Duvel Moortgat-owned Firestone Walker is staying in the beer category in 2025, and believes beer can still speak to consumer needs – even the consumers who “don’t know they like beer yet.”
The California craft brewery’s leadership team shared their 2025 plans Monday in a virtual presentation for wholesaler partners. Firestone Walker’s four core focuses for 2025 include:
- “Building the legend” of the 805 brand family, including 805 Blonde Ale, 805 Cerveza and recently launched 8ZERO5 non-alcoholic beer;
- Expanding the reach of Cali Squeeze to win consumers looking for flavor-forward products;
- Winning share of craft drinkers through the Mind Haze brand family, including new extensions;
- Winning an “appropriate share” of IPA drinkers and craft’s most loyal consumers through the Firestone Brand (F-Brand).
What was decidedly missing from Monday’s presentation was the introduction of new-to-world brands, or beyond beer innovations.
“We’re committed to developing these brands year-over-year,” brand director Hannah Barnett said. “Gone with the rotation nation of the past. Good brands require commitment to build.”
“It’s easy to sell new, it’s exciting, but I think to be disciplined and to create multi-generational brands, they take time,” CMO Dustin Hinz told Brewbound in a roundtable discussion with company leadership following Monday’s presentation.
“Every ounce of energy that’s spent chasing a new idea, if you’re not fully committed to it, it’s going to erode the energy that you can put into the brands,” Hinz continued.
Firestone Walker is instead planning to bring in non-beer drinkers with beer products, spearheaded by Cali Squeeze, the 5% ABV flavor-forward wheat ale brand it acquired from SLO Brewing in 2021. Firestone Walker prioritized Cali Squeeze Blood Orange in 2023, the top offering under the brand name, and were rewarded with the offering’s third consecutive year of more than +30% dollar sales growth, Barnett said.
Cali Squeeze is now a 30,000 barrel brand and “could be its own brewery,” CEO Nick Firestone told Brewbound. The brand could also be a top 20 brewery on its own in California, and has grown +46% year-to-date (YTD) in California, Arizona and Nevada, Firestone Walker’s top three markets, Barnett said, citing NIQ data through mid-July.
And Cali Squeeze still has room to grow, available in 45% of the accounts that carry Firestone Walker’s leading 805 brand. One of the brewery’s goals for 2025 will be closing the gap in distribution between Cali Squeeze Blood Orange and 805 Blonde, Barnett said.
Additionally, Firestone Walker plans to bring in younger legal-drinking-age (LDA) consumers with the brand, emphasizing “flavor” in its marketing and branding efforts.
“Beyond price, flavor is the single most important factor driving purchasing decisions for younger drinkers,” Barnett said. “The flavors of their parents’ craft beers aren’t appealing to them. These drinkers are looking for products that are packed with flavor to fit their needs.”
Along with Cali Squeeze Blood Orange, Firestone Walker also has Cali Squeeze Variety Pack featuring four flavors: Passion Fruit, Peach Pomegranate, Tangerine Daze and Blood Orange. The offering is the No. 8 assorted pack in California, Arizona and Nevada and is up +17% YTD, with 56% the distribution of its largest competitor, Anheuser-Busch InBev-owned Golden Road California Classics, the company shared.
Firestone Walker is adjusting the variety 12-pack by replacing Tangerine Daze with a new flavor, Raspberry Lime.
“[Cali Squeeze] appeals to a wider audience than traditional beer, bringing in taste buds of flavor forward alcoholic beverage from [Gallo’s] High Noon, to [Molson Coors’] Blue Moon,” Bernett said. “I want to be clear here, it’s not just about the beer drinker with Cali Squeeze. Wheat ale is such a narrow category, and Cali Squeeze’s true success lies in flavor.”
Additionally, the company sees “a lot of runway” for the brand in the on-premise. About 40% of Cali Squeeze’s volume is from draft – outpacing the company’s 35% average for its total business – and it is Firestone Walker’s No. 2 draft brand after 805 Blonde.
