[00:00:11] Justin Kendall: Hello and welcome to the Brewbound podcast. I'm Justin Kendall.
[00:00:15] Zoe Licata: And I'm Zoe Licata.
[00:00:17] Justin Kendall: And Jess is taking some much deserved time off this week. She will be back next week to fill us all in on her trip to Sierra Nevada's Mills River location. You've been.
[00:00:29] Zoe Licata: It's a gorgeous, gorgeous place.
[00:00:33] Justin Kendall: Yeah, I still haven't been. I would love to go someday. This was not the year. 2029. Speaking of Sierra Nevada, we've got a speaker announcement that we can reveal, and that is that Ellie Pressler, the Chief Growth Officer from Sierra Nevada, is going to be joining us at Brewbound Live on December 9th and 10th. She'll be discussing what it's like to come over from CPG and enter the craft beer world and the many worlds that they're now inhabiting.
[00:01:05] Zoe Licata: We've been trying to get Ellie on Brewbound Live for a minute, so glad we can finally get the schedules worked out this year and she can share her insights, but she brought a lot of great experience that was outside of beer to Sierra that helped them on the business section. I think it's a really useful perspective to get in the current times of craft beer, and she'll be able to share it with everyone.
[00:01:29] Justin Kendall: Very much looking forward to hearing from her and so many others. So we will be in Los Angeles, December 9th and 10th. Get your tickets now. Let's talk a little bit about the job board though. Have you ever wanted to be a head brewer, Zoe?
[00:01:44] Zoe Licata: Personally? No, but I definitely know plenty of people who have.
[00:01:48] Justin Kendall: There are so many head brewer jobs over at the Brew Bound Job Board. BJ's Restaurants is hiring. Gilman Brewing Company looking for one. Smog Cities looking for a lead brewer. Just so many head brewer jobs. If you are in the market for a head brewer job, head over to the Brew Bound Job Board. If you're looking for your next head brewer, why not post it at the Brew Bound Job Board? Lots of opportunity. Let's get into the news of the week, and we've got to acknowledge that we were writing about Sierra Nevada's 2027 ABP. We'll have two stories up by the time you listen to this, but we don't have just Sierra this week, so we can't really talk about it, but we may be able to talk about something else.
[00:02:36] Zoe Licata: Hey, it didn't explode.
[00:02:39] Justin Kendall: Yes, I have a go-to IPA, which is one of their big bets for 2027. It is a 2.8% ABV IPA. So let me go for two here. All right, I dig it. I'm in.
[00:02:57] Zoe Licata: That didn't need much convincing.
[00:02:59] Justin Kendall: No, 2.8% had me. This is dad life right now for me is like 2.8% and below. Got to be on my best behavior.
[00:03:11] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I just had it when she was there. And Mel's my friend. I know she liked it too. It gets the job done.
[00:03:17] Justin Kendall: Yeah, that's nice. Smooth, not super, I mean, there's some bitterness there, but not overpowering. I don't know that you would like it.
[00:03:29] Zoe Licata: That's fair. I remember us talking on this podcast, I don't know, two years ago, maybe two, three years ago, talking about these mid-strength beers. We were trying to see where these could fit in the marketplace and how it made so much sense. You know, there's non-alcoholic, where is the lower ABV? And there was a couple offerings out there, but they never really quite had momentum. And now it seems the year 2026, We're seeing a lot more of them, and at least some of them are finding actual momentum.
[00:04:03] Justin Kendall: This has got to be validation for, like, dad strength and small beer and the very small indie players that are in this space, dedicated to this space, to see one of the large brewers come in. It's also an eyebrow-raising moment, like, oh, great, you know?
[00:04:20] Zoe Licata: Yeah.
[00:04:21] Justin Kendall: The nice PR way of saying it is, Well, it'll help the category grow, you know, and we'll get a lot of awareness.
[00:04:28] Zoe Licata: And it's now happening for those that 2 to 3 percenter.
[00:04:32] Justin Kendall: It's funny, when I started writing about beer, there were all these fights over 2-3 beer. And now, low ABV beer is having a moment. Some moment.
[00:04:44] Zoe Licata: We also talk a lot about how important ABV is and there seems to be mixed opinions on that but I think this is another also validation of consumers are looking at ABV a lot and they want a different ABV for different occasions and so now there are products to meet every single need or desire.
[00:05:03] Speaker 1: Hey, listeners! As of August 25th, fresh beer industry jobs are pouring into cpgjobs.com, including from Craftsmith Beverage and Schilling Beer. Also hiring Boulevard Brewing, Smog City Brewing, and Odell Brewing. Hot rolls, great companies, serious momentum. Beer people, make your move! Brewbound is the beer industry's daily read, with each listing appearing there. Now, if you're hiring, get your role in front of brewers, beer sales leaders, and distributor staff already tracking the category. Applications go directly to your company. Post your job on cpgjobs.com today. Use code BREWBOUND26 and save on a job listing.
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[00:05:58] Justin Kendall: You want to talk about validating segments and categories. Let's talk about Boston Beer and what they're up to.
[00:06:07] Zoe Licata: Yep. It's official now. It is out there and set to go to market in a few places. Boston Beer's Rally Dog. They have now officially fully on the books introduced their challenger for this hard sports drink category.
[00:06:24] Justin Kendall: And I can tell you a little bit about the hard sports drink category, thanks to our buddy Dave Williams at Bump Williams Consulting. So I was just like, Dave, tell me a little bit about this space. Who are the players? We know who the players are, but you know, is there something that we're not seeing? And Dave shared that Superlight and Spiked Aid make up more than 90% of the national dollar sales for the vodka plus aid category. And Superlight is two thirds on its own year to date so far. crushing it.
