hidden stakeholder (or, the Shadow Council) is anyone whom you don’t want directly involved at the Executive Team level, but whose opinion still carries enough weight to alter the course of the project.

This can include a founder or owner, a key investor(s), your board or possibly even a committee within your business. (We’ve even seen people’s spouses in this role, which is always delightful and not at all awkward to navigate.)

In the past, we’ve described this scenario as the “swoop.” As in, someone can swoop in at the last minute and ruin six months of strategy and design work simply by saying they don’t like something. 

We don’t use the “swoop” language when discussing this with clients anymore because it’s just too cutesy.

And in case I’m not being clear here, if there are people who fall into this category in your business, and if they’re not engaged early, often and throughout the creative process, I can almost guarantee that your project will, at best, hit the rocks at some point.

At worst, this can lead to a terminated contract and even worse than that, depending on how you look at it, this can lead to subpar design work that doesn’t help you grow your brewery’s business. 

Identifying anyone that could fall into this category isn't fun, and this sometimes involves a little behind the scenes politicking and tap dancing, but it's a necessary step in the onboarding process to ensure your project is set up to run as smoothly as possible.

So this is a serious topic, but completely surmountable. I’ll outline some ways we manage this near the end of this piece. 

 

—

 

Okay, super serious and scary detour over. Now let’s discuss the other stakeholder groups you should interview through your rebranding process.

(Above): Awkwardly holding hands is the fastest way to unlock new synergies between our teams. Also, why would we use a perfectly good table when the floor is right there?

—


Internal stakeholders to include

Your Executive Team is involved throughout the entire course of your rebrand. But there are several other important people with valuable insights who need to be interviewed during the research and strategy phase to ensure your branding partner has an informed lay of the land. 

You will generally see department leads (sales, marketing, design, etc.) on the Executive Team itself. But it can also be valuable to speak with other folks from those departments as well. 

So in no particular order, we like to speak with people from the following functions / roles:

– Marketing (including field marketing staff, social media managers, etc.)

– Sales (including field sales reps / national accounts / chain leads—whatever level of hierarchy your business has in place, it's good to talk with someone at each level.)

– In-house creative team (creative director, designers, social media folks, etc.)

– Production & brewery staff (head brewer, innovation folks, logistics & packaging people can become important later on as you plan to roll out new packaging, etc.)

– Front of House / taproom folks (long time servers, hospitality managers, etc.)

+

– Emeritus leadership: This includes folks who may have moved on from your brewery to work at another company (or more often, retire), that have valuable historic institutional knowledge about your business and are still interested in helping it succeed. This usually includes past CEOs, COOs or founders who are no longer in the business.

Your brewery may have other important positions that fall outside of these roles. If that's the case, add those people to your list so your branding partner knows to interview them as well.

Now let's outline some valuable external stakeholders you need to engage through your rebrand.

 

External stakeholders to include

 

Key Accounts / Retailers 

We love talking with key retailers when possible. These folks are often your loudest evangelists and do more selling than most breweries may realize.

I witnessed this firsthand at a liquor store just last month. I was looking at the cold box when a young guy came in and asked the person behind the counter if they had any local porters. (Yes, porters—I time traveled to 2006!) The clerk walked them over to the beer aisle and offered his opinions on 2 or 3 options. It was fun to watch. (I'm an Ethnographer now.) 

Beyond this role, key accounts and retailers are also a wealth of qualitative data.

They have a bead on which styles are trending and what people are coming in and asking for. And what sorts of other products are they buying alongside your beer. Etc.

We like to talk to retailers to get a sense of how they see the market evolving and the role your brewery plays in it.

Plus, involving them in the process shows them that your brewery respects their opinion (and can lead to even more evangelizing later on).

 

Distributors 

We’ve met some phenomenal distributors over the years who have offered invaluable insight into the local market. We’ve also met some less than stellar ones.

Quick aside: I love bringing distributors up with our clients to see how they react—does a vein pop out of their forehead? No… Cool, let's schedule a conversation. 

Assuming you have a productive relationship with your distributor, they can be great for providing invaluable insights on the local market and all manner of quantitative data. 

They can tell you exactly how many cases of each SKU is moving per week, whether or not you're hitting depletion targets, which products are moving and in what market and format, and how that all ebbs and flows with seasonal changes and stacks up against the broader market. They can also spot opportunities for marketing and emergent beer trends.

This all provides valuable hard data to balance the fuzzier, qualitative insights we're gleaning from out other conversations and fieldwork.
 

What about consumer research?

This may enter sacred cow territory here, but I’m not 100% sold on broad consumer research as being either helpful or necessary during a rebrand. (How was the research gathered? What questions were asked? How were they asked? What kind of person actually participates in a survey? Etc.)

But I do think it’s valuable to speak with long time customers if possible, so you can get their perspective on what makes your brewery special. The few times we’ve done this, it’s usually just been with regulars—Day One folks—from your tasting room. 

You’re probably not going to find anything revelatory in these conversations, but it will round out the other quantitative insights you’re gaining along the way.

Misc thoughts + wrapping up 

 

A process point: One-on-one meetings vs. small group conversations  

We’ve historically recommended one-on-meetings in place of small group (and especially large group) conversations. 

Our reason for this was that it allows everyone's voice to be heard. Even in small groups, one person can be extroverted, or have more influence (e.g. an owner vs. a newly-hired in-house designer), etc. By sitting down for individual conversations, we get clear points of view that aren't skewed by interpersonal dynamics. 

There's still a lot of value in one-on-one conversations, but we've also found that small group conversations are a great setting for your Executive Team to to work through ideas and discuss any disagreements.

Our view has actually changed positions on this (moving away from preferring one-on-one conversions) over the last few years because it's a great way to make sure everyone—particularly your Executive Team—is on the same page.  

You know yourself. And your team. And you probably know if a group conversation would work well or not. Keep this in mind as you prepare for your rebrand to ensure everyone's opinion is heard. 

 

On the Shadow Council (and how you decide who needs to be interviewed)

Whenever we bring this subject up with our clients, the tone can quickly become negative. "Yeah, X is an investor, but we don't think she should be involved for Y reason."

As we've already discussed, ignoring these people isn't an option. Over the years, we've found the best way to mitigate this issue is simply to listen to them. 

Sit down with them and involve them in the process. Make sure their voice is heard and that they feel heard. 

Don't assume that this person doesn't have any valuable insights to offer. (I would go as far as offering that they might even know something that you don't.)

If you (and your branding partner) treat everyone in the process with respect and dignity, your research will be more informed for it.

And this is critical for setting your rebrand up for success.

Good morning! 

A subscriber (now client) recently emailed us with the following:

—

Hi Isaac / CODO:

We’ve been lobbying our owner to rebrand for the last few years.

We’ll brew around 2,200 barrels this year, and we believe we can grow the business significantly along with some major changes that will be happening in our community over the next few years (a major corporate headquarters is relocating here, new suburbs are springing up, a reimagined downtown corridor). 

The problem is our owner thinks that branding will only be important if / when we decide to package our beer. We package some beer now, but it’s mostly sold as carryout from our two locations and through a few local retailers. So it’s currently a small part of our overall sales. 

But our team feels like we shouldn't wait to get this process started.

Can you make a case for why branding is important for a taproom-focused brewery? I understand his point of view, though I think that by creating a great brand now, we’ll have that much more inertia for when we do decide to begin packaging our beer.

—

I love this question.

We’ve run into this situation several times over the last few years. Not so much the need to persuade a founder that branding is important, but rather, we’ve fielded rebranding projects expressly because a formerly hospitality-focused brewery intended to begin packaging and distribution.

Now investing in your branding is a no-brainer if you intend to package. (At least I hope so.) But I’d like to tackle topic this from another angle. Let’s say you have no intention to package your beer (or at least not in the immediate future). 

Do you need a beautiful brand identity system when your beer and taproom experience itself is what will keep people coming back? 

Is it worth the effort, energy and cost to brand a hospitality-focused brewery? 

(Spoiler alert: Yes, it’s important. But read on.)

There’s a baseline list of reasons why your brewery should take its branding seriously, no matter your overall concept. We’ll briefly outline those points before exploring some of the more interesting, recurrent and overlooked ideas we’re seeing in our brewpub / taproom / hospitality-focused brewery branding work across the country right now. 

—

A quick note on terms: I’ll use “brewpub” and “taproom” interchangeably throughout today's issue. 

I’m drawing a line between breweries with a heavy packaging and off-premise emphasis vs. a brewery that sells most of its beer through its own premise or hospitality network.

Universal reasons for investing in your branding 

Investing in your brewpub's branding is crucial for several reasons. 

Most of these points are universal, table stakes ideas. So I don’t want to spend too much time here, because I imagine you already know them (after all, you’re subscribed to a niche beer and beverage industry branding newsletter). 

But at a quick glance, compelling branding… 

– Establishes your Brand Identity System and differentiates your brewery

– Increases your recognition and recall (helping you stay top of mind)

– Creates emotional connection, trust and credibility with your fans (fostering customer loyalty and evangelism)

– Improves your perception and reputation (remember, people taste with their eyes)

– Affects your pricing (and your ability to command a premium)

– Plants a flag and tells the community what you stand for 

We can continue, but you get the idea. Now these concepts alone should be reason enough to properly brand your brewery. 

But let’s now move beyond the basics to explore some overlooked reasons why your hospitality-focused brewery should invest in its branding (even if you don’t intend to package your beer).

(Above): You can't create cool merch without a compelling brand identity or story.

—

 

1.

Your brand is a platform (that can open up additional revenue streams)

Your brand is your most important asset. It is your reputation and story. It is your brand values, positioning, key messaging and your voice. It's an asset that will help you punch way above your weight. 

What we’ve seen over the last several years, in particular, is that your brand can be leveraged in compelling ways that both strengthen your overall perception and positioning, and help you grow your business by opening new revenue streams. 

A compelling brand can allow you to:

– Develop Beyond Beer products and extensions

– Spin up a lucrative merch program

– Open additional concepts (taprooms and restaurants) and become a hospitality group 

– Build a rich portfolio, complete with Sub Brands

– Open concert venues / event centers

– Extend into other relevant categories with lifestyle products

—

Your brand isn’t static. And by thinking of it as a platform, you’ll be better positioned to identify, weigh and pursue these sorts of opportunities as they arise.

(Above): Fun examples of signage and environmental design from our portfolio.

—


2. 

A compelling brand sets the stage for partnership opportunities and co-branding

Co-branding in the craft beer space is a major trend right now. We’re currently writing about this (stay tuned), so I'll just offer a few quick points here: 

– A strong brand can open doors to exciting partnership opportunities

– Collaborations with local businesses expose you to new audiences

– These collaborations can help to build your brand in a major way by associating your brewpub with respected and complementary concerns

And none of this is possible without building a compelling brand in the first place.

 

3. 

A compelling brand defines your Identity and Art Direction (it sets the tone)

This point is more tactical than sweeping and strategic, but (a BIG) part of the value of developing your brand is that it defines your overall look and feel. This manifests most meaningfully in your brand identity, but this affects several other important touch points as well.

Beer release art: If you’ll be packaging your beer, then this need becomes immediately apparent. But even if you’re not packaging your beer, you’ll still need assets to promote new releases online and in your taproom (e.g. social media content, untapped art, taproom menus, table tents, posters).

A well thought out brand identity will give you enough direction to make sure this work stays consistent and relevant (without having to reinvent the wheel with each new release). 

Taproom look & feel: What is your brand’s personality? How do you speak? What's your vibe? 

Great branding can shape how you layout your taproom, what sorts of furniture, fixtures and equipment (FFE) you choose during your buildout, how you handle way showing (directional signage) and murals, and sets the overall tone for your taproom. 

A proper branding process will demystify these important decisions and allow you to build a welcoming, comfortable space that people enjoy visiting. 

(Above): Beautiful examples of environmental design from several of our clients, including Fernson Brewing and KettleHouse.

—


4.

Compelling branding attracts (and helps to retain) top talent 

An ongoing labor shortage is one of the most pressing issues we hear from our restaurant and hospitality-focused brewery clients. 

And this problem is compounding.

If you’re not able to hire the best professional brewers, sales reps, front / back of house staff—any role you need to fill—then your overall customer experience will suffer. Your online reviews and reputation will suffer. Your business will suffer, and on and on.