“We’ve had a push to sort of develop it in the on-premise, but really, that’s just a natural place to start,” Firestone told Brewbound. “You got the color, you’ve got the flavor. It’s something that we’ve seen works really well everywhere from mountain towns, all the way to beach towns in the summer.”
Firestone added that Cali Squeeze speaks to consumers who may typically purchase in the flavored malt beverage (FMB), hard seltzer, or ready-to-drink segments, and “there’s no real option on draft for those segments, so it’s become a really powerful on-premise draft brand.”
To achieve its growth goals for Cali Squeeze in 2025, the company plans to:
- Expand distribution with 3,000 incremental new draft handles, getting close to 70% of the distribution of 805;
- Grow share in the on- and off-premise by targeting Blue Moon, A-B’s Golden Road Mango Cart, Molson Coors’ Leineinkugel’s and Tilray’s Revolver space on shelf and on draft;
- Expand its retail display presence, particularly in large format stores;
- Increase media spend, including new media on streaming platforms, and targeting 24 weeks of digital media presence and nine weeks of out-of-home marketing, with a combined 119 million impressions.
“The real magic in Cali Squeeze is in its focus,” Barnett added. “We believe in responsible innovation to build a thoughtful portfolio of top-selling products. We’re committed and dedicated to each member of this brand family for the long term, investing in campaigns that cement Cali Squeeze as the leading easy drinking flavor forward brand.”
Mind Haze to Address FMB Craze with 8% ABV Radler Line
Mind Haze hazy tropical IPA, the original offering in the Mind Haze brand family, is the No. 2 hazy IPA in California, Arizona and Nevada, behind Sierra Nevada’s Hazy Little Thing, with 60% of the distribution of the competitor brand, according to Barnett.
Mind Haze is in the red in NIQ-tracked off-premise channels YTD (ending August 10), with dollar sales for Mind Haze IPA declining -15.8% and volume -18.8%. However, the brand has grown in Firestone Walker’s key markets in the west, with dollar sales increasing +7.9%, according to Barnett.
To find growth opportunities for the brand, Firestone Walker analyzed other top 10 hazy IPAs in scans, and noticed that eight of the top 10 were 6.5% ABV or more. As a result, the company has “juiced up” the leading Mind Haze offering from 6.2% ABV to 6.7% ABV.
Additionally, Firestone Walker is finding growth for the brand family with the two extensions it released earlier this year. In the first six months of its launch, Mind Haze Cosmic Crusher, a 9.5% ABV juicy imperial IPA, became the No. 2 new craft brand in California, Arizona and Nevada, and a top 40 craft brand in California. Additionally, the brand is outpacing New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger Juicy Haze and Sierra Nevada’s Cosmic Little Thing, with less distribution, Barnett said.
Similarly, Mind Haze Brain Melter, an 8.5% ABV hazy imperial IPA, became a top 25 imperial IPA in California within six months of launch, with 75% the distribution of Cosmic Crusher. The two brands replaced Mind Haze Light and Double Mind Haze, and are “outperforming the old ones that we placed by +184%,” said Firestone Walker chief sales officer Tony Amaral.
The company also released a new Mind Haze variety pack in 2024 with the three offerings. That variety pack is now the brand family’s largest package format, and is “growing +38% faster than the pack they replaced,” Amaral said. The variety pack has 55% the distribution of its California competitor Stone Brewing’s own assorted IPA pack, so the company believes there is “no reason this pack can’t crack the top three in 2024,” Barnett said.
“Our sources show that Mind Haze resonates with the IPA consumer across the board and has an elevated presence within the valuable Hispanic consumer that other IPA brands do not,” Barnett said. “The Mind Haze customer is young, affluent and ready to spend up on the brands that mean the most to them, which is exactly what we plan to do with this brand family.”
“One of the most important decisions that we’re going to make with Mind Haze in 2025 is the idea that ‘It’s not a style, it’s a state of mind,’” Hinz added. “We need to dream beyond the style of haze and what the idea of what a Mind Haze brand proposition can mean for today’s drinker.”
