Breweries in the Mecklenburgs both old and new are uniting to deliver a black beer for Black Friday.
Charlotte-based Olde Mecklenburg Brewery (OMB) today announced its first-ever international collaboration with Störtebeker Braumanufaktur, a craft brewery in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
The breweries are planning to release Black Lager (schwarz bier in German) at noon on November 29 at OMB’s two Charlotte breweries, which sit in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. The region takes its name from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the ancestral home of Queen Charlotte, who was married to King George III, the ruler of the British Empire when the American colonies were founded.
“It’s just really cool to be able to bring the two Mecklenburgs together in this unique way,” OMB founder John Marrino said in a press release. “It highlights a couple of centuries worth of brewing history as well as the history of Charlotte and the region.
“Störtebeker is well-known for its amazing schwarz bier in Germany,” he continued. “And although this collaboration is different from their production beer back home, in my opinion it is absolutely fantastic.”
“It was an honor to work with Olde Mecklenburg Brewery on such an incredible project,” Störtebeker owner Jürgen Nordmann said in the release. “OMB joins our love and passion for specialty beers, so we shared our recipe without hesitation. The team brought a special personal character to the Schwarz-Bier, which makes it really interesting and delicious.”
The beer will be available Friday on draft and in 6-pack bottles at OMB’s Lower South End (LoSo) and Ballantyne locations. Friday also marks the kick off of OMB’s German-inspired Christmas markets at both taprooms. The markets will run for four weekends and feature vendors, traditional food and drink offerings and occasional visits from Santa Claus.
The Ballantyne taproom, OMB’s second, opened earlier this year and ushered in a wave of development for the brewery, which is the oldest in the now-burgeoning Charlotte craft scene. Last week, OMB and travel concessionaire HMS Host partnered to open a taproom in Terminal D at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, chief operating officer James Birch told Brewbound.
OMB has broken ground on a third location along the Catawba River in Mount Holly, North Carolina, about 15 miles northwest of its headquarters in Charlotte’s Lower South End. The taproom is expected to open in late 2025 or early 2026, Birch said.
Traffic at OMB’s taprooms has been “steady overall,” he said.
“Just like many neighborhoods in Charlotte under construction, we are on the backside of a major multi-family construction project that has temporarily shifted some of our parking,” Birch said of the LoSo locations. “We are seeing the transformation of the Lower South End neighborhood speed up. It will be a net positive for OMB once the construction comes to an end in late 2025.”
OMB transitioned from self-distribution to North Carolina’s Anheuser-Busch InBev wholesaler network in early 2023 with Adams Beverages, Standard Distributors, R.H. Barringer Distributing and Budweiser of Asheville, which is “going well,” Birch said. The brewery has since added Carolina Eagle and OBX Bev.
OMB is projecting 2024 volume to reach 20,000 barrels, a +15.6% increase compared to the 17,300 barrels the brewery produced in 2023, according to data from the Brewers Association (BA).
Year-to-date through September, OMB’s dollar sales have declined -4.5% year-over-year, according to Circana data shared by Birch. That’s outpacing overall craft declines, which were -3.3% for the same period.
“While the decline is tough, we’ve used the experience this year to hone in our 2025 plans, which are all about supporting the core – Copper, Hornets Nest and Captain Jack,” Birch added.
OMB timed its distribution launch with the rollout of refreshed packaging and the debut of UnFOURSeen IPA, the German-inspired brewery’s first dabble into craft’s biggest style by dollars and volume.
The packaging update, which modernized the brewery’s look and feel and minimized references to Charlotte to position OMB as a statewide brand, was well-received, Birch said.
“The packaging refresh in 2023 went great,” he said. “We achieved more points of distribution and feedback has uniformly been positive with respect to branding.”
Sales of UnFOURSeen – which is named for the four ingredients dictated by the German Reinheitsgebot and the fact that OMB had initially resisted producing an IPA for its first decade-plus – were “good at first,” Birch said.
“But then unFOURseen trailed our core portfolio as the IPA hunters went on to look for something new,” he added. “Our IPA continues to be a staple at our retail locations, but we’re going to deprioritize the package in wholesale and [are] looking to convert the placements within the OMB brand family.”
OMB is continuing to streamline its seasonal portfolio, which it trimmed to five offerings in 2023. Next year, seasonal offerings will include Vienna Lager from February through June and Mecktoberfest from July through November, which is the brewery’s best-selling seasonal, Birch said.
Another change coming to OMB’s core portfolio includes the switch from 16 oz. can 4-packs to 12 oz. can 6-packs, in addition to 12 oz. bottle 6-packs.
“This fixes a long-standing issue we had between the 6-pack 12 oz. bottles and the cans being the same price, but not offering the same quantity,” Birch said. “This transition will happen with the spring sets in the first quarter of 2025.”