This point has always been valid: Great branding makes you more attractive to would-be employees. 

But today, this benefit becomes an important edge over your competition (all the other breweries, restaurants and bars that are wooing the same potential employees).

If your team is proud to work at your brewery, and they’re proud of what your brand stands for, then everything they do and touch will be better. Compelling branding fosters a shared purpose, motivating your team to deliver wonderful customer service and maintain high standards throughout your brewery. 

A compelling brand isn’t a panacea in this regard—you still need to build a phenomenal culture to maintain your team’s esprit de corps—but it does help to attract the right people to your business in the first place.

(Above): A well built brewery brand and brand identity should inform all of your touch points, no matter how small. All of these points of interaction with your customers are an opportunity to tell your story and delight them.

—


Your branding is a signal 

Properly branding your brewery (defining your brand strategy and building your brand identity) is a signal to your customers, employees, community—and even yourself—that you’re taking your business seriously. 

It’s a signal that you intend to stick around for the long haul. (Otherwise, why would you invest in your identity?)

Your brand signals that:

– Your beer is well made and dependable. 

– Your service is impeccable. 

– And that your (potential) customers are welcome and will have a great time here. 

—

And all of this is crucial, whether you intend to package your beer or not.

Hi, there. We're currently writing about co-branding. If you've got a fun example of this that you've done at your brewery, please shoot me an email with some pics. Thanks! 


—


I was on a call with a brewery recently to discuss how we might corral their astonishing production schedule—more than 100 new beers slated for 2023 alone.

In cans.

They've burned through 2 in-house designers over the last 5 years and are wondering if they shouldn't bring more consistency to their portfolio, both to build brand equity, and so as to not run their poor designers into the ground. (Won't someone please think of the designers.)

More breweries are packaging their beer today than ever before, and whether you’re putting out ~25 new cans per year or more than 100, this core problem is worth exploring:

– Can (or should) you bring consistency to that many labels? 

– What’s the value of consistency in this case? 

– How can you make this change along the way so that it doesn't grind your business to a halt? (Breweries who operate this way often release their beers in monthly or bi-monthly drops, so there's not much time to slow down.)

So let’s discuss this today. 

What are some tactics breweries who package several dozen new beers each year might consider to make their lives easier? 

And then, we’ll discuss a few philosophical points that can inform how you think about your package design as a whole. 

Let’s start with some tactical considerations.

(Above): Good George Brewing — How can you stay consistent (and interesting) while releasing a constant stream of new beers each year? 

—


What are you balancing? And what are your options?


What are you balancing? 

If you’re packaging 100+ beers per year, you need to strike a balance between speed and quality and consistency.

NOTE: I’ll keep saying “100+ beers” here to drive this point home, but again, this entire conversation is just as applicable if you’re releasing 25 new cans per year.

Speed: You need these cans fast. And you need new labels perpetually. When running this way, there’s often little-to-no time to pause and consider how these cans work together in a broader sense. 

Quality: There’s some truth to the Iron Triangle concept: e.g. something can be Good, Fast, Cheap: And you can only choose two. When you’re moving at this fast a clip, there’s not enough time, and often not enough budget, to put out all quality labels.

Consistency: Consistency might not matter in all situations (e.g. are you distributing or selling primarily via carryout). We’ll address this point later. For now, let’s agree that consistency is valuable because it helps you develop IP and better brand awareness over the long term.

What are your options? 

There are a few immediate options in this scenario: 

1. Create a rigid template and systemize everything 

2. Treat every single release as a one-off label (YOLO)

3. Create a flexible template (blending options 1 and 2)

4. Begin creating lines and Sub Brands within your larger release schedule


—

1. Create a universal template

If you’re pumping out 100+ labels per year, it would be tempting to create a house template. One that allows you to change up some colors or patterning between each can, drop in the new style and beer specs and go to print. 

But could you imagine 100 nearly identical beer cans? While easy to manage, and affordable, this isn’t very compelling from a marketing standpoint. (Here’s another pic of the same can we’ve posted for the last 200 days. This one’s red! 4-packs are a reasonable 24.99…)

And this isn’t very compelling for your customers either, for whom, the art (plus the fact that this is a limited edition product) is often why they're buying your beer in the first place.

(Above): Examples of universal (global) templates, including Forest Road Brewing, Mission Brewing, Plain Spoke Cocktails and Prost Brewing. This approach works well for your core line of products, but can become boring if extended across dozens (and dozens) of new releases each year. 

—
 

2. Treat every label as a one-off

Conversely, you could just go wild and treat every beer and label as a one-off.

I almost didn't include this today because it's not a strategy, at least, not a sustainable one. And if you've been reading along so far, you know that this approach is what leads to people pulling their hair out and wanting to create some sort of system in the first place. 

Despite these things, this is still done all across the industry. So let's talk about it briefly. 

This is more or less the default route for any brewery that has never formally considered its branding. E.g. If you've never given your brand or broader portfolio architecture much thought, this is likely where you've arrived.

I’ll be blunt here (we’re both adults) and offer that in almost all cases (that we've seen), your packaging will look terrible if you go this route. We see it every single day.

And perhaps worse, it will be inconsistent.

It's one thing if your packaging looks bad. But looking bad and inconsistent is a place you really don't want to be in. (Hot take: It would be better for your packaging to look bad, but consistent, than to look bad and inconsistent because in the former case, at least you're teaching your customers what to look for out in the wild.) 

Under this model (100+ beers per year), you’re in a numbers game, one where label quality (and consistency) will generally take a back seat to speed and cost effectiveness. Speed rules the day. 

How fast can we get this label designed, ordered and applied?

Times 6 or 8 cans. Every month. In perpetuity. 

This isn't a strategy. It's Sisyphean.
 

3. Create a flexible template

Our work with Left Field is a good example of how your brewery can release dozens of new beers per year while keeping them consistent and attractive. 

Our solution in this case centered around a base template with a panel for beer-specific illustrations that changes between each release.

This gives Left Field the best of both worlds here—each beer starts off with a template (swap the colors, drop in new name and specs, etc.) but then there's room to customize so all the releases don't run together. They do this via their talented in-house creative team or by working with a local freelance illustrator to create the art as needed. 

We've created similar systems for several other breweries and this approach works great. 

Ideally, you'd use the same illustrator and/or style, across all releases. But if you don't, then you're still starting with a base template that provides consistency across all labels.

In other words, this approach prevents you from going too far off the rails even if your illustration style wanders over time.

 

—

 

Now that we’ve explored some of the moving parts to releasing 100+ beers per year, let’s shift into how you can begin to rein this all in and create some structure across your portfolio so you’re not always starting from zero.

(Above): Left Field Brewery uses a flexible template that centers around a consistent front panel and a section to house a custom illustration that ties to the beer's story.

Once the Left Field team has developed a beer name, they partner with a talented local illustrator for the can art and swap in the new name, color, specs in-house. Easy peasy. 

—

 

When & how to start making these changes 

Let's step back to look at this problem for a moment. If you're releasing 100+ new beers this year, there won't be enough time to pause and reset everything with a thorough package refresh.

So how, and when, should you start to roll in packaging so that it begins addressing your important pain points while also not disrupting the important flow of new beers out the door?

 

4. Begin creating lines / families / series, each with their own templates 

Creating a universal template can lead to repetitive labels and marketing. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create templates. 

Rather than creating a universal template that you use for all of your releases, what if you created a series of templates that you use for specific styles or seasonals or series? 

A good first step here is to try to group your various styles, with the goal of possibly creating several themed lines.

So you put out 10–20 Hazy IPAs per year—maybe those go into one consistent template. 

Your sour beers get a specific treatment. As do your lagers, pastry stouts, etc.

I’m using “template” here to capture the idea that these beer labels look similar more so than they use a rigid, identical template. There’s still room for making each label look cool, but you’re not starting from zero with each new release.


Could you reuse art?

If your brewery is putting out 100+ beers per year, most of those are probably new recipes. You will likely revisit (and build on) some past releases that were well-received, but breweries who operate under this model thrive on experimentation and novelty. 

I bring this up because if you’re putting out this many new beers—each with different labels—then you’re not teaching your customers what to look for on shelf on a per-beer basis. New labels come and go, so your customers know to look for the new label vs. a specific one. 

What this means is that your fans likely won’t remember, or care, if the label art on this months hazy IPA was used on a West Coast IPA last year.

Your individual beers likely aren’t for sale long enough for most people to remember what a particular label looked like (and if a few do, does it matter?).

If you agree with this premise, is there any merit to starting each year with a plan to reuse a percentage of the past year’s label art on this year’s new releases? Even picking 15 to 30 labels to reuse would take some pressure off your team, and it might even give you time to incrementally improve on those labels before they come back up for print again.

If you do this over a few years, you will build a sizable inventory of labels (or at least label elements—illustrations, specced color, typography builds—that you can use as a foundation for new releases.
 

When to make these changes? (on building planes in the air)

We’re helping a brewery navigate this problem right now and one of their first concerns was that they don’t have time to slow down and go through a thorough refresh. Their exact words were, “This train never stops.”

So our solution, for phase 1, is to develop three specific series that are going to start rolling out in Q1 2024. 

They will continue releasing all their normal output while this changeover is happening. And we’re planning to clean up the stragglers and create a few additional series templates next summer so that eventually, there’s more structure to their entire portfolio.

Revisit our thinking on Staggered Rebrand Launches for more background on how you can roll out an updated identity over time. 

(Above): We worked with Indie Alehouse out of Toronto to rein in their stacked release schedule. They partner with a talented artist (check out those illustrations above) to create illustrations for each beer. We created a template and simple rule set to keep their packaging consistent throughout the year.

—


Wrapping up

 

Does investing in design even matter at this pace and under this model? (What does your brewery look like in 5 years?)

I’m going to paint with a broad brush here.

Most of the breweries we've worked with who release 100+ new beers each year sell most of that beer as carryout. This can be on a daily basis from a cold box in your taproom or in big, hyped drops, depending on how you're positioned.

If they have any beer in distribution, it is usually a select number of accounts who take their latest and greatest, no matter the style. 

In this case, you need to consider whether you even need to invest time and capital into developing your labels?

The project I mentioned earlier where we’re helping a brewery create various lines and template series—they’re only doing that because they’re going to start distributing in a few new markets later this year.

Their beer will sell out of their taproom whether we design a slick label for it or not. But they realize that getting out of their taproom and competing in different markets presents an entirely new context. 

And now back to you.

So this becomes a question of how you operate. And how you plan to run over the next 5 years. 

If you're currently selling all of your beer as carryout and you have no immediate plans to change this model, then it might not make sense to invest heavily in your package design.

But if you’re planning on a making any changes, such as: 

– You're planning to begin distributing your beer (and will be competing with other breweries out in the market).

– You’re planning to evolve your portfolio to include more year-round offerings.

– You'd like to create a more pleasant (and less chaotic) work culture. And a big part of this change hinges on how you produce, market and release new beers.

– You're planning to create more lines and Sub Brands.

If any of these options are in play, then rethinking how you build your portfolio and broader label design can be a worthwhile endeavor. 

—

But beyond these changes, the biggest benefit you'll see from taming your label design system is that it will make your life easier. 

Imagine brewing 100+ beers per year. And packaging them. Now, you also have to develop a unique label for every single one. Oh, and you have to promote all of this. 

Exhausting.

If you can organize your portfolio into distinct lines and/or groups, and then create a consistent look for these batches, your life will be easier.

You won’t be starting from zero on each new release, and it will be easier for your fans to make sense of your new releases throughout the year.

Win-win.

Morning!

Our Sub Brand Summer series was prompted by a client’s question: 

“When does a brand become a Sub Brand?”

In parts 1 and 2 of this series, we’ve explored why Sub Brands are such an important Brand Strategy approach in today's craft beer industry as well as the different types of Sub Brands your brewery can build.

In today’s issue—our final installment—we’re going to tackle this question head on by introducing a concept called the “Sub Brand Ladder.” 

Whether you’re starting at square one and intend to create a Sub Brand or your brewery already has one and you're not sure where to go from here, the following framework will give you a clear path towards scale under this Brand Architecture strategy.

"The Sub Brand Ladder"

Your brewery’s Brand Architecture isn’t a static thing. Similar to your Brand Strategy and brand itself, you should revisited it as needed—whenever you’re planning to launch a new product, or setting annual goals, working through your ABP, doing some spring cleaning, and so on. 

