Sierra Nevada’s Big Little Thing IPA is getting a second act. The imperial IPA has been reformulated as a juicy hazy IPA with the ABV amped up to 9.5% from 9%.
Although Big Little Thing has been a top-30 craft brand in off-premise scans, the brand’s trends have trended down since 2023.
Sierra Nevada chief commercial officer Ellie Preslar told Brewbound that the decision to refresh Big Little Thing as a juicy hazy IPA was rooted in maintaining it as “a strong productive SKU” rather than letting it potentially fade with inaction.
“It’s not like the brand wasn’t still performing,” Preslar told Brewbound. “It’s still a significant brand. There’s still a lot of people drinking Big Little Thing.”
Preslar continued: “But if we don’t do anything, are we going to still have a strong productive SKU in five years? Or do we take this moment while it still has a really strong following to try and evolve it a little bit to make it even more productive than it already is today, and to continue to bring new drinkers to it and maybe make them a little bit more loyal and pick it up one more time on a different occasion throughout the year?”
In Big Little Thing’s first full year of distribution in 2021, the IPA became the 29th best-selling craft beer with nearly $20 million in off-premise dollar sales in retailers tracked by Circana. In Year Two, the brand grew to more than $26.36 million (+30.9%) and finished the year as the 27th best-selling craft beer at retail.
Signs of a downturn started in 2023, with sales declining 10.8%, to around $23.5 million, and Big Little Thing finished the year as the 28th best-selling craft beer at retail. The declines continued in 2024, with the brand falling outside of the top 30 craft brands list. In the convenience channel, Big Little Thing’s sales declined 9.8% and ranked as the 22nd best-selling craft beer.
In 2025, Big Little Thing returned to the top 30 list. Year-to-date (YTD) through March 23, the IPA is the 27th best-selling craft beer in Circana-tracked off-premise retailers. Dollar sales and case sales (volume) have declined 4.2% and 4.9%, respectively. Those trends have improved over the last month (-1.9% dollars, -2.4% volume), but they’ve lagged behind the overall Sierra Nevada portfolio YTD (+3.2% dollars, +2.5% volume).
In an effort to reinvigorate Big Little Thing, Preslar said Sierra Nevada’s brewers looked to the hazy imperial IPA style, which has been a bright spot within an otherwise struggling craft segment (-3.3% dollars, -4.8% volume YTD). As Big Little Thing’s trends have softened, Sierra Nevada leaders engaged with drinkers in their taprooms and consumers of other juicy hazy IPAs about ways to make the beer “more approachable” and which characteristics resonate with them, which led them to a fruitier flavor profile through a new hop bill of Citra, Mosaic and El Dorado hops.
To help emphasize Big Little Thing’s makeover, the purple can packaging has been changed to bright orange.
Preslar told Brewbound that the biggest opportunities ahead for Big Little Thing are convenience stores and small-format retailers – spaces where traditionally higher ABV singles perform well.
Big Little Thing, along with Hazy Little Thing and Atomic Torpedo imperial IPA, will be Sierra Nevada’s priority brands in the convenience channel moving forward. The company started the year with a national program to drive distribution in the channel, Preslar said.
“We’re seeing really phenomenal results,” she added. “Our wholesalers were really behind it, because they saw the opportunity in the same way. But it’s really about making sure that every SKU we put in is productive and earns its keep. We talk a lot about quality distribution, not just quantity, and you’ve got to have both.”
Draft-Only PILS Rolls Out
Sierra Nevada is introducing PILS, a new draft-only “European-inspired pilsner with an American twist,” in 30 markets starting this month. A wider rollout is expected later this year with nationwide distribution planned for 2026.
PILS (4.7% ABV, 25 IBUs) is brewed with a mix of Saphir German hops and American Crystal Lupulin hops. An off-premise package release is planned for later in 2025, Preslar said in a press release.
Initial markets include: Orlando and Jacksonville, Florida; Atlanta; Chicago; Portland, Maine; Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada; New York City; Rhode Island; Denver; Boise, Idaho; New Orleans; Grand Rapids, Michigan; Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota; Cleveland; Portland, Eugene and Medford, Oregon; Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas; Milwaukee and Madison, Wisconsin; the Bay Area, Sacramento and Chico, California; St. Louis, Missouri; Charlotte, Asheville, Winston-Salem, Wilmington, North Carolina; South Carolina; and Washington, D.C.
For now, the company is focused on getting the beer on tap in bars and restaurants, with plans for “culinary pairings, pouring rituals, and consumer education about the premium nature of the beer.”
“We’ve had some early previews here at the two breweries that have gone really well,” Preslar told Brewbound.
PILS joins Sierra Nevada’s draft focus areas on Pale Ale and Hazy Little Thing. Preslar told Brewbound that Pale draft is “growing for the first time in a long time.” She added that the hope is that those trends trickle over to off-premise retailers.
Non-Alc Portfolio Helps Boost Overall Trends
Sierra Nevada’s early year growth is coming from both its traditional alcoholic beverage portfolio as well as its non-alcoholic (NA) portfolio of Trail Pass and Hop Splash, Preslar said.
“Even if you strip out the incrementality that we’ve seen with Trail Pass and Hop Splash, which are on their way to be the No. 2 non-alc portfolio within craft, our alcoholic part of our business is still really healthy,” she said. “That’s driven first by the Little Things family.”
Preslar called Trail Pass, its NA beer line, a “huge addition” to Sierra Nevada’s NA portfolio, which has ranked as the No. 8 craft NA beer portfolio for the rolling 52-week period and No. 3 in the last four weeks. She added that the company expects to have the No. 2 best-selling NA craft portfolio by midyear with the additions of a variety pack and hazy 6-pack in the spring resets.
NA beer trends follow the overall beer category, so Sierra Nevada is expecting a strong summer selling season for Trail Pass, Preslar said.
Meanwhile, Hazy Little Thing, Sierra Nevada’s top-selling brand, is continuing to grow (+1.3% dollars, +0.9% volume) and is the fourth best-selling craft beer YTD through late March in Circana-tracked retailers.
As for long-time flagship Pale Ale, the brand’s off-premise sales have declined 4.1% and volume declined 5.1% in multi-outlet and convenience store scans through the first three months of 2025, according to Circana.
Preslar said the company is hopeful that its National Parks program, kicking off now, will help reverse those trends.