Christian Moerlein Parent Company Shifts to Contract Brewing Partnership, Cuts Staff, Including Former Owner

The Cincinnati Beverage Company (CinBev) will shift production of its four beer brands — including Christian Moerlein Brewing Company — to an unnamed contract brewing partner.

“Right now, this is really about returning to quality, consistency and reliability for us,” chief marketing officer Jodi Woffington told Brewbound.

CinBev will cease operations at its facility in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, and a Cincinnati-based partner will produce Christian Moerlein, Little Kings Cream Ale, Hudepohl Brewing and Burger Beer.

With the move to contract brewing, the company has laid off Greg Hardman, who resurrected the Christian Moerlein brand in 2004, and 20 production employees.

Woffington, along with her husband Jay Woffington, who serves as CEO, and chief financial officer/chief operating officer Michael Graham acquired a majority stake in the company late last year. The executive team had about three months at the helm before the COVID-19 pandemic created a seismic shift within the beer industry.

“We weren’t forecasting a pandemic to shut down bars, restaurants, stadiums and events when we came on board, so it really set our business plans back by a year,” Jodi Woffington said. “It gave us a chance to really scrutinize our business and our operations, and what we realized is our equipment was stressed a little more than we thought.

“We didn’t really have the scalability that we needed,” she continued. “We really hit a big roadblock in our business plan.”

Contract brewing will allow the company to dial in its quality and innovation programs, Jodi Woffington added. It has also refreshed the Christian Moerlein logo and packaging.

“Not only does this deliver an elevation of product quality and consistency in our brews and improve consumers’ accessibility to them, this allows us to focus on building brand value and delivering growth across our portfolio,” Graham said in a press release.

In June, the company permanently shuttered the Christian Moerlein taproom, which it had closed in March due to the pandemic and reopened in May.

“In three weeks, I think there were 30% of the days where we had zero customers — zero,” Jay Woffington said. “So that just became completely unfeasible. So we just shut it back down. We haven’t been open since May, and we have no plan to do that until the world comes back to normal.”

Christian Moerlein’s revenue leans more heavily toward distribution sales, and on-site draft sales were the “smallest portion of the business,” — often not the case for smaller, newer breweries, he added.

“Our business model from the beginning when we came in, it was completely inverted,” Jay Woffington said.

As the company focuses on producing beer for distribution, CinBev hopes to sustain the momentum its Little Kings brand built in 2020 as revenue increased 75%.

In Spring 2021, CinBev will launch two new Little Kings styles — Blood Orange and Agave Lime — which it will support with an integrated marketing plan that will include out-of-home advertising, in-person brand activation and paid social media advertising.

Both new offerings were originally set to launch in 2020, but the pandemic scuttled spring resets and wholesaler partners told CinBev they worried market conditions weren’t conducive to innovation products. Instead, the new Little Kings styles were released in a market test in May 2020.

“It sold out in two weeks — exceeded our expectations,” Jodi Woffington said. “We think this is gonna nail it in the market when we’re able to bring it to everybody in the spring.”

The company is also developing a marketing campaign connecting its Hudepohl brand to hometown pride for Cincinnatians.