This applies to your overarching Brand Architecture as well as at the individual product level—no brand in your portfolio has to fly under the same strategy forever. Overtime, as a brand grows in prominence, it will naturally start to slide more rightward on the Continuum.

This is a concept we call “scaling up and down” the Beverage Brand Architecture Continuum (pictured below).

The Sub Brand Ladder concept narrows our focus on this evolution to the middle of the Continuum, as you scale your new product (to, or) from Sub Brand to Endorsed Brand and beyond.  

Some of the ideas we outline below don’t fit neatly into one stage vs. another. And if you talk with two breweries who have built successful Sub Brands, you’ll find that they've taken very different, circuitous (if not serendipitous) paths to get to where they are today.

So don’t get too hung up on whether you need to complete everything in the middle rungs before moving on to the top rungs, etc.

Think of this less as a punch list and more as a tool box you can sift through and select from as you build your Sub Brand.

First steps – Creating a platform 

So you’ve decided to build a Sub Brand. (Nice!)

At the earliest stages of this process, you are building a platform for future brand building work. So you don’t have to create a perfect plan (and besides, your plan will inevitably shift given how fast industry and consumer trends evolve today).  

It’s important to note that the following items on their own don’t make your beer a Sub Brand. But you cannot build a fully-formed Sub Brand without them. (e.g. all Sub Brands have a fanciful name, but not all fancifully-named beers are Sub Brands.)

Some things you’ll need at the first rungs of the ladder include:

1. A fanciful name

Your Sub / Endorsed Brand will need a compelling name. This can be as important as your parent brand itself name, so don’t shortcut this process. 

Learn how to develop a great name here. 

2. Determine your Brand Architecture strategy & develop differentiated aesthetics 

Once you’ve established a compelling name, you’ll need to decide whether you want to initially position this brand as a Sub or Endorsed model. (Take our B.E.A.T. Assessment to quickly orient yourself here.)

Once you’ve made that decision, you’ll need to flesh out the brand’s look and feel. The level to which you do this will depend on whether you’re launching a Sub Brand or an Endorsed Brand to start.

To wit, a Sub Brand will be closely tied to your parent brand, whereas an Endorsed Brand will stand more on its own out of the gate.

In either case, you will need to establish some level of Brand Identity for this new brand.

3. A rough idea of how you intend to scale the brand

How do you want to develop this brand? Do you envision entering multiple categories, or staying nimble and focusing on a limited number of products? Does it make sense to (eventually) scale through Line and Brand Extensions?

Fast forward 5 years: What does this Sub Brand's portfolio look like? And how does this compare with the rest of your business? 

Your Brand Strategy will evolve over time so I wouldn’t worry about getting it perfect at this stage. But roughly charting out how you want the Sub Brand to relate to your parent brand and a few initial ways you think you can help the brand achieve velocity is a good place to start.


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(Below): Fernson Brewing recently took the first steps toward creating Sub Brands within their portfolio, including introducing fanciful names and illustrations. Read a case study about this shift here.

Intermediate Steps – Giving it some gas

Now that you’ve established your Sub Brand’s important foundational components (fanciful name, Brand Identity and a rough plan for growth), you can start to lean into this and more formally develop the brand itself. 

There are a lot of fun things you can do here, but at a 30k foot view, you have decided to build a Sub Brand and are now working towards building this brand throughout your market. 

In doing so, you will slide further away from the parent brand on the Continuum (Sub > Endorsed — i.e. pushing away from parent brand and placing more emphasis on the new brand itself.)

Some of the more potent things you can do at this stage include:

1. Develop your Sub Brand's Brand & Marketing Strategy

– Frame your Sub Brand's positioning 

– Develop a distinct brand voice & personality 

– Develop unique brand values (if markedly different from your parent brand values)

– Firm up the brand's value props, target audience and occasions 

– Develop a unique social media hashtag


2. Build out the portfolio (and explore where you can credibly take the brand)

Develop Line Extension(s) if appropriate 

( e.g. XYZ IPA > XYZ Hazy IPA > XYZ Imperial Hazy IPA… or XYZ Lager > XYZ Lime Lager… )

Line Extensions are a natural path towards growing the overall brand and giving consumers more options for flavor, occasions, packaging format and price points. 

However, you don’t have to develop multiple lines in order to build a successful Sub Brand. 

You can build a strong Sub brand off the back of one product (e.g. Lion’s Paw Lager, Shipwrecked, Cold Smoke). But if your product lends itself to a Line Extension, then this can be a great way to further build out the portfolio. (TLDR: Don't Line Extend without a compelling reason or opportunity.) 

Read more about how far you can extend a brand here.

Create Sub Brand-centric variety packs (if applicable)

This one is dependent on whether you release Line Extensions. But if you do have enough products to fill one out, variety packs can be a great way to drive trial and slowly introduce (and test) new brands in your portfolio. (They also allow you to stay top of mind throughout the year as seasons change.)

And allow me to beat this old drum once again: If you decide to build a variety pack, make sure you view it as a brand building opportunity. So develop a theme that helps you tell a compelling story and capture a specific occasion or audience.

TLDR: Don’t call it a “variety pack” and move on.

Develop a merch program 

Creating a Sub Brand-specific merch line is another great way of building awareness and evangelism. It’s also another avenue for fleshing out your brand voice and personality while driving more revenue.

( Examples: 805 / Howdy Beer / Fat Tire )


3. Distribution / Sales / Marketing Alignment 

In order to scale your Sub Brand, you’ll need to dial in your distribution and marketing plans. You will work with your distributor(s) on this front and this process can include chain retail and national account considerations depending on your scale. 

You will already have a few priorities within your parent brand's portfolio, but you will shift dedicated focus and energy to growing this Sub Brand alongside these other brands.

Other items you can tackle at this stage include:

– Dedicated distributor plans (more emphasis in your ABP / distribution plan / sales rep priority)

– Dedicated marketing budget 

– Sub Brand-specific vehicle wraps & POS / sales materials 

– Sub Brand-specific tap handles


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(Below top): Left Field Brewery is taking the intermediate steps of building out the Ice Cold Beer Sub Brand by creating a line extension (a "lime" extension, if you will), variety packs, fun merch and some smart field activation.

(Below bottom): Braxton Brewing does a great job of brand building out of the gate. Their latest release, Spur Amber Lager, came to market with its own defined brand voice, identity and launch party. If (or when) this brand achieves velocity, they can begin to scale the Sub Brand Ladder with whichever steps make the most sense.

Final steps – Taking the leap

At this point, the flywheel is spinning and you’re focused on maintaining the momentum you’ve built along the way. 

So as your Sub Brand matures, you’re doing more of the same work you began in the middle rungs of the Sub Brand Ladder: You’re continuing to develop the brand itself, you’re expanding your marketing efforts and budget and distribution reach.

You’re just doing all of these things better—more efficiently, more targeted and on a bigger scale. 

The line between the middle rungs of the Sub Brand ladder and the top rungs is blurry. So rather than trying to pin down a concrete definition (i.e. when you hit an annual CE target, when you hit a revenue milestone, etc.), let's say that you *officially* reach the top rungs when your team decides to take the leap.
 

“The leap”

Taking the leap means your brewery is fully committed to this Sub Brand and in doing so, you’ve decided to permanently decouple it from your parent brand. You may still maintain some level of Endorsement but at this stage, this is more to let people know that your parent brand exists than it is to offer a quality guarantee.  

Your Sub Brand (likely an Endorsed or standalone brand at this point) is now standing entirely on its own.

(Fly away baby bird!)

This happens naturally over time, and indeed, it’s usually the goal that your Sub Brand becomes more identifiable than your brewery’s parent brand. 

As an example: How many people know Voodoo Ranger vs. New Belgium? Or that Dale’s Pale Ale comes from Oskar Blues? Or Dead Guy comes from Rogue?

There are a few other items that you can do to commit to taking the leap. These can include: 

Filling out your digital footprint

– Create a Sub Brand-specific website. This can be a landing page, or a robust eComm site, depending on your needs. Here are a few examples of this out in the wild: Voodoo Ranger (New Belgium) / 805 & Mind Haze (Firestone Walker) / Skip Day Hard Seltzer (Fernson Brewing) / Arrogant Bastard (Stone)

– Create Sub Brand-specific social channels (unique handles and content, Custom Spotify playlists, etc.) ( Examples: @Drinkdales / @VoodooRanger / @HowdyBeer / @DrinkDeadGuy )

– Building assets (sales materials, POS) and tools (distributor portal on your website) to support growth and marketing

Fully realized team and budget

Start treating this Sub Brand like its own standalone business. To do this, you will need to put in place the systems and processes like any other business (staff, budget, SOPs, etc.)

– Build a dedicated in-house team to focus on the Sub Brand (e.g. Marketing Director, Brand Director / In-house designer, Social Media Manager / eCommerce Director) 

– Develop Sub Brand-specific marketing plan with a real budget (refining and executing what you framed during the intermediate phase)

– Building a dedicated sales program

Brand Architecture

– Build strategic partnerships (co-branding, sponsorships, stadium & concert venue placements). This will allow you to tap into additional audiences, continue building the brand and further enmeshing yourself in the community. 

– Complete marketing / sales / distributor alignment. This is builds on and clarifies what you established during the middle rungs of the Sub Brand Ladder.

Other moves to solidify your Sub Brand can include:

– Shift to move volume (multi-packs—variety, 12-pk and even 24pks) + channel-specific formats (single serve program, stovepipes in C-stores and concert venues)

– Create Sub Brand-specific standalone taprooms and venues 

– Create signature events / festivals / field marketing plans  

– Influencer marketing & partnerships 

– Ad Campaigns (Super Bowl ad? I don’t know… let’s dream big here.) And if you can’t swing 7 million for a 30 second commercial, then what else can you do? What is your Sub Brand’s Super Bowl?

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Here are a few major brands that are taking the leap in real time (right now in 2023). Follow along over the coming years to see how these outfits flesh out their brand families.

Oskar Blues > Dale's  /  Bell's > Hearted  /  Rogue > Dead Guy


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(Below top): Garage Beer is a great example of a brewery scaling the Sub Brand Ladder. Garage Beer started out as a Sub / Endorsed brand from Braxton Brewing. This set them up to bring in an outside investor and spin the brand out as its own property. We'll explore this concept—scaling up and down the Beverage Brand Architecture Continuum—in a future BBT issue.

(Below middle): A handful of brands that have taken the leap, including Fat Tire, 805, Dead Guy, Wild Basin and Dale’s.

Another cool highlight here: 805 is a best in class example of a beer brand that leans into content marketing and lifestyle positioning. This work includes bespoke video content, co-branded merch releases and partnering with influential brand ambassadors. 

(Below bottom): The skeleton in the room — We wouldn't be here talking about Sub Brands if it weren't for the success New Belgium has found through its Voodoo Ranger family. They're doing some super fun world building, including a standalone website (complete with an 8-bit video game), custom merch, unique social channels and brand voice and on and on.

When does a brand become a Sub Brand?

It’s a question of intent. 

Thousands of breweries have beers with fanciful names. But this alone doesn’t make a beer brand a Sub Brand.

It’s the intent to grow that specific brand as a more individualized family, complete with its own key messaging, value props, brand voice and personality that will push you across the line.

The Sub Brand Ladder isn't a punch list for you to check off over time.

These are stepping stones, or foundational blocks in the platform that allows you to move forward and build your Sub Brand (and your entire business) along the way for years to come.

Morning!

In our first piece in this series, we covered why Sub Brands are such a pervasive Brand Strategy approach right now.

Today, Sub Brand Summer marches on with a look at the different types of Sub Brands your brewery can build. 

We’ll outline and explore the subtle (but important) differences between Sub Brands and Endorsed Brands, and when each one can make sense for your brewery.

But before diving into that, let's first outline two important foundational concepts that will help you better understand this subject. 


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Want to learn more about Sub Brands and Endorsed Brands? 

Foundational Concepts 

 

There are two key concepts to understand before delineating between Sub Brands and Endorsed Brands. 

1

The first is the role of the parent brand in Brand Architecture 

We discussed this at length in BBT Issue 22. But as a quick refresher, when we help our clients make Brand Architecture decisions, we’re most concerned with protecting their parent brand’s equity.

– How will this extension add value to, or detract from, your parent brand?

