“The number one thing we kept hearing when people would visit the brewery and learn Ken’s (Grossman) story is ‘why don’t you tell people this?’” said Whitney.
As the director of marketing, Whitney decided it was time to “turn up the volume a bit.”
“The place that felt most authentic to tell our story was through social media,” he said. “The film was a way to do that on our own website and we will look to the blog and our newsletter to continue telling our story.”
Whitney said that in 2013, the brewery will launch a second video campaign entitled “The Brewer and the Beer Geek.” That series will feature Sierra’s field educator, Terence Sullivan, and product development manager, Bill Manley. In year one, each episode will be dedicated to educating consumers about Sierra Nevada’s seasonal offerings.
Other plans for the New Year include a new Belgian IPA, a dunkel weizenbock, new additions to the Ovila series, and a new black IPA named Blindfold which is being released in March. To coincide with the new product launches, Whitney said the brewery is making concerted efforts to feature new draught beers in every market of the country on a 30-day rotating schedule. The idea, he says, is to have a more consistent flow of specialty offerings at the company’s key on-premise accounts.
But that’s not all the company has planned for 2013. Whitney tells Brewbound.com that he hopes to begin selling batches of beer brewed at the company’s new Asheville, NC brewery location by October. He also said that the brewhouse, fermentation tanks and bottling equipment are en route and should arrive in Asheville this month. The new location will have an initial capacity of 300,000 barrels and is capable of being scaled to approximately 700,000 barrels.
If Whitney’s Asheville projections are accurate, Sierra Nevada could break the 1 million barrel mark in 2013, a first in the company’s 33-year history.
“We aren’t doing anything real genius here,” Whitney said. “We just listen to what they (customers) want and at this stage of the game that is enough.”