Kirin-owned New Belgium Brewing and Bell’s Brewery both built their foundations on amber ales. More than three decades later, their portfolios look a little different, in very intentional moves to stay relevant with the rapidly changing bev-alc market, CEO Shaun Belongie shared during Beer Marketer’s Insights’ seminar, held this week in New York City.
“Imagine if we were still sitting there going, ‘All right, amber ales, they’re coming back!’” Belongie said. “We’d be in a tough spot.”
Belongie challenged bev-alc companies not to pigeonhole themselves or their products within segments, and think more about what a consumer is looking for. He likened the updated strategy to how New Belgium has approached Voodoo Ranger Juice Force, which by definition is a hazy imperial IPA, but “operates” more like a flavored malt beverage brand than a craft beer.
“You get trapped by the way Nielsen or IRI [Circana] define your category,” Belongie said. “The idea [is] that, ‘Oh, am I in this segment or that segment?’ and that’s how consumers see it, but of course, we know that that’s actually not the way it works. No one goes into a grocery store going, ‘Gee, what’s the wheat aisle look like today?’ It’s just not how it works.
“We’ve been through many, many iterations, and willing to change the direction, try new things, which I think is a really powerful way to think about it, and has enabled our success, and is something that I think as a category we need to continue to push,” he continued.
“There was always this understanding that if you’re not willing to shift, you’re going to die.”
New Belgium now sees itself as crafters (or future crafters) of nearly any adult beverage available in a can or bottle. The company won’t play in full strength bottled spirits – that’s more the speed of sibling brand Four Roses – but otherwise, the possibilities are endless, Belongie said. He also hinted that spirits-based ready-to-drink (RTD) offerings may be on the horizon, as the Daleville, Virginia-based facility New Belgium acquired from Constellation Brands in 2023 is set up primarily as an RTD facility.
No details were shared on what those products will look like. However, Belongie did give a look at new products coming in 2025 …
Juice Force and Tropic Force Mini Rippers
In March, New Belgium will release 7.5 oz. cans of Voodoo Ranger Juice Force and Tropic Force, named Mini Rippers. Both 9.5% ABV offerings will be available in 8-packs, priced $1 to $2 below their 12 oz. 6-pack counterparts.
Mini Rippers speak to consumers’ desire for “value,” which has been hard for craft to capitalize on as the segment is “one of the most expensive per serving segments in the category,” Belongie said.
“Where we started really thinking about it is, how do we disrupt that value equation in grocery, particularly because we’re seeing such a struggle for 6-packs across craft where I think we’ve crossed price thresholds, which has made it much less attractive for consumers,” Belongie said.
The offerings will start as a grocery play. However, distributors are already asking for larger formats for c-stores, and New Belgium sees opportunity for Mini Rippers in the on-premise with bucket deals.
Belongie also highlighted the choice to give Mini Rippers its own name, rather than some variation of Voodoo Ranger – a choice made to highlight the experiential nature of having Mini Rippers.
“The idea there is to really tell people what this is – this is a whole new occasion,” Belongie said. “Imagine you’ve just called the Uber, waiting, you got five minutes: Mini Ripper. You really want a cold beer, [and] you want it cold the whole time: Mini Ripper.”
Introducing LightStrike
Like every other bev-alc brand in 2024, New Belgium has been asking itself how it can best bring in legal-drinking-age Generation Z consumers. What the company found was Gen Z wants something in the “sessionable hard seltzer space,” that has “better-for-you cues” that aren’t too much “in your face” (think Olipop or Poppi), and that feels familiar, but no one has thought of it yet.
Enter: LightStrike, New Belgium’s take on the sports drink and hydration space.
Launching January 1, LightStrike will be a non-carbonated 5% ABV beverage made with coconut water and sea salt. The offering will be packaged in 16.9 oz. resealable plastic bottles, with 120 calories and four grams of sugar per 12 oz. serving.