– How far can we extend your brand without losing its core meaning and relevance? 

– Can your parent brand credibly enter this new space? 

– To what degree should your parent brand be present on this new brand? 

Without a strong parent brand, you have nothing to extend. No equity. No goodwill. No reputation. No secret sauce. Nothing. 

This is important when you set out to build a Sub Brand because, especially in the initial stages, you will be leaning heavily on your parent brand’s equity and goodwill. 

The relationship between your parent brand and Sub Brand will continue to diminish the further to the right you move on the Beverage Brand Architecture Continuum (represented in the graphic below), moving from Sub Brand onto an Endorsed Brand and potentially a stand alone brand approach over time. 


2

The second key concept you need to understand is the idea of a Main Purchasing Driver.

A purchasing driver is the primary reason someone buys a product. 

Your parent brand and new product brand can both play this role depending on how you frame their relationship, and the line can become blurry as you make your way from Sub to Endorsed Brand.  

An important question here: Are people buying a product because it is explicitly from your brewery? In this case, your parent brand is the primary purchasing driver. 

Or, is someone buying this new product because of its own specific style or brand (and the fact that it’s produced by your brewery is either a nice bonus or doesn’t factor into their decision at all)? In this case, your new brand is the main purchasing driver. 

Back to the Beverage Brand Architecture Continuum (above), your parent brand’s role as the main purchasing driver diminishes the more rightward you move along this continuum.

 

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Now that we’ve covered these two concepts, let’s define Sub Brands and Endorsed Brands.

Sub Brands 

A Sub Brand is a connected closely to your parent brand, but think of it as a little extra spice given to separate itself from the rest of your portfolio

A Sub Brand still carries the same overall values that intuitively link it to your parent brand, but targets a specific audience with further defined attributes and benefits that might not be offered by the parent brand alone.

This allows you to build stronger bonds with your existing customers while expanding your overall footprint by dipping your toes into new categories and audiences.

Under a Sub Brand strategy:

– Your parent brand is the Main Purchasing Driver 

– The packaging looks, more or less, in line with the rest of your portfolio 

– Your parent brand and new product brand share equal prominence on packaging

Sub Brands make sense when:

– You want to explore a new category or occasion while still flying under your parent brand’s momentum and mindshare 

– You know you want to create a new product, but you’re not sure what that looks like long term (e.g. will it become a standalone brand?)


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Sub Brand Examples

(Below top): Fernson Brewing deliberately shifted away from a monolithic portfolio by building individual Sub brands. Read a full case study on this project here.

(Below middle): Left Field Brewery's Ice Cold Beer and Sierra Nevada's Little Thing Sub Brands.

(Below bottom): A collection of Sub Brands from around the beer industry. Note how each brewery's parent brand identity (logo) is locked up with the Sub Brand name / core iconography in these examples.

Endorsed Brands 

An Endorsed Brand stands mostly on its own, but with some level of endorsement—or, assurance of quality, trust and credibility—from the established parent brand.

An Endorsed Brand leverages the mind share and reputation of your parent brand while insulating it to varying degrees.

This can manifest as a “stamp of quality” or in a more meaningful alignment (think a similar naming element or thematic relationship).

Under an Endorsed Brand strategy:

– Your new product brand is the Main Purchasing Driver

– The packaging departs from your core portfolio’s look & feel 

– Your parent brand is relegated to an “endorsement” role 

Endorsed Brands make sense when:

– You want a clear separation from your parent brand 

– You have plans to scale and spin off the brand at some point 

– You’re targeting a different audience from your core line, but there is enough carryover (values, brand & story) that some tie to your parent brand can make sense.

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Endorsed Brand Examples 

(Below top): 7th Inning Seltzer and Say Hey Sparkling Water by Left Field Brewery.

(Below middle): Rhinegeist employs a variety of Brand Architecture approaches within their portfolio. These are two great Endorsed Brands. (Devil's advocate: You can almost make the case for Cincy Light being a Sub Brand due to how strong and recognizable Rhinegeist's core icon is. In this case, it stands in for their main logo no different than the Starbucks Mermaid icon or Nike Swoosh.)

(Below bottom): A collection of prominent Endorsed Brands from around the industry.

Conclusion 

At a quick glance, the difference between a Sub Brand and an Endorsed Brand can seem blurry. Indeed, they both leverage your parent brand to varying degrees and they both aim to build a platform for future growth. 

But the real difference, for our conversation here, is in your intent. 

If you intend to build up a new brand within your brewery’s portfolio, then you can look ahead to see which plan might help you best accomplish that goal down the line. 

Then, you can backward plan from there and arrive at which approach makes the most sense for your brewery right now. 


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Now that you understand the different use cases for Sub Brands and Endorsed Brands, we’ll set theory aside and spend our final issue of Sub Brand Summer walking you through how to actually build and scale your Sub Brand.

Hi, there!

In our 2023 Beer Branding Trends review, we outlined an important shift we're seeing in brewery portfolio strategy.

All across the country, breweries are looking to find growth by building Sub Brands—or in the more common, non-Brand Architecture nomenclature, "Brand Families"—within their broader portfolio.

This is a natural move for larger Legacy Breweries for whom finding relevance with new drinkers is a life and death matter. But we're seeing our smaller, younger brewery clients build intra-portfolio Sub Brands with great results as well. 

In either case, there are interesting takeaways that you can think about as you shape your brewery’s portfolio over the coming years. 

We’ve written a lot about what Sub Brands are and how to build them. In today's issue, we’re going to outline why we think Sub Brands are such a pervasive strategy right now, what this means, and more importantly, how your brewery can explore this path if you think it would be a good fit for your vision and goals.

We're going to dive into Sub Brands and Endorsed Brands in part 2 of this series, but as a quick refresher:

What is a Sub Brand?

From The Beyond Beer Handbook:

A Sub Brand is connected closely to your parent brand—think of it as a little extra spice given to separate each product from one another within your overall portfolio. A Sub Brand still carries the same values that intuitively link it to the parent brand, but targets a specific audience with further defined attributes and benefits that might not be offered by the parent brand alone. This allows you to build stronger bonds with your existing customers while expanding your overall footprint by dipping your toes into new categories and audiences.

—

A few important nuances here:

1. In Brand Architecture terms, this strategy can manifest as a Sub Brand or an Endorsed Brand. The specific approach isn’t as important as is the long term bet that we’re seeing more breweries make: The future will be more centered around specific brands and brand families, more so than around a brewery’s parent brand. 

2. When building a true Sub Brand, your parent brand is still the main purchasing driver.

That is, a customer buys this product explicitly because it is from your brewery. With an Endorsed Brand, the new product brand itself is the main purchasing driver, with the parent brand relegated to an "endorsing" role. 

For the rest of this article, I'll use "Sub Brands" as a shorthand for both Sub and Endorsed Brand strategies.

Sub Brand Summer focuses on the Sub / Endorsed Brands section of the Beverage Brand Architecture Continuum.

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Why is this happening? (Or at least, how did it start?)

 

Reason 1: Follow the leader(s)

I believe we’re seeing this strategy so often today because of how successfully it has been implemented by a handful of respected Legacy Breweries.

A few prominent examples include: 

– Voodoo Ranger (New Belgium)
– Little Thing (Sierra Nevada)
– 805 (Firestone Walker) 
– Beer Hug (Goose Island) 
– Golden Monkeys (Victory)
– Dale's (Oskar Blues)
– Wicked (Boston Beer Co.)
– Hearted (Bell's) 

We offered a similar theory recently for why high ABV beers are trending right now. (Question starts at the 1 hour 13 minute mark in this podcast). Basically, someone took a shot (in this case, on aggressively priced Imperial IPAs in single serve stove pipes), and it worked. It really, really worked. So other breweries followed suit. 

So take this dynamic, sprinkle in the macro trend of beer consumers shopping based more on brand than style, plus shifting Legal Drinking Age demographics and preferences, and you have a perfect setting for Sub Brands to thrive.

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(Below) Follow the leader(s): A few leading brewery Sub Brand examples from around the United States.

Reason 2: The beer industry is facing major headwinds

I don't need to outline the myriad economic forces that are constricting the beer industry because you're seeing this firsthand every day in your work. 

But for those who aren't following along as closely, let's just say that between a recession and inflation, lingering supply chain shortages and dramatically increased input costs, things aren't looking so great right now. 

So how can a brewery survive over the coming rocky years?

One way is to diversify your offerings.

It's good practice to rebalance your investment portfolio every year or two to ensure you're not overly weighted in one asset class. This keeps you resilient and can minimize losses when things go sideways.

This concept applies to your brewery's portfolio as well: By building a variety of brands and products across multiple categories that appeal to different audiences, price points and occasions, you can keep your business more robust as consumer preferences shift and broader economic constraints are brought to the fore.

We saw a lot of this from 2019 to 2022 in the form of breweries releasing hard seltzer and RTDs.

But this move is category agnostic. 

For this conversation, we’re not drawing a line between beer or Beyond Beer products. Instead, we're focusing on Sub Brands as a tool to leverage your parent brand to grow your overall portfolio.

Reason 3: Sub Brands create a smoother path to market than creating an entirely new brand 

Building a new brand is expensive. And it's challenging. And it takes capacity (that you may not have). And to do it right, you have to invest as much time and energy and capital as you did when bringing your parent brand to market. 

But releasing a new brand that can come to market tied to your parent brand in some capacity can create a faster path towards gaining mindshare and driving trial and velocity.

I won't go as far as to call this strategy a shortcut, but it is faster and cheaper to bring a new Sub Brand to market than creating an entirely new brand (with zero tie to your parent brand).



Reason 4: Sub Brands are platform for long term brand building

We've written about the merits of Monolithic Portfolios vs. fanciful names and Sub Brands a lot this year.

One thing that we've heard from our brewery clients is that Sub Brands give your customers one more point of reference to grab onto and understand and bond with. Fernson Brewing mentioned this in our recent podcast conversation.

Think of the Bar Call heuristic. Someone walks into a bar and orders a beer: Which of these sounds (and feels) better?

"805, please." 

or 

"Give me a Firestone Walker Blonde Ale, please."

Our recent package refresh project with Fernson Brewing illustrates how Sub Brands aren't just a big, Legacy Brewery move. Smaller breweries are building Sub Brands with great results as well. 

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Welcome to the Era of Sub Brands (or, why Sub Brands are so hot right now)

For the Legacy Brewery:

Sub Brands are an opportunity to target a specific audience more credibly than you would be able to with your parent brand. You can bring to bear your entire scale (production, innovation, distribution, marketing, etc.) and launch a new brand with more force than a startup ever could.  

For a newer, smaller brewery:

Sub Brands are another chance to create something that resonates with your customers. And it creates a platform for future growth via Line Extensions, co-branding and a deeper universe you can flesh out over time.

For your customers:

Sub Brands are an easy way to cut through the noise of today’s cold box and find a new go-to beer brand family that never lets them down.


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In part 2 of this series, we'll take a closer look at Sub Brands and Endorsed Brands.

We'll explore how they're similar, where they differ and how you can scale seamlessly from one to the other over time as your brand grows.

A client asked us this recently and Cody and I didn’t have as clear an answer as we would’ve liked. (Especially for two people who’ve written a book on Brand Architecture.) 

– Is it when you introduce fanciful names in your portfolio?

– Is it when you launch a Line Extension?

– Is it when you launch a variety pack? 

– Is it when you get a brand-specific tap handle?

Yes. It’s all these things. And more.

Building a Sub Brand is a matter of intent. And there are several layers, or levels, to developing one. 

– What are you wanting to build? 

– How do you want to structure your portfolio?

– How do you plan to thrive in craft beer’s “new normal” where what you’ve always done might not cut it anymore?

To explore this subject, we’ve put together a 3-part series of BBT newsletters and companion podcasts that will discuss why Sub Brands are such a pervasive strategy right now, the different types of Sub Brands you can build as well as a guide for laddering up and building your own fully executed and scaled Sub Brand.

Here’s a run down on what to expect over the coming weeks. 

Issue 1 (Why): Sub Brands.So Hot Right Now. (July 18)

Issue 2 (What): Sub Brands vs. Endorsed Brands: A Closer Look (August 1)

Issue 3 (How): How to Scale the Sub Brand Ladder (August 15)

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This series is a BBT exclusive, so if there’s someone on your team you think would benefit from reading along, please forward this email to them or have them sign up here so they receive everything.

