Changes On Tap At Heavy Seas

Today, Heavy Seas beer announced a number of changes for 2013 including changes to its “Clipper Fleet” line of beers and a complete rebranding of its “Mutiny Fleet” offerings.

Mutiny Fleet, the higher-ABV line which includes beers like The Great Pumpkin and Siren Noire will be repositioned as “Uncharted Waters.”
Press materials indicate that all beers in this series will be ‘influenced by wood’ in some way.

Additionally, three beers in the Heavy Seas’ “Clipper Fleet” line will be renamed and the company will join an ever-expanding list of craft brewery’s adding cans. Plans call for the package to be introduced sometime in 2013.

Below is a press release with more details.

HALETHORPE, MD – Heavy Seas announces its product line for 2013. A number of modifications have been made to the 2013 portfolio to better reflect the Heavy Seas’ brand and its focus, including: an overhaul of our Mutiny Fleet beers; preliminary plans for canned beers; expanded cask ale offerings; changes to select year-round products; and a new seasonal beer.

The biggest change Heavy Seas has in store for 2013 is the repositioning of our line of higher gravity beers (the Mutiny Fleet). This line will now be known as the Unchartered Waters line and all of the beers under that category will be influenced by wood in one way or another. Siren Noire Imperial Chocolate Stout aged in bourbon barrels will come out in January 2013. In March, we will release Oak Aged Big DIPA (double IPA). Holy Sheet ├£ber Abbey Ale aged in brandy barrels will be released in May. Great’ER Pumpkin (our imperial pumpkin ale aged in bourbon barrels) will be released in September. Yule Tide, our November release, will take the place of our ongoing Plank project—aging beers on wood. That style will be determined closer to November of 2013.

We have preliminary plans to release three products in cans in 2013. While we haven’t determined availability at this juncture, we will be offering Loose CANnon, Davey Jones’ Lager, and an Oktoberfest style in cans this year.

As the largest producers of cask ale in the country, Heavy Seas is focused on expanding the number of offerings for retailers. We will continue to offer dry-hopped firkins of Loose Cannon and Powder Monkey (pale ale) year-round. We will also incorporate preset quantities of all seasonal beers and Unchartered Waters beers. Year-round, we will continue to offer Loose Cannon, Small Craft Warning, and Peg Leg.

In order to better reflect our brand personality, we have renamed our Clipper Fleet beers: Heavy Seas Märzen will now be Cutlass Amber; Heavy Seas Pale Ale will now be Powder Monkey; Heavy Seas Gold Ale will now be Gold. Heavy Seas Classic Lager will be discontinued.

Seasonally, we will offer Black Cannon in January through March. We wanted to add a new style to our seasonal catalog, therefore Dubbel Cannon will be replaced by Riptide White IPA, which is currently in formulation; Riptide will be offered April through June. Red Sky at Night, our saison, will be offered July through September. Winter Storm Imperial ESB will be offered October through December. Additionally, the new seasonal lineup will include 12 oz. bottles of Great Pumpkin, offered in Sunken Sampler packs exclusively in August and September.

For more information on Heavy Seas’ 2013 portfolio, contact Jenn Ladd at jenn@hsbeer.com.