Societe Brewing more than doubled its sales in 2021, increasing +120% vs. 2020. The growth of the San Diego-based brewery isn’t slowing down either, founder and CEO Doug Constantiner told Brewbound.
Along with increased sales, the brewery nearly doubled production from 7,200 barrels in 2020 to around 14,000 barrels this year. In 2022, Constantiner said the brewery expects to reach at least 22,000 barrels.
The increased production will help support the brewery’s distribution expansion planned for the new year. In 2022, Societe will fill out its home state of California, then begin exploring distribution outside of the state for the first time, with the Pacific Northwest, Arizona and Nevada all in consideration.
“We’re building our sales team very aggressively right now,” Constantiner said. “We’re focusing more on marketing and branding and trying to always be bigger than we are.”
Entering 2021, Societe changed wholesalers from Scout Distributing to Stone Distributing for coverage throughout Southern California, from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border. The move was the first of many wholesaler additions this year, including Alford Distributing in Imperial County, Delta Pacific Beverage Company throughout central California, and Morris Distributing throughout San Francisco and Northern California. A deal for distribution in Sacramento is pending.
Additionally, sales of Societe’s offerings in on-premise establishments — which account for about half of the company’s total sales — have returned to pre-COVID-19 levels, with the brewery adding more kegs to its fleet into the new year.
Leading the company’s growth is The Pupil IPA. Available in 12 oz. 6-packs, the 7.5% ABV IPA is the brewery’s top seller and makes up 50% of its total production.
“Pupil is easily dragging everything else with it,” Constantiner said. “We can’t keep it in stock.”
The brewery’s No. 2 core brand is its The Harlot 5.7% ABV blonde ale, followed closely by The Coachman 4.9% Session IPA, and Light Beer 4.5% lager, which launched in 2021.
In the spring of 2022, Societe will launch a new core brand: Bulbous Flowers. The 7% hazy IPA was previously released as one of the brewery’s specialty releases — quarterly limited edition releases in 16 oz. 4-packs. Constantiner expects the brand to be a strong No. 2 once launched.
“It was our fastest moving specialty,” he said. “Everybody loves hazy IPAs.”
Like all of Societe’s core brands, Bulbous Flowers will be sold in 12 oz. 6-packs. It will launch in refreshed case packaging, which is scheduled to release by March 2022, depending on supply chain constraints.
“If you want to play with the big boys, look like the big boys,” Constantiner said. “We’re not in PakTech, we’re in 6-pack cases. And if that costs us more, that’s fine, because eventually we’ll be there.”
Additionally, the company is exploring expanding The Pupil IPA into 19.2 oz. cans. The SKU is available at San Diego’s PetCo Park, home of the Padres MLB team. Constantiner said he hopes to expand the SKUs presence throughout all channels in 2022, including convenience and grocery stores.
“The problem there is not selling them, it’s getting the cans,” he said.
Societe sources its cans from Ardagh Beverage Group, with the exception of its 19.2 oz cans, which it buys from a broker. Constantiner said Ball, the world’s largest aluminum can manufacturer, is the only domestic distributor of the particular can type. Last week, Ball informed customers that it would increase its order minimum per SKU for printed cans from one truckload (204,000 cans) to five truckloads (1,020,000 cans), effective January 1.
To support planned production increases, Societe has demolished its barrel room to make room for additional tanks. The company is also pulling back on some of its barrel-aged offerings.
“We’ll still have our barrel-aged beers,” Constantiner said. “But from a square footage standpoint, we can make 25,000 barrels out of the space that our barrel room was in, and we were selling 50 barrels a year in sour beer.
“It’s so much of a special occasion thing, and I don’t think beer thrives on special occasions. I think beer’s the everyday,” he continued. “The more I’ve been able to simplify things — and just focus on keeping it simple and trying to build a great company — the easier it is.”
In line with keeping things simple, Constantiner said the brewery won’t be producing a “beyond beer” product, such as a hard seltzer or ready-to-drink canned cocktail, anytime soon.
“I might throw it out and be like ‘oh, let’s do a Socie-tea,” he said. “[But] we have a vision statement that the first line is ’to make great beer,’ so my leadership team will say: ’No Doug, it says to make great beer.’ So that’s our bible.”
When asked if Societe would consider launching a non-alcoholic beer, Constantiner said he didn’t “know jack about making or selling NA beer, so why would we do it?”
“What I do know is we can make a bunch of Pupil, a bunch of hoppy beers, and we do a pretty damn good job doing that, so let’s keep doing it,” he added.
While working to achieve all of Societe’s 2022 expansion plans, there is one goal Constantiner plans to keep in mind:
“I just want to create a great company that happens to make beer, and if I can achieve that goal or get close to it, I’d be happy,” he said. “Times have changed and it’s not just about making the best liquid. I think having great beer is a given. I think that gets you a spot on the starting team, and now let’s see what else you can do.”