Thanks so much for being here.

We’ll be back next week to kick this all off.

Legacy Brewery. 

(Sounds cool, doesn’t it?)

We’ve used this term for years in our branding work (and have heard it bandied about the industry for just as long).

I wanted to take today to define this more clearly as well as make a case for broadening the requirements to be included in this group as well as examine some of the unique challenges facing these breweries. 

What is a Legacy Brewery? (And how many are there?)

We’ve always considered a Legacy Brewery to be any outfit that was founded about 20+ years ago. That number seems kind of arbitrary—why not 25 or 30 years?—but it's always felt like a good benchmark. 

When we invoke this term, I imagine most folks immediately think of Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Boston Beer, DogFish Head, Oskar Blues, Firestone Walker, Schlafly, Victory, Karl Strauss, Russian River, Deschutes, etc. as leading examples from this cohort. And indeed, these companies are all fantastic examples of Legacy Breweries (and businesses and brands) that are only getting better with age. 

But we shouldn't just look towards these mega successful outliers for what determines success for today's Legacy Brewery. 

And looking at the numbers alone, these outfits are certainly outliers. 

If you discount the 25 or so "big" breweries that are in the Legacy tier, you're still left with a lot of older, smaller breweries. 

Remember, there were ~1,500 breweries in 2000 and ~1,800 in 2010 when the Craft Beer Boom began in earnest. So by this definition, there are approximately 1,500 Legacy Breweries in the United States today—that's ~16% of the entire U.S. craft beer industry.

But most of these Legacy Breweries aren’t producing 100’s of thousands of barrels per year. Most aren't distributed nationally. Most of them aren't grabbing industry headlines each time they release a new product or make an exciting new hire. And most of them have had a hard time rising above the frenetic noise of today's mature beer industry. 

All of this has lead to a subtle shift in how we define a Legacy Brewery.

KettleHouse is a great example of a Legacy outfit that leaned into its brand equity and rebranded to better position itself for the future.

—


Expanded criteria for Legacy Breweries 

We've rebranded several Legacy Breweries (those that are at the 20+ year mark). And we've rebranded several others breweries that are younger than this (somewhat arbitrary) age cutoff.

What we've seen in our field work is that both of these groups are often dealing with a similar set of problems and pain points. And on the other side of this equation, they're often eying similar opportunities. 

We've found that age isn't the most important metric here. Instead, we should focus on how many breweries opened in your market after you. 

To that end, we now consider any brewery that was founded before the Craft Beer Boom (starting in 2010) to be a Legacy Brewery.

So an outfit as old (as young?) as 13 years can be considered a Legacy Brewery. 

Yes, we still have an age cutoff, but this term is more inclusive of any brewery that founded in a much more open market and has since become surrounded (and sometimes overrun) with competition. 

So location, population density and the competitive set all factor into this expanded definition. 

—

If we dig deeper into this rationale (and make our way further into the weeds), you could even make the argument that a Legacy Brewery could have been founded in the early 2010's. 

To wit, if you opened sometime from 2011–2015 as one of the earliest breweries in a city that now boasts 50+ other breweries, you're likely in the same boat as a lot of these other Legacy Breweries. 

Example: When we first started working with Prost Brewing in 2018, they felt that they were already considered the Old Guard at just 6 years old in Denver's stacked market (currently sitting at around 150 breweries).

But alas, we need to draw a line somewhere or otherwise, this term won't mean anything. So again, this new definition does factor in age to a degree, but more so the amount of competition that has come on board since you founded.

(Above top) Mission Brewing is a classic Legacy Brewery (and then some, at 100+ years old).

(Above bottom) Prost Brewing would fall within the expanded Legacy definition of any brewery founded around the start of the Craft Beer Boom in 2010.

—


What unique challenges are Legacy Breweries facing?

While we learn something new on every single project, we do hear a recurring set of problems and pain points with our Legacy (and close to Legacy) clients.  

And to reiterate, for all intents and purposes, a brewery that is 14 years old and a brewery that is 29 years old are likely facing a similar set of headwinds today. 

Here are some pervasive themes we’ve heard in our Legacy branding work: 

“There's just so much competition that we've gotten lost in the shuffle of new entrants in our market.”

“We don't know what our story is, and we're not sure our fans do either.”

“Our current branding isn’t appropriate or even relevant for where we are today, or where we plan to take the brewery.” 

“We've had some major turnover over the last 5 years and our current team is excited to work and build. But we feel like we can’t accomplish anything until we rebrand.” 

“We're locked into a bad distributor relationship.” 

“Our sales were flat pre-2020. Now, they’re declining.” 

“Our branding and packaging are just tired. They haven’t been refreshed in 7 or 8 years, and it gets lost on shelf.” 

“We have several different beer lines and series with no central theme to tie our packaging together. None of this looks like it even comes from the same brewery.”

“Everything is inconsistent. We even use different logos on our flagship cans. It’s maddening.”


—


On Brand Equity 

Another unique challenge that Legacy Brewery's face is that, because they've been around for a while, there is often some level of visual and Brand Equity to consider as part of a branding update. 

Now, a five year old brewery will have hopefully built up some positive equity along the way as well. But there's a unique angle here, particularly amongst Legacy Brewery founders who are involved in a rebranding process: There's often more of an emotional attachment—and in some cases, an outright fear—that if you change things too drastically, people will not recognize you at all on shelf. 

We've run into this on several projects. A founder will say, "Well, we can't change that icon, or that illustration. We've used it for 19 years!"

But remember: Not all Equity carries the same weight.

—

Legacy Breweries, by dint of age, almost always have more Equity to contend with. And unless you’re completely wiping the slate clean during a rebrand (Revolution vs. Evolution), you will have more equity to wade through and consider.

What is important to our cause here? What is unmistakably us, and what can we build our identity and trade dress around moving forward?

What must be retained through this update, and what can be jettisoned?

How can we honor our past, and tell that story in a way that will resonate with new drinkers today? 

So what's a Legacy Brewery to do?

Between Big Beer, Big Craft, smaller, more nimble local breweries flooding the market and beyond beer products sucking up all remaining oxygen, Legacy Breweries are under a lot of pressure right now.

But you’ve got something that these other groups don’t have. 

Legacy Breweries are cool. 

Startup breweries often have to engage in myth making, that is, creating an origin story—sometimes out of whole cloth—that may or not be 100% authentic.

No value judgement here, to some extent this is required anytime you develop a new brand. BUT, you don’t have to do this. 

If you’ve been around for 13 years, or 15, or 25 years (again, the age isn’t as important now), then I guarantee there is something interesting in your history that you can explore in your branding and messaging.

You have an earned authenticity that younger groups don't have yet.

You’ve weathered recession(s), booms and busts, major events in your city and market—a pandemic—and you’re still here. 

You’ve been there all along, shaping your community, giving back, learning and listening and making great beer.

So lean into this.

Remind people where you came from (and show your bona fides)

Don’t hang your hat on just being old—on its own, this isn't a compelling differentiator. But there is an authenticity there that people inherently recognize. Don't be afraid to tell this story and remind people (current fans and new ones) where you come from.

Yeah, we may be ubiquitous. And you may take us for granted, but there's a reason we're still here.

—

People need a story to connect with your brewery. And you've got one.

You just have to figure out how to tell it.

Morning!

Quick housekeeping here: We've received feedback from dozens of subscribers who would prefer to read these longer form pieces on our site.

We're going to do that moving forward, where appropriate. We'll still send out full reviews / insights here in the newsletter, but crossposting these on our stories page will give you a better (and much larger) look at images and an easier link to share with your team.

Click here to view today's post over on our site. 


—

In our 2023 Beer Branding Trends Review we wrote about the merits of fanciful beer names (e.g. 60 Minute IPA, Pivo Pils, Cold Smoke) vs. a more monolithic, parent brand-forward naming convention (e.g. Prost Pils, Birdsmouth Dunkel, Plain Spoke Mojito).

This parallels another trend we covered as well: An increase in the amount of consumers who report shopping and making purchasing decisions based on brand more than style.

If we extrapolate these trend lines out over the next 5 to 10 years, it becomes clear that breweries with a distinctive (and compelling) brand identity, a clear point of view, and individualized beer brand names will be in a stronger position than groups without these foundational pillars in place.  

Today, we want to share a case study for a recent project with Fernson Brewing out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota that illustrates all of these ideas. 

For podcast fans, we recorded a conversation with Fernson founders Derek Fernholz and Blake Thompson on this topic as well. Give it a listen for more context in their own words. 

Okay, let’s get into it. 

 

—

 

We designed Fernson’s flagship cans back in 2015.

This original packaging was tailored for a mid-2010’s beer market. Bifurcated and minimal, each beer got its own SKU color, but the emphasis was on building Fernson’s parent brand first and foremost. 

To that end, and importantly for today’s conversation, these early releases all eschewed beer names. So you had Fernson IPA, Fernson Farmhouse Ale, etc. 

This packaging worked really well at the time. Especially in a then nascent craft beer market like South Dakota (and later, as Fernson expanded, neighboring Iowa and Minnesota).

Fernson’s original flagship cans.

—


But a few things happened over the intervening years that highlighted the need for more individualized beer brands and packaging. 

1. We already mentioned a broader trend that shows consumers increasingly gravitating towards individual brands over styles. So that’s still at play. 

2. Along the way, Fernson employed a series of talented in-house designers that did a bang up job of evolving and solidifying Fernson’s brand voice and ongoing package design aesthetic. 

3. And finally, the beer industry just became more crowded (~4,000 breweries in 2015 to over 9,500 in 2023 will do that). 

But perhaps more importantly, great design in the beer industry has (thankfully) become far more commonplace. As has new SKU churn (sometimes called “Rotation Nation”) and an overall hastening of the rate at which breweries refresh their packaging. 

That’s a long winded way of saying that packaging, even when well-designed, tends to get lost in the fray much sooner today. 

A collection of packaging developed by Fernson’s in-house creative team over the years. 

—


So several years of new in-house label design work + an evolving beer market spurred the Fernson team to start introducing fanciful beer names around 2017.

This happened accidentally at first with the release of Lion’s Paw Lager (currently, ~60% of their revenue). 

This lead to renaming a few other flagships to match. So Fernson IPA became Shy Giant IPA. Fernson’s Porter became Wagonplane Porter. And their popular Sour Ale became Curio. (These are all strong, strong names.)

It’s important to note here that these names were introduced on their original flagship cans. So while they were taking a step toward what would eventually become an important trend—developing fanciful brand names and stories—the change wasn't really that impactful. (You’ve got a great name, but on shelf, you just added two words to the same templated can. Big deal.)

So after 8 years of service, these flagship cans were looking tired. They were tired when compared to their broader competitive set. And even more so when compared to the exciting things happening across the rest of Fernson’s portfolio. 

There was a pressing opportunity to make Fernson’s packaging work harder for them out on shelf while also setting the stage for deeper storytelling and long term brand building. 

If handled right, this move sets Fernson up for potential line extensions and even scaling some of these beers into more fully-developed Sub Brands down the line.

So that tees up our project. Now that you know the top line context, let’s jump straight to a few early concepts we presented and discuss some important considerations we discussed along the way.

You probably already know the folktale behind the Lion’s Paw name, but if not, read more here.

—


We shared two directions initially, one of which (above, bottom) featured a beautiful custom lion illustration.

We were really excited about this direction, and the art itself. It’s beautiful, it would translate well to a painted can, it lends itself to merchandising and POS opportunities, and on and on.

But as excited as we were, it didn’t quite land with the Fernson team. 

(A foghorn bays mournfully in the distance. Another slice of my beard turns ashen.)

They liked the illustration, but felt like it departed too heavily from their established aesthetic (i.e. all those great in-house cans and releases I mentioned earlier).

Another consideration, though not as immediately pressing as the previous one, is that this illustration style is fairly complex. This means you have to have a specific set of illustration skills in order to create follow-on labels. 

This is an important parameter that we end up discussing frequently in our work.

We have to balance creating something beautiful and compelling that stands out on shelf, but that, in an ideal world, will also be able to be replicated by your in-house team. 

While CODO (and any designer worth their salt) wants to design every single label your brewery puts out, this often isn’t financially prudent. It doesn’t take many label design projects before you start to seriously consider hiring an in-house creative.

Anyway, I’ll fast forward here through revisions and share round 2 concepts.

