Good morning!

I'm excited to share CODO's 2025 Beer Branding Trends Review with you. 

This is our annual deep dive on what we see shaping the beer and Bev Alc space (from a branding perspective) right now.

1. Read the report here.

2. If audio is more your speed, Cody and I recorded a companion podcast that serves as high-level overview of this piece. Listen to that here.


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As a thank you for being a subscriber, we've pulled out 4 specific portions of this report and sending them to your inbox only over the coming weeks.

These issues include:

1. How to future proof your flagships (April 8)

2. How soon should your brewery jump on a trend? (April 22)

3. Is a cannabis beverage right for your brewery? (May 6)

4. How Legacy Breweries can sell more beer (May 20)

These issues are newsletter exclusives, meaning they won't be published in our broader report.

So you can brag to your colleagues who aren't BBT subscribers about how much more informed you are on all things beer branding and marketing. 

Or you can just use these insights to build a stronger brand and outcompete them. (Your call.)

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If you're reading this, then you don't have to do anything to receive these exclusive emails — you're already in.

If you'd like to make sure your team member(s) receive these exclusive insights, please forward this email to them (or have them subscribe here).

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We're also planning to record a Q&A podcast on this year's report in a month or so.

Please email me any questions you have on anything we cover here and we'll field those on the show.

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Here's an outline for this year's report:

Section 1: Brewery Brand & Portfolio Strategy

Why are breweries rebranding right now?
• Sales are flat
• Things are going well and you want to capitalize on that momentum 
• “It’s just time”
• Rebranding ahead of an important Brand Architecture move
• Cleaning up a poorly performing previous rebrand 


How Legacy Breweries can sell more beer – (BBT Newsletter Exclusive) 
• How can you court lapsed fans and younger drinkers?
• Define your Brand Strategy to get a lay of the land 
• Define your Key Communication Pillars (and your brand voice & personality)
• Move beyond table stakes 
• Consider Co-branding: A tactical way of authentically connecting your brand to a region 
• Build Sub Brands (and have a broader focus on your Brand Architecture)
• Consider a brand and package Refresh (you gotta knock the dust off)


Package refreshes are trending as a lower cost investment
• What is a package refresh? 
• Package refresh vs. a deeper rebrand: On weighing risk vs. reward 
• Cost is subjective
• How big a swing can you take?
• When your equity calls for a refresh
• Brand Strategy (to invest or not to invest?)
• Where these projects can falter
• Make sure you don’t need to solve a Brand problem 
• When should you plan your next refresh? 

How to future proof your flagships – (BBT Newsletter Exclusive) 
• Flagship beer brands (think Beyond Beer)
• Branded House vs. Sub Brands
• Can you scale the Sub Brand Ladder?
• How to safely leverage your Brand Equity (how far to extend brand)
• Can you use scarcity as a nudge? 
• Plan for continual refreshes
• On sustainability as positioning
• Invest in storytelling and content marketing 
• Remember what you’re *actually* selling

Dialing in your seasonals
• Can a seasonal be pressed into a year-round offering?
• How should you differentiate your seasonal packaging from your flagships?
• Highlight that these are Limited Time Only (LTO) products  

Style names as a positioning tool 
• The evolving role of style names
• Meet your consumers where they are
 

A renewed focus on the on-premise
• Shifting hours & your taproom’s role in people’s lives 
• Something for everyone 
• Conclusion: Connecting off-premise with on-premise 
• A shift towards hospitality
• Your brewery’s brand should precede you

Section 2: Brand Architecture 
 

Sub Brand use cases
• What is a Sub Brand?
• Sub Brand use case #1: Bridging into the Fourth Category 
• Sub Brand use case #2: Building a budget line 
• Sub Brand use case #3: Creating a brand that can travel

How soon should you jump on a trend? – (BBT Newsletter Exclusive)
• Brand Architecture 
• Where are you located?
• Is there an 800-pound gorilla in the segment yet? 
• Are you passionate about this category? 
• Could you give it a slow boil?
• Remember the Law of Category
 

House of Brands
• What is a House of Brands? 
• Highly targeted niche audiences / protect parent brand
• Building a House of Brands can be challenging for smaller breweries 
• A House of Brands is costly to build 
• Capacity, capacity, capacity
• Wrapping up: People aren’t stupid

Section 3: Beer & Beyond (Beverage Trends)
 

The Year of Lager
• Lager is easy
• Lager is nostalgic
• Lager is big business
• Lager can be a lifestyle brand platform 
• Lager gets cold 
• Food for thought: Old school "babe-centric" advertising
• Lager: It’s brand (and personality, and Sub Brands) all the way down

Small beers. Big opportunity?

The rising importance of fruit & flavor-forward beers

Hard Cider, Revisited
• On apples and provenance (does this scale? does it have to?)
• Who's drinking Hard Cider? (my anecdotal fieldwork from across the country)
• On Brand Architecture 
• On Cider's gluten-free claim (mind the "Positioning Trap")


Should your brewery launch a Cannabis beverage? – (BBT Newsletter Exclusive)
• A note on early adoption
• On Brand Architecture
• Built to sell (the real opportunity at hand)
• On Cannabis IP (how to protect what you build)
• Cannabis-infused beer vs. a canna-beverage

Non-alcoholic beer, canned water & hop water 

Section 4: Branding & Package Design Trends
 

Bifurcation 

Retro keeps marching on

We’re headed out west 

Mascots, Pt. 3 

The occult

Dimensional shading