Riding +7% depletions growth in 2024, Rhinegeist Brewery is looking at high ABV line extensions of its two biggest brand families to bolster that growth in 2025.
The Cincinnati-headquartered craft brewery is adding Truth Bomb IPA, a 9.5% ABV spinoff of flagship Truth IPA, and Imperial Bubbles, a 9% ABV rosé fruited ale, to its portfolio.
Truth Bomb will be Rhinegeist’s lead innovation product, trading on the brand equity of Truth IPA and extending the Truth family to three in addition to Juicy Truth hazy IPA, CEO Adam Bankovich told Brewbound.
Rhinegeist has played in the imperial IPA space before with Knowledge and Sabre Tooth Tiger (both 8.5% ABV), but the company has never put the brand equity of its top offering or Truth’s marketing resources behind those brands in the way it will with Truth Bomb, Bankovich explained.
“It’s a really, really fun brand,” he added. “It’s a really fun voice. And we’re creating these unique identities that we can speak to this iconic, classic Truth, and then this fun, hazy, quirky Juicy Truth cousin and then we’ve got the big superhero Truth Bomb.
“It’s really this comic book superhero character that we’re creating everything around Truth Bomb.”
Truth Bomb rolled out at the end of 2024 and is available in 12 oz. can 6-packs and 19.2 oz. singles, as well as draft across Rhinegeist’s nine-state footprint.
“What we’ve shipped already so far, end of last year into this year, signifies the biggest launch that we’ve ever had of a new brand at this company,” Bankovich said. “We’re really, really excited about what Truth Bomb is going to do, and we still anticipate growth with Truth and Juicy Truth.”
Imperial Bubbles will roll out in early February in 19.2 oz singles aimed at the convenience channel, as well as on-premise outlets, concessionaires, grocery and independent retailers, Bankovich said.
“It’s basically an amped-up version of the original Bubbles recipe,” he said.
Rhinegeist sunset its RGBevs line of malt-based, fruit-flavored alcoholic beverages at the end of 2023 and returned Bubbles to its original recipe as a 6.5% ABV beer/cider hybrid ale in three flavors, flagship Rosé, Blood Orange and Mango.
With Imperial Bubbles and Truth Bomb, Rhinegeist is targeting a segment of the c-store cooler space that it’s not yet “attacking.”
“We’re bullish on the opportunity,” Bankovich said.
Rhinegeist Shipped 118K barrels in 2024
Rhinegeist finished 2024 with more than 118,000 barrels of product shipped and depletions up +7.3%, Bankovich shared. (UPDATE 1/27/2025: The shipment number has been revised from 121,000 barrels to 118,000 with new information from Rhinegeist.)
In 2023, the company’s volume increased +3%, to 109,800 barrels, making Rhinegeist the 22nd largest independent craft brewery by volume, according to data shared by the Brewers Association.
Bankovich added that Rhinegeist “contributed the third most incremental dollars” to the craft beer segment in NIQ-tracked scan data for the 52-week period ending December 28, 2024, trailing only New Belgium and Sierra Nevada.
“Being in the top five in the entire country in incremental dollar contributions in the craft category is pretty remarkable,” he said. “It may be at the top of the list in terms of the things I’m proud of for our 2024 sales trends.”
Driving those trends is Rhinegeist’s focus and prioritization strategy on three key areas: the Truth family, the Bubbles family and Cincy Light, which make up the majority of the company’s business. (Check out highlights of Bankovich’s keynote address from the 2023 Brewbound Live business conference.)
“I do believe that we’re doing a great job of holding ourselves accountable to it,” he said. “We’ve done a great job internally not getting distracted by all the other things, because we’re still doing lots of other in and outs and seasonal SKUs and Imperial SKUs and sours and tea and all the stuff.
“But we know that those three things have to be successful, and we have to support them.”
Truth IPA grew just under +1% in 2024, while Juicy Truth posted +13% growth in Year Two, bolstered by the addition of 12-packs, Bankovich shared.
Bubbles’ return to the beer lineup also worked, he added.
“We’re happy with the success we achieved in an industry that had more struggles than we anticipated it would have,” he said.
In other Rhinegeist news, the company has tapped former New Belgium CEO Steve Fechheimer as an advisor. Read Brewbound’s coverage.
Geist Tea Being Discontinued, Cincy Light Going Statewide in 3 States
To make way for the new items, Rhinegeist is discontinuing Geist Tea, which Bankovich said the company didn’t have the resources to give “enough time and attention.” The company will also “step back from seasonal cider,” while also revamping its seasonal beer program, adding new spring and summer releases to Dad hoppy holiday ale and Franz Oktoberfest.
Rhinegeist is also reimagining its imperial IPA series to focus on imperial hazy IPAs, while maintaining Knowledge, an imperial IPA that hews closer to West Coast style.
Cincy Light, Rhinegeist’s 4.2% ABV light lager brand, once again “outperformed” expectations within its “tight geographic footprint” in 2024 to become the company’s No. 2 volume brand and is the No. 1 craft light lager in NIQ scans through December 28.
Rhinegeist will expand Cincy Light’s footprint to cover Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky statewide in 2025, which Bankovich added are the three states that make up 95% of the company’s total volume.
“We believe it can travel,” Bankovich said. “The campaign for it is, ‘Your New Old Reliable, From our Hometown to Yours.” And just because it says “Cincy prominently on the can doesn’t mean it’s only for Cincy.”
Superior Begins Distributing Rhinegeist in Columbus
Rhinegeist has moved away from self-distribution in the Columbus market, with Superior Beverage Group taking over distribution earlier this week.
“We became the No. 1 craft brand in scan data in Columbus without ever having a taproom there,” Bankovich said. “And we’re really proud of that and really thankful for everything that the team put into Columbus. But at the end of the day, operating as a single-brand distributor is really challenging, especially in a market that’s not in our backyard. And I do believe we did everything possible to get as much growth in market share as we possibly could.
“We’re excited about the future.”
Bankovich declined to discuss the company’s ongoing litigation with House of LaRose, which had distributed Rhinegeist products in Cleveland. House of LaRose filed a lawsuit against Rhinegeist in November after the brewery attempted to terminate its distribution agreement following LaRose’s proposed sale to Columbus Distributing and move to Superior.
Rhinegeist continues to self-distribute in Cincinnati.