Fast-Growing Ashland Hard Seltzer Expands in California, Pushes Toward 435,000 Cases By Year End

Josh Landan believes he’s found another Saint Archer in the nearly nine-month-old Ashland Hard Seltzer brand.

Landan, who co-founded the San Diego craft brewery in 2013 and sold it to Molson Coors in 2015, recalled growing the San Diego craft brewery from 7,200 barrels in Year One, to 17,000 barrels in Year Two and 35,000 barrels in three years.

Now, Landan believes he’s found another rocket ship in Ashland.

“I’ve never seen anything like this ever,” he said. “We went from 2,000 cases in our first month to 75,000 cases in our sixth month. By the end of the year we’ll be doing about 150,000 cases a month here in Southern California.”

Landan launched Ashalnd in January with a host of celebrity investors, including Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff, Los Angeles Dodger Cody Bellinger, actor Adam DeVine and pro skateboarders Sean Malto, Eric Koston and Paul Rodriguez, with whom Landan co-founded Saint Archer.

The connection with Goff has paid off with some unexpected publicity during this year’s Hard Knocks HBO sports documentary series, which chronicled the preseason preparation of the Rams and Los Angeles Chargers.

During the series, eagle-eyed viewers could spot Ashland seltzer cans in the background of scenes of Goff and girlfriend/model Christen Harper golfing on his property.

“I can’t tell you how many messages I got,” Landan said.

Ashland’s offerings check in at 5% ABV, with 99 calories and zero grams of sugar and carbs. In its first six months, Ashland quickly pushed 10 flavors into the market. Part of that is the craft beer philosophy that Landan said he’s bringing to hard seltzer including specialty releases. That strategy has worked out thus far, with Landan pointing to Ashland’s fruit punch release selling out of 5,000 cases in two weeks and orange pineapple selling 2,500 cases in four days.

Landan believes he’s found the right brand with the right bonafides as an “independent craft hard seltzer” to meet consumers’ desires.

“I think it was the right brand, in the right category, with the right staff, with the right liquid, and then factor in, we got authorized in all of these retailers three weeks before COVID,” Landan said. “We beat Bud to the market, Corona to the market, Vizzy to the market, and we were independent, I think that’s what was lacking in the category.”

Beyond an on-screen cameo and hundreds of Instagram stories posted by consumers each weekend, Landan is seeing results at retail. He offered several data points as proof.

  • In six months, the brand has sold 120,000 cases, 75,000 of which came in the most recent month, and a forecasted run rate of 1.75 million cases.
  • Ashland has become the No. 3 hard seltzer brand in San Diego, with only 20% category weight of distribution and trailing only market leaders White Claw (Mark Anthony Brands) and Truly (Boston Beer Company).
  • Ashland’s variety packs ranked second and fourth in dollars per store in San Diego County in the latest 13-week period ending, trailing just the White Claw variety packs.
  • Ashland is the fastest growing independent hard seltzer brand in California.

By year end, Landan projects Ashland will have sold 435,000 cases. Next year, he’s projecting sales of 2.3 million cases as increased production meets demand.

Helping Landan produce all of that product are several San Diego craft breweries, including AleSmith, Mission Brewery and Ballast Point, as well as SLO Brew in San Luis Obispo. With the recent addition of production at Ballast Point’s facility, Landan said Ashland has enough capacity to “take this to the moon.”

“We’ll start pushing a half a million to a million cases, a month out of there, so that should take us as far as we want to go,” he said. “I’ll need about half that just to service California.”

The increased capacity will also help feed added distribution in the state of California. This week, Ashland added distribution in Los Angeles via Classic Beverage of Southern California and on the central coast via Pacific Beverage; Ashland’s products are distributed in San Diego by Scout Distribution, which Landan co-owns.

The new California markets come with plenty of room for the Ashland brand to grow. In Southern California, Ashland has about 4% of the distribution of the top brands; in San Diego, it has about 20% of the distribution of leading brands. Nevertheless, Ashland has captured around 250 draft handles in San Diego and Orange County.

Beyond California, Landan has his eye on distribution expansion into Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and the Philadelphia market.

Moving forward, Landan said Ashland is his sole focus and has been for the last six months and will continue to be into the future. As such, Landan has taken a step back from the Harland beer brand, which he launched in late 2018, and Scout Distribution, which he also co-founded in 2018.

“When I’m laser focused and 100% all into one project, generally the results are much better,” he said. “I haven’t focused on one thing since Saint Archer.

“It’s just me, making all the decisions and doing everything that I want to do, moving at the speed that I’m comfortable with, which is fast,” he added. “It’s been freaking great, man. It’s the happiest I’ve been.”