(Above top) Various illustration styles we explored through the revisions phase. The lion shifted dramatically from complex and ornate to minimal and iconic. This ended up being a better fit with Fernson’s broader aesthetic. 

—


Round 2 was warmly received.

The chosen direction’s canvas (above, middle) is much more simplified. We dropped the texture and grounded the illustration in a fairytale-ish picture frame to add some compositional logic and make follow-on in-house label illustrations more manageable. 

I’ll fast forward to the final cans here because our revisions were fairly minimal and mostly focused on dialing in the illustrations (e.g. "Should we break the frame with leaves here?" or "To be clear, the giant shouldn't be fully nude, correct?") and finding the right supporting typography.

Our engagement covered Lion’s Paw Lager and Shy Giant IPA, and we're proud of how these turned out.

But more importantly, from an ongoing perspective, Fernson’s in-house team was able to use these as templates and develop a few labels (Farmhouse and Curio) in this new style in short order.

So that’s another important project goal that was achieved.

Fun stuff Fernson's team developed to support their refresh launch. 

—

 

We talk about brand building a lot. And indeed, there’s a lot that we’re leaving out of that conversation here: The importance of marketing and sales and distribution alignment. Field activation. Community partnerships. Positioning. Brand voice. Brand Architecture. Consistency. And on and on. 

But before all of that, you need phenomenal beer. And that beer needs a compelling name. And it needs badass packaging. 

These are all foundational.

And once they’re in place, you can build anything you can dream up.

Hi there.

Today’s topic is another request from our year end survey: How do you design better merch? 

Merch is a fun subject and something that some breweries completely knock out of the park. And others, well, they try (and in doing so, leave a lot of revenue on the table).

Your merch program can be a highly lucrative revenue stream if done well. So, let’s discuss this today.

I'm not going to into specific fashion trends here because they’ll change over the next year anyway. (Also, I’m wearing jorts as I write this. Literally. Right now. Jorts. My wife is horrified.) I’ll also try to skip the more obvious pointers (e.g. Hoodies sell better in winter than summer—revelatory!).

Instead, I’ll outline some evergreen things we think about when we discuss merch with our clients in the hopes that this helps your team create better stuff moving forward.

Let’s get into it.

1.

Your merch is a direct reflection of your business 

I’ve had the same Sam Adams keychain bottle opener for more than 20 years. It has dutifully opened hundreds (thousands?) of beers and every time I bring it out, I smile. (These days, it lives on the top shelf of my tackle box. And if I'm being honest, it's really only still there because my kids like playing with it when we go fishing. Aluminum cans rendered this old friend obsolete a decade ago.)

Now I'm not sure that it's reasonable to ask a t-shirt to last 20 years, but my point here is that you need to invest in high quality merch—quality shirts and hats, quality printing, patches and stitching, quality keychains, etc. 

Whatever you decide to offer, make sure it's well made. 

This is such an important point, that if you have a choice between offering cheap merch (junky, boxy shirts, poorly made stickers, cheap bottle openers, etc.) and selling no merch at all, you would be better off not creating anything. 

Do not sell cheap merch. It is a direct reflection on your brewery itself.

Left Field is Toronto's baseball brewery. That sells their outfit short a bit, but this is what they're known for. And their merch program reinforces this positioning and story with every single piece.

I can't think of a single piece of merch they've ever put out that I wouldn't want to wear. Check out their entire store here.

—



2.

Your merch can reinforce your positioning and brand story 

What is your brewery’s Brand Essence, voice and personality? How are you positioned? What are your values and key messages?

All of these things can be reinforced by your merch. Not just in design, but in the actual artifact itself. 

What are your fans into? What activity and/or lifestyle are you centered around? Thinking in these terms can allow you to go esoteric and fun here.

If you’re the fly fishing brewery, then go deep on that: Bandanas. Branded fly boxes. Sunglasses straps. Fanny packs. Branded waders. Or maybe sticker packs geared for specific places like a truck cap or a canoe. 

You can do this with any lifestyle or hobby.

You know what your people are into, so have fun on this.

 

3.

What style of XYZ should you buy? 

Trucker hat or flat bill? Dad hat or an unfortunate bucket hat? 7 panel hat or snapback? 

How do you stay up to date on the latest fashion trends? 

Take it from me—again, jorts—it's not your job to know what type of hat or shirt is trending right now. 

To stay up to speed here, I suggest following dozens of breweries you respect on Instagram and watch what they're doing. 

Here are a few client shoutouts to get you started:

– Left Field Brewery
– Fertile Ground Beer Co. 

And here are a few more groups (non-CODO clients) who produce great merch:

– Halfway Crooks 
– Austin Beerworks
– Surly Brewing
– The Veil 

I know this probably isn't as insightful as you might of hoped, but it works. You can’t know everything, so why bother? Focus on creating great beer and hospitality experiences for your fans, and let other folks figure out what type of merch does and doesn’t sell.

Then, borrow liberally. 

4.

Think beyond your primary logo (give your fans winks & nods)

There’s a place for logo’d merch. A big place. But if all you’re doing is slapping your primary logo on a bunch of shirts and calling it good, you may be missing out on sales to folks who don’t want to be a walking billboard, but would otherwise happily buy and wear a shirt. 

This is where your Modular Brand Identity System really shines. 

All of your secondary and tertiary marks—your icons, tagline builds and other bugs—are perfect for merch. These are exactly the type of winks and nods you can offer to folks who want to wear something cool and low key.

And beyond this, whenever we sit down to develop a dedicated batch of merch, we lean more into lifestyle and cool illustrations.

Think more band shirt than a corporate offering.

Is this design cool? 

Does it relate (even in the slightest) to our brewery's story?

Go. To. Print.

5.

Create merch drops & scarcity 

Whenever your brewery orders merch, you’re balancing wanting to order fewer items (in case they don’t sell well) with the fact that you can get a better price by buying more units.

One way to reframe this scenario is to think of your merch along the lines of your brewery's pilot program: Purposely order small batches and promote them as such. 

There are several benefits to this approach:

– You can test things out and see what pops. Does a particular shirt color, or style, or design sell out almost instantly? Then you know you might want to order more of that particular item the next time around.

– You’re also not left with hundreds of units sitting there gathering dust if you miss the mark on a particular piece.

– And finally, you’re introducing one of the most powerful nudges in all of advertising and Behavioral Economics theory—limited time only! If your hats are only available for a limited time, then someone might be more inclined to grab one now than if it was a year round staple. 

—

Buy smaller quantities to see what the market likes. Take notes. And refine on your next drop.

Bonus point here: Let’s stay on the pilot batch / limited release beer analogy for a moment.

Is there a way you can create a merch series that will encourage folks to collect? These could be enamel pins, hats, glassware, special prints—anything.

If someone like a particular design, then they may be more inclined to buy the next one, particularly if this is framed as part of a growing (and exclusive) series.

6. 

Create a beautiful retail footprint (please exit through the gift shop)

If you want your fans to buy more merch, you should make purchasing said merch as easy and pleasant as possible.

One way of doing this is to create a beautiful retail experience inside your brewery.

I suggest looking for inspiration out in the world here.

Go to a Harley Davidson dealership to see how they merchandise shirts and lifestyle gear. Go to REI to see how they merchandise camping equipment. Or take your Goth son to a Hot Topic and check out how they merchandise chain wallets and eye liner. 

Go to any store that has a similar vibe to your brewery (e.g. technical, outdoorsy, warm and inviting) and look at their retail displays. How do they hang shirts? Do they use mannequins? What sort of backdrops do they build? Do they take advantage of vertical space or is everything in bins? What sort of hangtags / retail labels do they use?

Creating a cool, inviting space in your brewery to house your merch can, in and of itself, help to sell more products. 

—

Bonus point here: I’m always surprised when I see a taproom employee not wearing a brewery's shirt.

If you don’t have a uniform policy in place, especially amongst your front of house folks, consider at least asking that they wear one of your shirts during every shift. This will get more eyes on your merch throughout the day and hopefully help to move more products.

(And another piece of low hanging fruit: Put your merch on your taproom menus. If you've got cool stuff to offer, don't be shy about it.)

 

7. 

Should you sell your merch online?

Selling your merch online is a no brainer if you're established enough and have a large enough following to justify the increased overhead (eComm development, inventory management, product photography, fulfillment, etc.).

If you’re just starting out (so breweries in planning, specifically), you can probably find better ways to spend your money than on building a slick online store. 

What is a large enough following to justify building an online store?

Great question. And I actually don’t have a clear answer for you. 

If you’ve got 25k IG followers maybe? Or 5k newsletter subscribers. Or if you make more than 2500bbl per year, maybe?

Or perhaps you just have big aspirations on this front and want to set yourself up to scale now.

The real question is: Do you feel confident that your merch is strong enough and your brand is compelling enough that people would want to buy your merch from afar?

If so, get after it. 

—

We wrote about breweries leaning into content marketing and email newsletters recently. If you have an engaged newsletter list, then selling your merch online becomes way easier (and measurable). 

You still want to over-deliver value on this channel: Give your fans behind the scenes stories, sneak peeks at upcoming releases, etc.

But if your fans trust you, you're allowed to sneak in an ad every now and then. If people love what you’re doing and want to grab a hat, then this can be all the nudge they need.

Hi, there. 

This is the fourth and final exclusive topic we’re covering here in our newsletter from our larger 2023 Beer Branding Trends report. 

If there’s someone on your team you think would benefit from reading these, please forward this email to them or have them sign up here.

Thanks so much for being a BBT subscriber!


—
 

Hard seltzer began its meteoric ascendency somewhere in 2018–2019. The ensuing period, led almost entirely by White Claw and Truly, saw several years of double and then triple digit category growth.

This created an environment where any brewery who was interested in releasing a seltzer had to move as fast as they could. Speed to market became paramount.

And what that meant (and in some markets, may still continue to mean) is that there were strict visual rules and category signifiers that you had to adhere to if you wanted to wade into the seltzer category.

The officially-ordained Hard Seltzer Canon®: White, (preferably) slim cans, minimal design, clean labels, black typography, fruit illustrations and secondary packaging (almost always a variety pack). 

—

Seltzer's Category Canon 

Any designer who worked on a seltzer branding project in 2019 would’ve pushed their client to differentiate, at least visually. (There was still too much market share available to have to worry about categorical differentiation with the liquid itself just yet.) 

And this makes sense at the most rudimentary level—if everyone else's cans are white, why don’t we zag and go full color? 

But as we attempted to push these boundaries with our own brewery clients, we ran into something that we’d never experienced before. CODO has handled more than a dozen seltzer branding projects since 2018. And during this work, particularly in those early days (~2019), we found strict opposition to the idea of pushing beyond the category’s (recently) established look and feel. 

There were rules. And they were written by White Claw and Truly.

As we attempted to push beyond this look—even when our clients were excited about it—we would hear from distributors and retailers alike that it wouldn’t work in the market. We would hear that if a seltzer can wasn’t white, consumers would think it was just another beer. 

This was frustrating personally, because in my mind, just because something hadn’t been tried didn’t mean that it couldn’t work. But hey, retailers and distributors have an important perspective in all of this as well. (And their opinions often carry outsized weight with our clients.)

So no matter how we felt about this resistance, we often ended up reining in those early exciting, vibrant—differentiated—seltzer cans to be more white and minimal and fall in line with their similarly-appointed brethren in the cold box. 

It would be a few years before Oskar Blues’ Wild Basin Hard Seltzer successfully broke through the category's visual rules. Good on the CANarchy team for taking a shot. 

—

 

What impact has hard seltzer had on the beer industry in terms of branding and category convention?

The most lasting change that hard seltzer brought to bear in the beer industry is that consumers not only understand that breweries can make Beyond Beer products, but in many cases, they are likely expecting these sorts of products from their favorite local brewery. 

I’ll take this further and say that by 2030, I predict that a brewery that only produces beer (with nary a Beyond Beer product in their mix) may be an outlier. 

—

Now, let’s shift away from seltzer for a moment and apply our thesis to the current darling of the Bev Alc world—ready to drink (RTD) canned cocktails.

Some of our more recent hard seltzer branding work. Vibrant concepts like these were impossible to pitch just 3 years ago. 


—

Do RTD cocktails have a strict visual cannon like hard seltzer (did)?