In that vein, Firestone Walker is expanding the brand family in 2025 with Mind Haze Rage, a line of 8% ABV “turbo” radlers created to combine consumers’ desire for flavor with more traditional craft brewing, Barnett said.
Mind Haze Rage will be available in three flavors – Watermelon, Lemonade and Grapefruit – in a 12 oz. can variety 12-pack, and the company has already received “overwhelmingly positive feedback” from consumer surveys on both the liquid and packaging, according to Barnett.
“Our brew team has been working long and hard to develop a product that stays firmly rooted in the beer space, yet appeals to the modern millennial and Gen Z drinker,” Barnett said.
“It’s no surprise to anyone that craft is changing – today’s modern marketplace is challenging beer to appeal to the next wave of consumers,” she continued. “It’s more important than ever for modern beer brands to listen to the valuable feedback customers are giving them and innovate in the styles and profiles that they are searching for. We’re bullish on beer here at Firestone Walker, and even more bullish on creating beers that appeal to the modern day drinker, because if we don’t, we’ll lose them.”
Mind Haze Lemonade Rage will also be available in 19.2 oz. single-serve cans, along with Mind Haze IPA, Mind Haze Brain Melter and Mind Haze Cosmic Crusher, as part of Firestone Walker’s bid to grow in the convenience channel.
About 13% of Firestone Walker’s total business is from c-stores, the company told Brewbound.
“In terms of a traditional craft supplier, we’ve got a compelling portfolio that plays well there, a very unique portfolio for the convenience channel,” Firestone told Brewbound, noting that significant growth in the channel will likely take “a couple more years,” but that the company is “starting to see some of the early payoff.”
Firestone Walker also plans to grow Mind Haze’s presence in the on-premise. Mind Haze IPA is the No. 2 hazy in California, Arizona and Nevada on-premise accounts, and is Firestone Walker’s third largest draft brand, with 25% the distribution of 805.
Firestone Walker’s other goals for the Mind Haze brand family in 2025 include:
- Delivering 10,000 new points of distribution for Cosmic Crusher 19.2 oz. cans;
- “Build a billboard for the door” with Mind Haze IPA, Brain Meltzer, Cosmic Crusher and Lemonade Rage;
- Increase distribution of Cosmic Crusher 6-packs to 70% of 805’s distribution, as well as large format distribution for Mind Haze 12-packs;
- “Reintroduce” Mind Haze IPA to consumers through sampling;
- And expand Mind Haze distribution across the brand family in Firestone Walker’s home state of California.
Mind Haze Rage is the furthest Firestone Walker is going in 2025 in terms of both new “brands” and “beyond beer” offerings, and the company plans to stick to that strategy for at least the next few years.
“The industry has done a really nice job of developing this disposable brand mentality across all the tiers, and for us at Firestone Walker, we need to break that and really dive in for a couple years on a brand and see what it can do,” Amaral told Brewbound. “To constantly move away from something every six-to-eight months as a brewery, as a distributor, as a retailer, to me, is crazy.
“We have an embarrassment of riches and brands right now, things that are doing well, so to add layers of complexity to those wouldn’t be a good decision,” he continued.
To emphasize Firestone Walker’s focused strategy, the company has also pulled its Hopnosis and Double Hopnosis West Coast IPA offerings from distribution, helping prioritize the new Mind Haze extensions. Hypnosis (6.7% ABV) was Firestone Walker’s leading IPA in 2022, but has recorded significant declines in recent scans, including double-digit declines in NIQ-tracked off-premise channels in 2023 (dollar sales -22.6%, volume -25.7%).
Year-to-date though August 10, Hopnosis trends have accelerated, with dollar sales declining -51% and volume -54.2%. However, Double Hopnosis (8.3% ABV) is in the black YTD (dollar sales +6.8%, volume +9.4%).
Look out for further coverage of Firestone Walker’s annual business plan and Brewbound’s discussion with leadership, including plans for 805 and the F-Brand.