The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery (OMB), the elder statesman of Charlotte’s burgeoning craft beer industry, is rolling into 2023 with a new look, new distributor partners and a new IPA.
“It’s not a rebranding, but it’s the biggest refresh that OMB has done and it feels like it’s time for it, mostly because we switched from self-distribution to wholesalers,” COO Jim Birch told Brewbound.
OMB has now aligned with the Anheuser-Busch network throughout North Carolina, bringing the 14-year-old brand to statewide distribution for the first time, a move Birch called “a big deal for the off-premise and chain grocery.”
New partners include Adams Beverages, Standard Distributors, R.H. Barringer Distributing and Budweiser of Asheville. As it fills out the state, OMB has tamped down references to Charlotte on its packaging to appeal to a broader base.
Changes include the removal of “CLT Born & Brewed” from 6-pack cartons and an updated logo shield that removes “The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery” and hops and grain design elements to focus on a cleaner copper shield with OMB.
“Now that we’ll be statewide in North Carolina, a less Charlotte-centric approach makes sense, ” Birch said. “But at the same time, we are doubling the investment in our hometown.”
Construction is beginning on a second OMB beer garden and restaurant in Charlotte’s Ballantyne district, which will be the city’s largest brewery, according to WCNC Charlotte. The new location is part of a mixed-use development built on land that was a golf course, Birch said. OMB expects to open to the public in early 2024. All production will remain at the company’s existing brewery, which includes a 60-barrel brewhouse.
“It is going to bring us into the outskirts of Charlotte,” Birch said. “Charlotte’s kind of like Atlanta 20 years ago – the traffic is becoming insane. No one drives back into the middle of the city if they don’t need to if they live in the suburbs. And so this is our idea: Let’s bring the brand to these baby boomer communities and folks that are starting families that just aren’t going to come into the middle of the city anymore.”
UnFOURSeen, First IPA, Debuts
With updates to its branding in the works, OMB decided to align the release of its newest year-round offering, UnFOURseen IPA, with the new packaging rollout. OMB’s core offerings – flagship Copper Altbier, Captain Jack Pilsner, Hornets Nest Hefeweizen and now UnFOURseen – are shipping in redesigned packages with a similar band at the top flanking the new shield to create a billboard on shelf.
“We thought this was the perfect time to introduce the IPA, which we don’t want to cannibalize existing cores,” Birch said.
As a German-inspired brewery that adheres to the Reinheitsgebot, UnFOURseen gets its name from both OMB’s initial resistance to brew an IPA and the four traditional beer ingredients. It’s a 6.8% ABV West Coast-style IPA that includes German noble hops, as well as Solero, Callista, Centennial, Simcoe and Hercules.
“All we hear from one of two people that come to the beer garden every weekend is ‘Do you have an IPA?’” Birch said. “We thought we could do it right, and so we did R&D testing all year long, and now it’s finally ready to go.”
After a successful soft launch during OMB’s Thanksgiving weekend holiday market, UnFOURseen launches in March in 4-packs of 16 oz. cans and 6-packs of 12 oz. bottles, which are still a big driver for the brewery.
“Bottles continue to be a huge part of our business, which is interesting because I see everyone else shuttering their bottling line and moving all to cans,” Birch said. “Our bottles [business] as a percentage of our total remains strong, and so they’re growing in total.”
OMB is adding wrapped 4-packs of 16 oz. cans for Copper, Captain Jack and Hornets Nest, which will also remain available in bottle 6-pack. Copper and Captain Jack will also be sold in 12-packs of 12 oz. bottles.
The brewery lightened the packaging for both Hornets Nest and Captain Jack to convey drinkability. Hornets Nest cans will be packed upside down so drinkers have to flip them over, agitating the yeast in the process. Captain Jack, named for the rider who carried the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence from North Carolina to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on horseback in 1775, was the best-selling craft pilsner in the state last year, Birch said.
Seasonal Family Streamlined
As it shifts to wholesalers for distribution, OMB has trimmed its family of seasonal beers to five styles that rotate on the same UPC. They include:
- Bock Party maibock, 6% ABV, in market January-March;
- Munzler’s Vienna lager, 4.9% ABV, in market April-May;
- Berliner Weisse, 4% ABV, in market June-July;
- Mecktoberfest marzen lager, 5.4% ABV, in market August-October;
- Dunkel dark lager, 4.9% ABV, in market November-January.
Bock Party has been renamed from Früh Bock, which Birch said drinkers had difficulty pronouncing, but the beer’s recipe remains the same. Berliner Weisse is new for 2023 and marks OMB’s first time producing a sour ale.
Despite only being available for three months, Mecktoberfest ranks among OMB’s top five best-selling beers by volume, Birch said.
Through its new wholesaler network, the brewery expects “cleaner transitions” as it cycles through its seasonal portfolio.
Aiming for Growth in 2023
OMB was flat in 2022, following +5% growth in 2021, when the brewery’s output reached 21,500 barrels, according to the Brewers Association’s May/June issue of the New Brewer magazine.
“Overall, that’s good,” Birch said. “We had taken a price increase, just like everyone else had. We are not increasing our prices in 2023, and we feel like not only because we don’t think the consumer is ready to take any more price, honestly, in grocery, and as we’re rebranding and everything else, we’d like to have that point of differentiation too.”
Both the new packaging and expanded distribution footprint have buoyed OMB’s hopes for a good year in 2023.
“Our expectations are double-digit growth, and we don’t want to be reckless with the expectations, but we did spend a lot of money and so obviously we’d like to see a good return,” Birch said. “And 20-30% is very optimistic, but we’ve seen other breweries refresh like this. Based on the preliminary feedback that we’ve gotten from the wholesalers and the key accounts, we’re getting really excited.”