We’re fielding more RTD cocktail branding projects these days than hard seltzer. And while this category is exploding, we are not feeling the same pressure to follow a specific look like we did within seltzer in that 2018–19 period. 

As an example, High Noon dominates the RTD space. They are consistently seeing some of the strongest YOY growth of any brand in Bev Alc. Even more stunning, High Noon Cocktails are on track to become one of the largest spirits brands in the US. Think about the Old Guard being disrupted at the top of that list.

Now while there are certainly High Noon copycat brands out there, there is no broader push (spoken or unspoken) in our RTD work to mimic High Noon’s aesthetic, like there was with our seltzer work.

We don’t have distributors and retailers vetoing our early concept work and telling us to put a yellow circle and blue stripe on the can, anyway.

The Plain Spoke Cocktails brand centers around a fun, tongue in cheek supper club vibe.

—


So where does branding and package design within the Fourth Category go from here?

 

Challenge the category (but keep your consumer in mind)

While there are no concrete visual rules for RTDs like there were in the early days of hard seltzer, you still should be mindful of individual category conventions for any new products you develop.

Remember, people are looking for quick reference points to help them wade through a busy shelf and make a decision. (This is the rationale for why early seltzer cans had to be white.)

And category conventions (coupled with beautiful design and further differentiation) help people quickly make those decisions.

As an example: If you’re releasing a functional beverage, you can make it look however you want (there are no oppressive rules here). BUT, you’ll likely want to adhere to some loose aesthetic guidelines that your customers intuitively know to look for in order to jump out at them.

E.g. white space, clean labels, infographics and label violators extolling your total lack of X (carbs, gluten, sugar, etc.) or your total jam-packedness of Y (vitamins, electrolytes, nootropics, mushrooms, etc.). 

Or if you’re offering a Ranch Water, that might need to have a vaguely Texan or South Western aesthetic.

If you're offering some sort of cider-hybrid beverage, you might need to have an agricultural or aspirational autumn aesthetic.

Etc.

Consumers need a starting point of reference. And category conventions (or at least, a snippet of convention) can give them just enough framing to understand what you're offering and why they should buy it.

High Noon (whose own visual language borrows heavily from seltzer) isn't dictating what can and can't be done within the RTD category. 

The rest of these examples are just a fraction of the beautiful package design that is happening within the broader RTD category right now. Note the interesting format innovations as well. 

Read more about Good George's RTD line here.

—
 

Stand out. But do it with intention.

If you’re releasing a product in a new-to-you category, some of your early due diligence needs to include a category audit to break down and define the segment's visual ground rules. 

– What are the must haves? 

– What do people (consumers and your competition) take for granted?

– What opportunities are there for deeper differentiation?

Our best advice is to simplify and find a clear and compelling point of differentiation. Then, add or subtract from these specific category canons as needed to strike a balance between clearly belonging in the category yet rising above it.

Hi, there.

This is the third of four exclusive topics we’re covering here in our newsletter from our larger 2023 Beer Branding Trends report. 

If there’s someone on your team you think would benefit from reading these, please forward this email to them or have them sign up here.

Thanks so much for being a BBT subscriber!

Now, let's dive into a thorny subject.


—

 

What constitutes “adult” design vs. something a child might find enticing? 

What is our responsibility as brand builders and Bev Alc producers? 

And how can we prevent children from getting hold of alcohol, or at least how can we avoid directly marketing to them? 

These questions were first posed to me by Matt Kirkegaard on the Australian Brews News podcast (question starts at the 41-minute mark) more than a year and a half ago. 

My gut response at the time was that this falls on the parent to keep dangerous items out of reach of children, no different than kitchen knives, medicine, household cleaning products, etc.

This is still my stance, but if I’m being honest, I felt like this was an unsatisfactory answer—that it might too be too conveniently avoiding the question of a designer's responsibility in all of this.

I've been thinking about this topic off and on for the last year, and it seems like the rest of the industry is starting to have this conversation as well. 

Matt’s question was explicitly about beer package design. Is it responsible to put a juice box or cereal-box cartoon character on a beer can? (Funny to note that this doesn't even begin to address the adult Capri Sun pouches and boozy frozen popsicles that have trended since we had this conversation.) 

In order to hone in on this issue and somehow offer a few solutions, I’d like to shift focus away from beer specifically and towards the ongoing trend of traditionally non-alcoholic beverage brands launching alcoholic extensions in general (e.g. Monster Energy, Mountain Dew, Sunny D, Simply Lemonade, Fresca, Lipton, Sonic).

While I still believe the responsibility here begins with the parents, I want to explore this issue from a few different perspectives and finally give it the thought it deserves.

The problem (let's set a scene) 

Little Timmy comes home from school and, doffing his backpack and skateboard, opens the fridge and grabs a Mountain Dew. (He’s parched from doing strenuous Tik Tok dances.)

*scary narrator voice* "But Timmy didn't grab a Mountain Dew. He (unknowingly) grabbed a HARD MTN DEW."

Little Timmy cracks that bad boy open and crushes the entire thing in one go. He belches and leaves the can on the counter for Terry (his step dad) to clean up. 

A barren wind rattles the kitchen window pane. Winter is coming. 

END. SCENE. 

I'm guessing in most cases, this is the end of the story. 

We can spice things up and have Timmy hospitalized—getting his stomach pumped? Or maybe, in a drunken stupor, he steals and wrecks Terry's (his step dad) 2009 PT Cruiser?

Again, hospital.

But even without a hyperbolic ending, this is a bad situation. Even if no immediate harm comes from this scenario, children shouldn't drink alcohol.

And a point that a lot of industry watchdogs are making [Paywall Warning] is that these traditionally non-alcoholic beverages that “go hard” are an opportunity for accidental consumption at best, and at worst, are being outright marketed to underage consumers. 

 

Why this problem won't go away 

The last few years have seen a bevy of high-profile, traditionally non-alcoholic beverage brands launching alcoholic extensions. And they are doing this explicitly to leverage their brand equity. 

To wit, Mountain Dew launching a hard seltzer under a different name isn't newsworthy. But Mountain Dew launching HARD MTN DEW is something that gets attention. 

This issue isn’t going to go away because these extensions have been (mostly) successful. Whether that is runaway success or only limited incremental growth, big brands have big brand equity. So we expect the desire to continue releasing these sorts of alcoholic products will continue unabated in the future.

 

Why we (craft beer folks) should track this 

Just in case you think this doesn't apply to your brewery, my (completely buried) lede here is that as more mega corporations enter the room (e.g. Coca-Cola, Monster Beverage, PepsiCo), this issue will become more front and center in our industry. 

A craft brewery putting a juice box illustration on a tall boy is one thing. Coca-Cola releasing an alcoholic product that could be perceived as marketing to children (or any under-LDA person) in the court of public opinion is something else entirely. 

I think large corporations will be more cautious, and maybe even lobby for more label requirements and compliance standards to protect their interests.

I’m guessing here, but it’s not hard to imagine an eventual new set of labeling standards and compliance regulations that could affect all tiers of Bev Alc, from Coca-Cola down to your local brewery.

I don’t believe more oversight is the answer 

I want to state up front that I'm not calling for more oversight or regulation—the labeling oversight we have on alcohol (here in the States) is laughable anyway. (Shoutout to everyone who’s had a label rejected by the TTB that includes language, like Köln-Style, that you copied verbatim from another label that the TTB has previously approved.)

But the larger issue is that no matter how we build it—third party review boards, artificial intelligence tools, etc.—at the end of the day, figuring out how to reduce the risk of kids accidentally consuming alcohol with labeling requirements would be an attempt to measure something that is completely subjective.

The problems here are many:

1. What constitutes "adult" design vs. design that appeals to kids? To wit: I grew up mesmerized by the intricate details adorning the Budweiser and PBR cans that littered all of our family cookouts. And some of my earliest memories are of rinsing and collecting Budweiser cans. Was Budweiser marketing to me?

And if illustration-heavy packaging could appeal to kids, where do you draw that line? If we carry this out all the way, then half the industry will have to rebrand. (Maybe I should push for more oversight? That would be tremendous for business…)

2. Kids—more so teenagers—will find a way to get their hands on alcohol if they want it, just like they always have. I did. You did. And despite our best efforts, our kids will as well. 

This brings back my feeling that this is mostly a parent's responsibility: That we have to educate our children and equip them with enough self confidence and common sense that even when they do do something reckless, like drink alcohol before it’s legal, they do so with some measure of responsibility.

 

If we really want to solve this problem…

The only real solution here would be to develop a more child-proof packaging format. Think along the lines of an aspirin bottle or (some) cannabis packaging. 

But this only solves the issue of young children physically accessing and accidentally consuming alcohol. There is no real solution to keeping older children and teenagers away from this (again, other than education). 
 

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I don't want to lose track of the larger question of our responsibility as brand builders to not intentionally or unintentionally market these products to underage folks in the first place.

So let’s address that issue now.

Some potential Brand Architecture solutions 

Most of the traditionally non-alcoholic brands that have launched alcoholic products have done so as straight Brand Extensions in order to leverage their brand equity. 

This puts these products on the left end of the Beverage Brand Architecture Continuum. Consequently, this approach has the highest probability of a child seeing familiar branding and mistakenly grabbing an alcoholic product from the fridge (Won't someone please think of Timmy?!?).

An across-the-board recommendation would be for these groups to move further to the right on the Continuum—likely releasing some version of an Endorsed Brand—and thus, put more visual distance between the Parent Brand and new alcoholic extension. 

One example here is Monster Energy's forthcoming boozy extension, The Beast Unleashed. On pack, the Monster icon is relegated to a smaller endorsement role with the product brand, The Beast Unleashed, taking the main stage.

This isn't completely differentiated from the original Monster can (e.g. it looks and feels like a Monster product). But hey, at least it’s not coming to market as Hard Monster Energy (er, Hard MNSTR NRGY).

Of course a child could still mistake this for a regular can of Monster Energy, but this is at least a good faith attempt at delineating between their alcoholic and nonalcoholic lines.

Jack Daniel’s x Coca-Cola’s Jack & Coke extension is another good faith example. This is a co-branded product that leans more on JD's iconic visual equity (all black background, white typography and filigree) with hardly any of Coca-Cola’s iconic red Pantone.

It would be hard to imagine a child mistaking this product as a Coke. 

 

—

 

This is far from a panacea, but if designers and brand builders want to address this issue through brand strategy and actual package design, I believe we need to have a stronger focus on Brand Architecture-specific solutions. 

This is where a designer can affect this process and responsibly shape what goes out into the world. 

If we go this route (and if parents do their part), we can all enjoy our alcohol responsibly and keep our kids safe.

Morning! 

This is the second of four exclusive topics we’re covering here in our newsletter from our larger 2023 Beer Branding Trends report. 

These insights are only coming out through this newsletter, so if there’s someone on your team who would benefit from reading them, please forward this email to them or have them sign up here.

Thanks so much for being a BBT subscriber!


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I had an interesting conversation recently with a brewery in planning that we’re working with. 

It centered around the merits of creating fanciful beer names and individualized beer brands vs. a more monolithic, style-forward approach (e.g. XYZ Brewing Pils, XYZ Brewing Hazy IPA).

After the call, I realized that we actually discuss this, more or less, on every single packaging project we work on because you always have to figure out the broader portfolio architecture. But we’ve never broken this out and examined it on its own. 

This particular conversation was with a new brewery, but there are interesting considerations for an established brewery that is preparing for a rebrand as well. 

So let’s explore this topic from both of those angles.

Prost Brewing builds a monolithic brand in lieu of creating individual beer brands. The works well since they are specialists (all-German style beers) and helps to reinforce that you can expect a singular focus with every new release. 

Backward Flag Brewing leans into individual names in order to tell a specific story and support a veteran charity with each release. 

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Let’s start with some definitions 

Given enough time in the market, most breweries will organically end up with a few different lines within their portfolio. E.g. a hazy IPA line under which you release several new beers per year. Or a seltzer line, or annual barrel aged release, year round flagships, etc. 

For this conversation, we’re focusing specifically on your flagship portfolio. 

There are two main approaches here. (Or, three approaches, if you consider that the first two are not mutually exclusive and are often used together.)

