Boston Beer Company is opening a Truly Hard Seltzer taproom in Downtown Los Angeles early next year.
Truly LA will be a “fully immersive seltzer taproom” that will feature exclusive new hard seltzer flavors on 12 taps, as well as Truly cocktails and a small food menu. The 8,000 sq. ft. venue can host 350 visitors in both indoor and outdoor spaces, according to a press release. The facility will also have an entertainment space, which will host concerts and comedy shows in partnership with the entertainment company Live Nation.
“Our drinkers are all about exploration and discovery, and we want to give them that in unexpected ways,” Lesya Lysyj, CMO of Boston Beer, said in the release. “We wanted to do something no one else has done — and that’s how Truly LA was born. At its core, our brand is all about bringing people together and forming genuine connections, and Truly LA is a physical representation of that sentiment.”
The taproom will be located on Alameda Street, adjacent to Boston Beer’s Angel City Brewery. Construction on the space began in August, and is scheduled to conclude by early 2022.
While Truly LA will not be the first hard seltzer taproom, it is the first by a major player in the hard seltzer space. As of early July, Truly held the second largest share of the hard seltzer segment (29.8%) after White Claw (38.1%), according to a Week 27 webinar by the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) and Fintech.
Hard seltzer posted more than $4.6 billion in dollar sales across all U.S. channels in the last 52 weeks, ending September 11, 2021, according to NielsenIQ. Southern California, which includes LA county, accounted for more than 5% of hard seltzer sales (not including the region’s independent liquor and convenience stores), with more than $248 million in sales.
While hard seltzer hit 11.3% dollar share of off-premise beer sales this summer, according to NielsenIQ, the segment has consistently under-indexed in the on-premise. This month, Boston Beer pulled its 2021 financial guidance and said it anticipates “hard seltzer-related inventory write-offs, shortfall fees payable to third party brewers, and other costs,” due in-part to the uncertainty of hard seltzer demand.