“Because it’s [LightStrike] got a lot of the same cues from the non-alc space in this plastic bottle, we think there’s an opportunity to be that idea of familiar, ‘Oh, I get what that thing is, but it’s the alcoholic version,’” Belongie said.
LightStrike will be available in single-flavor four-packs (SRP $9.99-10.99) in flavors such as Lemon Lime and Orange Mango. New Belgium is hoping to place the offerings on shelves adjacent to hard seltzer, and will be investing a “significant amount” in media to promote the brand.
LightStrike will launch nationwide through Kroger, “which is a pretty big jump out of the gates, but then from there, we really want to try to build that slowly over time,” Belongie said.
LightStrike is being co-packed, as New Belgium does not have the capabilities to package in plastic bottles at this time, but the company hopes to bring production in-house if the brand is “successful.”
“There’s not a capability really out there to put alcoholic products into plastic bottles right now, so we’re actually building that capability and capacity out as we speak,” Belongie said.
Fat Tire’s Year for Stabilization
Belongie admitted that New Belgium is not immune from hurdles or mistakes, such as the reformulation of Fat Tire that went “not well.”
The need to refresh Fat Tire was inevitable as “we had seen years and years of declines on that brand,” and its amber ale style is not one “that’s relevant right now,” Belongie said.
“We had seen that decline over a period of time, and we really decided that we needed to take a bigger chance with that brand, to really push it to a place where we thought it would be more relevant for the long term,” Belongie said.
While the reformulation did bring in new and younger LDA consumers, it also lost fans of the previous version. Year-to-date (YTD) ending November 2, Fat Tire dollar sales have declined -30.3% and volume (case sales) -31.1% in NIQ-tracked off-premise channels (total U.S. xAOC + liquor plus + convenience), according to data shared by 3 Tier Beverages.
2025 will be a year of stabilizing the brand so that new consumers outweigh any losses.
“It’s just a matter of can we get that math equation to work out where the incremental new households that are coming in make up for the lost households,” Belongie said.
Voodoo Ranger Extension Pause While Oberon Expands
New Belgium will take a break from Voodoo Ranger flavor extensions in 2025, as the company reevaluates what flavors and packages work best in which channels.
“We have had so much success with innovation and new products that we have gotten to a place where we’re seeing less incrementality from the new items,” Belongie said. “While Tropic Force is the No. 1 [new item] beer launch this year, we’re just seeing it being less incremental when you already have Fruit Force and you already have Juice Force.”
Juice Force recorded double-digit gains in dollar sales (+20.9%) and volume (+19.2%) in the first 10 months of the year, but in the last four weeks (ending November 3), the brand’s dollar sales (-1.2%) and volume (-5%) were in decline in Circana-tracked off-premise channels. Other offerings within the brand family have also declined in scans: Juicy Haze IPA dollar sales -21.7%, volume -29.9% YTD; Fruit Force dollar sales -11.4%, volume -12.8%; Voodoo Ranger IPA dollar sales -14.4%, volume -15.4%.
While Voodoo Ranger gets a break in 2025, Bell’s Oberon will continue to expand. The cult-favorite summer seasonal is extending with Oberon Light, a 99-calorie version available in slim cans starting in March and continuing through September.
The extension follows the addition of Oberon Eclipse, a nationally distributed fall and winter seasonal, and Oberon Sunshine Shandy variety pack, both in 2023.
Belongie acknowledged that New Belgium has struggled to revive Bell’s, since it was brought into the Kirin family in 2021.
“We tried to take that brand to a more national footprint, and that’s a struggle right now,” Belongie said. “It’s hard in my mind to see a regional brand getting and replicating what New Belgium, Boston Beer, Sierra Nevada have done. I think that’s going to be really challenging. There’s just so many damn breweries out there and all wonderful, but it makes it a lot harder to extend that.”
Bell’s dollar sales have declined -0.2% and volume -1% in NIQ-tracked channels YTD, according to 3 Tier Beverages data. In the last four weeks, trends have slipped into the black, with dollar sales increasing +1.5% and volume +0.5% year-over-year.