The first approach is a Branded House (or “Monolithic” / “Style Forward”) system that puts all energy and focus into promoting the brewery’s parent brand with no individual effort to name or brand the beers themselves. (e.g. Prost Pils, Prost Dunkel, Prost Kölsh)

The second approach entails developing individual, fanciful names for each beer within your portfolio (e.g. Cold Smoke, 60 Minute IPA, Truth, Pivo Pils, Dale’s Pale Ale). These aren’t Sub Brands (technically), because they still fall under a broader Branded House approach, but they do have the opportunity for more long term brand building on the individual beer level.

Now that we know what we’re working with, let’s discuss some pros and cons of each of these conventions.

 

Monolithic Portfolio (aka Branded House or "Style Forward" naming convention)

Pros

– This system builds your parent brand equity out of the gate because every interaction with a customer reinforces your brewery's name and identity. 

– This helps you get more mileage out of your marketing budget because every dollar you spend on promotion helps to build the parent brand itself. 

– It is faster, cheaper and easier to release new beers under this approach because, in most cases (though, not always), you’re also using a templated label. So you drop in the new style, ABV, barcode, etc. and you’re good to go. This is particularly useful for breweries who release dozens of new beers each year—developing individual labels on that fast a clip is possible, but will almost always end up being inconsistent as a whole (over time). 

– Your portfolio stands a better chance of “billboarding” on shelf (assuming you're using a templated label system).

Cons 

– This approach limits your ability to release line extensions of popular beers, lest you risk diluting your parent brand itself.

– It may be tougher for your fans to find specific styles at retail because you’re focusing on the parent brand vs. an individual name that they can come to associate with a particular style.

– It can become kind of boring over time (especially if you’re using a rigid label template system). This point can be mitigated by great package design, but a template is still a template at the end of the day.

But a push back against this: Boring means people recognize the look to the point where it becomes ubiquitous. Assuming your broader brand building efforts and the beer itself are continually getting better, consistency is always a plus.

(Top) Here are a few client examples who successfully employ a monolithic, style-forward naming convention. 

(Bottom) Monolithic naming is common in RTD / FMB branding as well. Here, you're using a specific flavor variant or cocktail name in place of a style. (e.g. 7th Inning Seltzer Key Lime, 7th Inning Seltzer Grapefruit Tangerine.)

—
 

Fanciful (individualized) product names

Pros

– The most compelling benefit of developing individual beer names is that they can serve as a platform for future Sub Brands if you have a particular brand that really takes off. (This is much harder to do with XYZ Brewing Pils.)

– This sets you up for Line Extensions at the individual beer level without diluting the parent brand's positioning and reputation. 

– This creates an opportunity for broader storytelling if you use names that reinforce your Brand Essence and story. 

– You can more easily target specific audiences and occasions with a uniquely named and positioned beer. This allows you to go slightly niche without creating an entirely new brand. 

 

Cons 

– You’re promoting individual beer brands at the expense of the parent brand (though this concern can be mitigated through package design hierarchy itself).

– You’re adding one more element that competes in the packaging hierarchy (e.g. parent brand vs. fanciful beer name vs. beer style vs. illustration vs. tasting notes, etc.).

– This can be more expensive to create initially (name development and package design) and on an ongoing basis. (Though, I would offer that any money spent on your branding and packaging should be viewed as an investment vs. a cost.) 

– You have to develop yet another name. And trademark it. And then police that trademark. All of which costs money. (But again, this is an investment.)

Here's a collection of clients who develop individual, fanciful product names. Note the use of templates for some of these vs. completely custom labels for others. 

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Specific use cases (Startup Brewery vs. a Rebranding Brewery)

For the startup brewery

I think in most cases, a start up brewery should focus on building its parent brand awareness over everything else. 

In most markets, you’ll be fighting a pitched battle for attention. You’ve got national brands and legacy Big Craft brands and local brands and beyond beer options all jostling for an increasingly smaller spot in the cold box. 

So you’ll want to make every impression count.

This doesn't mean you can't develop unique beer names, but you should make sure that any packaging you develop hangs together closely visually out of the gate. (Note: this is more of a vote for templated labels than it is for a style-forward naming convention.) 

This can evolve over time to allow for more personality and brand voice on each individual beer once you see how the market responds to specific releases. 
 

For a brewery coming out of a rebrand 

A brewery that is rolling out a rebrand has more options here. The decision centers around any precedent your portfolio had going into the rebrand, your visual and Brand Equity and your long term plans and business strategy.

A monolithic approach can be a great way to introduce (and hammer home) your updated look in the market. 

But then, if you’ve been around for a while, you might have a beer or two that would make good contenders for larger brand families—possibly as Sub or even Endorsed Brands. So leaning into individual names for those could make a lot of sense.

Our rebrand with Mission Brewing is a great example of how you can blend these approaches to reintroduce a brand to the market (e.g. Mission IPA, Mission Blonde Ale) while also setting the stage for a future Sub Brand (e.g. Mission Shipwrecked Double IPA). 

Read more about this project here. And listen to a great podcast with Mission's CEO, Dan Partelow, here. 


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Final thoughts (+ an obligatory caveat) 

There are pros and cons for each of these approaches for both new breweries and folks coming out of a rebrand.

If there was a concrete recommendation to be made here, we would offer it.

But your brewery's specific context—your brand strategy, competitive set, portfolio makeup and broader vision—will all dictate which approach you should consider.

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But we will offer this: The beer industry is in a fractured state. Channels are being disrupted and encroached upon every day. Consumers are drinking more Beyond Beer options, and they have more choices for what they can drink than ever before. 

Breweries who focus on long term brand building are going to win.

And there are a lot of compelling examples of legacy craft beer brands who have done this at the individual beer brand level vs. at the parent brand level. 


When in doubt, try the Bar Call Test 

Would KettleHouse's Cold Smoke be the cult classic that it is without an amazing name that ties it to skiing (a Montana lifestyle staple)? Would someone just as enthusiastically order a "KettleHouse Scotch Ale?"

Which is the better bar call—“Give me a Cold Smoke” or “Give me a KettleHouse Scotch Ale”? 

Or would people drive from all over the country to fill their trunk with New Glarus' Farmhouse Ale if it weren't called Spotted Cow?

Fanciful names like Heady Topper, Pliny the Elder, Dark Lord, 805, Arrogant Bastard and Pappy Van Winkle give people an important point of reference for determining what role a brand can play in their lives.

And for brand builders, this can be all that matters.

Hi, there. 

This is the first of four exclusive topics we’re covering here in our newsletter from our larger 2023 Beer Branding Trends report. 

We aren't publishing these insights on the main report, so if there’s someone on your team you think would benefit from reading these, please forward this email to them or have them sign up here.

Thanks so much for being a BBT subscriber!

Let's get into it.


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Craft Beer isn't dead!

But we are operating in a vastly different market than the 2010–2019 era. 

There are now 9,500+ breweries in the United States, debt has become more expensive, and consumers are embracing new categories and beverages with open arms.

Success is no longer a guarantee and new breweries today have far less margin for error as they come out of the gate.

We’ve worked with several breweries in planning over the last 12 months (and are slated to kickoff with several more this summer). Beyond these projects, we’ve talked with another 30+ other groups that we ended up not working with. I say that because it gives us a broad context for what models and concepts folks are using all over the country to launch new breweries today.

Here are a few recurring themes from our project fieldwork and these new business conversations: 

 

On brewhouse sizing 

Most of the startups we’ve worked with recently who are building a brewery (as opposed to contract production) are starting with much smaller systems than what we saw in the 2010s.

Contrast this to just 7–8 years ago when the thinking of the day was why start small now only to upgrade later? Just buy that 30 bbl system today and be done with it (this rocketship will never slow down!).

But that was when craft beer was still in ascendancy, we were spoiled with historically low interest rates and organic growth was easy to trip and fall into in the beer industry. 

We’re still seeing traditional brewery startups (brewery system in back with taproom up front), albeit smaller scale ones overall. There are still outliers who put in (and can justify) a 30+ bbl system and swing big (with a market- and geography-dependent competitive set) early on. 

But we’re also seeing a lot of 5–10 bbl systems on deck right now. And even when we work with a startup that does want to put in a larger 20 or 30+ bbl system, more often than not, we’re hearing that they’re also considering starting smaller now with medium term plans to just open another location with smaller (say, another 10 bbl) systems. 

Managing cash flow has always been important, but we’re seeing a more conservative approach to brewery build outs right now (i.e. I’m hearing less “we’ll build this plane in the air” and more “we’ll have a diverse portfolio that caters to the following specific audiences and we will try to build with cash as much as possible…”).

And I think this will serve these groups well as they come to market. They're set up to weather this (hopefully short) downturn and can grow more methodically over the next decade.

Packaging from day one (usually for carryout)

Out of the half dozen start-up breweries we’ve worked with in the last year, only two had plans to come to market without packaging.

This is a major shift from six or seven years ago where packaging was something a brewery grew into when demand and brand awareness was there (almost always with an eye towards retail and distribution.)

The interesting shift we’re seeing now is that a lot of breweries are investing in package design specifically as a carryout format from their taproom with no immediate intention of getting into broader off-premise or distribution.

This is interesting because packaging certainly isn’t cheap (granted, if packaging is for carryout only, your brewery isn’t also getting a haircut from a distributor and a retailer). But it is still more expensive than, say, filling crowlers for carryout at the start of each week. 

We’ve heard a few reasons for this:

– Growlers are out of fashion (in some markets). We can use Crowlers, but our consumers want more beer to take home in standard formats to drink when desired.

Quick aside here: We haven’t designed a growler in years. And personally, I haven’t regularly used one since, maybe 2018? Is anyone out there still regularly using growlers? Shoot me an email if you do and tell me where you are, why you use them and just how dirty your growler is. 

– COVID broke everything (habits, conventions, occasions, etc.) and now consumers just expect that you’ll have packaging. 

– It’s a cool chance to showcase your branding. 

– You want packaging because you’ve always dreamed of it. We’ve heard this sentiment a lot over the years, (and as a business owner myself, I never discount it). 

When you’re dreaming up your brewery and business plan, a big part of that visualization, for a lot of folks, is packaging. Seeing your can in a cooler or in a cold box somewhere is what makes your brewery "real." So even if it doesn't make complete financial sense, there may still be a drive to begin packaging just because you want to. 

– You plan to package your beer at some point anyway, so why not do it now?

At some point over the last few years, packaged beer became an important part of most new breweries' product mix. (Again, maybe this is attributable to the pandemic-induced shifts to our habits and expectations.)  

Whatever the reason, this trend appears to be sticky and we see no signs of it slowing down in our current project inquiries. So much so that I’m surprised when I talk with a brewery in planning that isn’t planning to package their beer out of the gate.
 

A real focus on hospitality & food service

A brewery that plans to be in business ten years from now has to get everything right: Better beer, better customer service, better hospitality, better financial management and… better food? It’s looking that way.

We’re working with a lot of brewery founders who either come from a hospitality and restaurant background, or, are partnering with someone from that domain to shore up that side of their concept.

We’re hearing that having a dialed-in food program (no, Hot Pockets don’t count) is increasingly important to attract customers because you can capture more of their business. If someone is going to go to a restaurant and grab a few beers later, or grab a few beers en route to a restaurant, why not offer both ends of that spectrum and capture a larger ticket?

This maps to another trend we’re seeing of breweries putting in real-deal restaurants and food concepts. This can be done via bringing in an existing food partner to run a business within their business in a way that benefits both parties. (But be wary of who you partner with. An unreliable operator can cause your brewery to permanently lose customers.)

It probably goes without saying that operating a restaurant is every bit as challenging as running a brewery, so don’t read this section and shift your plans without doing a whole lot of research. But if your brewery does include a food component, you may be better set up for the long term.

 

People are buying (and/or hermit crabbing their way into) breweries

We’ve worked with several groups, and talked with several more, that have purchased (or are planning to purchase) a brewery. 

We’ve seen so much of this type of engagement that we explored this trend in detail in Issue 25 of the Beer Branding Trends Newsletter as well as a popular companion podcast episode. 

I’m including this here because I think this is a great way for someone to get into the brewing industry. This approach isn’t for everyone, but if you’re an operator—i.e. you’re good at building systems and SOPs, you’re good at running off of a playbook, and you’re good at building a team—these turnkey brewery purchases can be an attractive play. 

And on a more negative note (or positive, depending on where you are in this equation), there will be a lot of breweries for sale over the coming year(s). So if this is an interesting idea to you, keep your ears open. Opportunities abound.