As the college football season officially kicks off this weekend, Normal, Illinois-based DESTIHL will roll out a pair of beers in support of University of Illinois Fighting Illini athletes. Partnerships aren’t anything new for the craft brewery, which operates a robust contract brewing operation in addition to collaborations with the family of Evel Knievel and former pop stars Hanson.
In the latest edition of the Brewbound Insider exclusive A Round With Q&A, DESTIHL founder and CEO Matt Potts shares the opportunities these partnerships create, what he’s learned from these deals and how growth can also lead to challenges.
You recently announced a couple of partnerships around the University of Illinois athletics. One is a pair of collaboration beers with the ICON Collective, which supports Fighting Illini athletes through name, image and likeness (NIL) opportunities. The other is a sponsorship with U of I Athletics. What opportunities do those partnerships unlock for the brand?
Matt: These dual partnerships between DESTIHL and both Fighting Illini Athletics and ICON (for Fighting Illini student-athletes) are providing an awesome opportunity from a marketing and volume growth standpoint. Specifically, teaming up with the Fighting Illini and ICON introduces our brand beyond the traditional craft beer consumer market, wherein we have grown a lot since 2007, and into a new or at least bigger and broader audience of sports enthusiasts and University of Illinois supporters, fans and alums.
Plus, Illinois has a huge fanbase, media network and number of alums around the country and over a million social media followers of Illinois Athletics alone that we can now reach more directly with our DESTIHL brand and our beers than we could otherwise.
For the beers themselves, in order to appeal to the broader demographic of Illinois fans and craft beer lovers alike, we are producing two very different beer styles: A premium light lager called OSKEE LIGHT, and a West Coast-style IPA named ILL-IPA. Ideally these partnerships will also introduce Illinois fans, by extension, to our other growing beer brands as well, such as our award-winning DeadHead IPAs, Wild Sour Series, and other brands.
And, as an added bonus, by working together with both U of I Athletics and ICON, we are also helping, in the way that we can, to forge the bond between Illinois Athletics and ICON’s NIL efforts for Fighting Illini student athletes, culminating into a winning athletic program for years to come.
With the collective, you’re launching ILL-IPA and Oskee Light lager. How much volume are you dedicating to those brands?
Matt: We are allocating 6,000-7,000 barrels for these beers for starters.
How do you envision those developing within your portfolio? Do you see them becoming priority plays for you?
Matt: Since this is the ‘year of the lager’ for craft breweries (right?) and since this project involves a Big Ten university, we see OSKEE LIGHT as becoming a priority brand for us and fitting in nicely with our portfolio to further diversify it.
And ILL-IPA fits squarely within our fast-growing portfolio of IPAs by simply building upon the foundation and success of our DeadHead IPA Series, including both our hazy IPAs, like TourBus, and our flagship West-Coast style DeadHead IPA.
Earlier this year, you announced a partnership with Evel Knievel’s family for True Evel American blonde ale and Evel Knievel imperial IPA. How did that partnership come about?
Matt: We were introduced to Kelly Knievel through a different partnership that unfortunately did not materialize, and Kelly reached out and said he wanted to work with us to produce these beers in his father’s name in the U.S.
So, I may be aging myself, but this project was especially exciting and sentimental for me personally since the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle was my favorite toy growing up in the 1970s. I’ll be the first to admit that it was fun to be a kid again and shoot some Stunt Cycle videos for the launch, although I did get some curious looks when I cranked up the cycle and ran it down the canning line conveyor.
It’s been a great project to work on with Kelly Knievel and our brew crew so that we can keep the nostalgia and history behind Evel Knievel flying strong, especially with this year being the 50th anniversary of Evel’s Snake River Canyon jump in Twin Falls, Idaho, in 1974.
What’s been the biggest learning from these partnerships?
Matt: We started contract brewing in 2018 at our new production brewery in Normal just to help another brewery execute a project in Illinois since we had the space, and we liked doing it. We’ve certainly learned a lot over the years though, mostly in terms of which types of companies, brands and products to bring on and which to avoid, so we started requiring brands and companies to already be established, proven and in market to help grow, not start their brands, and we set a minimum annual volume to help ensure the same.
At first, contract brewing remained just a side thing to help out our fellow, local Illinois breweries as needed (and we still proudly do), but since then, we’ve been approached by companies around the country and internationally with different products and packaging formats, so we have tried to streamline things now by just sticking to beer and standard can formats.
In any event, this side of our operation has grown organically into a large part of our business, to the point that we created a separate division for it called CANOPOLIS. And, while our contract brewing business continues to grow a lot for us (by over +208% YTD), a growing portion of that business is coming more from collaborative business partnerships, where we not only produce the beers but also sell and distribute them around the country in our wide distribution network in nearly 40 states, versus pure contract brewing in its “normal” sense.
Between the Illinois Athletics/ICON partnership, along with Evel Knievel, Hanson (Pink Moonlight & Mmmhops), Suckerpunch Pickles (for our Dill Pickle Spicy Pickle Sour Beers), which are all on our website, and more partnerships to come later this year, I am really enjoying this niche and direction we are creating for ourselves.
Perhaps it is my background as an attorney and former brewmaster that is helping to create these collaborative partnerships, but it’s really just the quality of our beers, our crew and our overall business that is making it possible to form these strong relationships.
What’s the biggest everyday challenge you’re facing now?
Matt: Honestly, just keeping up, especially with all the new projects and volume coming online all at once this year and also from simply recuperating and building inventory back up after our year-long expansion project to more than double our capacity and packaging line speed, which was much more complicated than anticipated.
What’s a recent crash and burn moment that you learned from?
Matt: Upgrading and expanding a canning line while also trying to maintain and grow packaging and production volume at the same time. It’s a horrible process that I would not recommend.
What’s a recent win that stands out?
Matt: Our partnership with Fighting Illini Athletics, which I have been pitching for over eight years. Persistence pays off, I guess!