[00:07:02] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[00:07:02] Justin Kendall: And Superlight is, of course, by Stateside Brands, the maker of Surfside, another area of competition that Boston Beer finds itself in with Stateside.
[00:07:15] Zoe Licata: Yep. And you want to talk about another topic that our conversations have evolved on this podcast because we talked about when we saw, you know, these spiked aid things coming out and we were like, what is this? How does this even work? And now Boston Beer is coming out with their own version. It has evolved quite a bit. And I have had just like in non-job related conversations had so many people bring up these things. I don't know if there's quite a public understanding of the differences between the brands yet, which I think is also happening with Suncruiser and Surfside all the time. But the general idea of a vodka-based sports drink, it's spreading like wildfire. And I've had so many people say, yeah, we're drinking those all the time. Or like, particularly with that younger Gen Z, like younger than me type folks are really into it.
[00:08:07] Justin Kendall: And this was last year at NBWA. We were in Vegas and we came across the Spiked Aid table. And of course, they called us out for what we said on the podcast. And then we tried the product or I tried it for the first time and I was like, blown away. This stuff is great. It tastes great. I was impressed and it is not surprising now to see that these have really caught on this summer. And I mean, if last year was the surf side sun cruiser, would that be year two for them having the summer?
[00:08:40] Zoe Licata: Yeah, this year felt like the year where they were like really cemented is going to be available everywhere. This was the summer. Last year was still kind of the initial introduction year for a lot of it. So yeah, this year might be that initial introduction for these hard sports drinks and next year we'll really see who sticks around and who gets that expansion.
[00:09:04] Justin Kendall: buckle up because it is going to be an interesting ride on these things. They just do not taste like alcohol.
[00:09:13] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that's true. It tastes like Gatorade. That is what these taste like. I'm curious to see what happens with Rally Dog Boston Beer's Challenger because they're starting it off super small in just four markets. to start, you know, September is their launch, kind of an oddish time for this kind of beverage, I think, that is really capitalized on being like a summer occasions, day drinking type of beverage. But we'll see if that continues. And they've been doing this with a bunch of their products of kind of testing it out in smaller markets first, when we've seen that with their other challengers like Sinless or Lit, those light bulb shaped coolers, electric coolers. A lot kind of on the board right now for Boston Beer to see what happens to it in the next year.
[00:09:59] Justin Kendall: Yeah, there's notable summertime markets, Iowa, Idaho, Rhode Island and Florida. Maybe one out of the four.
[00:10:08] Zoe Licata: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:10] Justin Kendall: Well, at least it's coming to my home state. And I was a little surprised too, that they're going so hard after this as far as SKU wise, because you've got the variety eight packs of starting out of the gate with four flavors, Berry Breeze, Tangerine Twist, Lemony Lime, and Strawberry Watermelon. Then you've got four packs of two of those flavors, and then you've got single serves as well. They are trying to cover all their bases on this out of the gate.
[00:10:41] Zoe Licata: Yeah. I wonder if that's the nature of that sort of like sports drink product. I brought a variety pack of Spike Dade to like a day party thing recently. And every single person... A darty? I wouldn't call it a darty. It was like a grill out type hangout. Casual, not darty level of partying. But every person had a different opinion on like what flavor was the good flavor. the sports drink world, people have the flavors that they're loyal to and they stick to those. That might just be the nature of this type of product. And so trying to just test out what flavors work and making sure you're not turning someone off from your new brand immediately by giving them just something they don't like with one or two flavors. I don't know.
[00:11:27] Justin Kendall: Well, if you liked Social Pop or Just Hard Squeezed or Wild Leaf, bad news for you. They are discontinued. Those were all three Boston beer tests that they were running. Social Pop was one that we sort of flagged early as, I wonder if this is a thing because of What we're seeing with these poppy, Olipop alcohol versions that have come out, not that poppy and Olipop have put out their own alcohol versions that, you know, we're seeing Spike Pop and Crooked Pop and these various, can't say better for you, but better for you sodas.
[00:12:07] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't stick that one out a little bit longer because it seems like that segment is still pretty early stages of figuring out what works and what doesn't. And there are a handful of other much smaller independent folks that are still trying it out and seeing how it goes and are finding some traction with some sort of consumer base. So yeah, I'm surprised that didn't get longer attention. But RIP Wild Leaf, they've tried that a couple of times now and it still hasn't made it through.
[00:12:37] Justin Kendall: No, this is round two. And I don't know, if you're on round two of hard green tea, it may be time to give up the ghost on hard green tea.
[00:12:47] Zoe Licata: Disappointing. I'm a fan of hard green tea too.
[00:12:50] Justin Kendall: Have you had wild leaf?
[00:12:52] Zoe Licata: I had a little sample of wild leaf at MBWA last year, I believe. And it was solid, it was fine. Surfside came out with a green tea version last year, I think it was, at least a year ago, if not longer. And that was tasty, that was lovely. That's one of those things where it doesn't agree with all people, so it's not as widely appreciated.
[00:13:19] Justin Kendall: Boston Beer's innovation strategy of late has been this fast follower approach, and you can see that with Truly and White Claw. It goes back at least that far, and it continues with Suncruiser versus Surfside. And now they have the sinless vodka cocktails. They're bubble-less, so you're carb-less competitor there. They've got the lit light bulb 15% F&B thing that they are going after buzz balls with and now Rally Dog and Super Light. As a strategy, I get it. They've got the distribution. They can grow these things fairly fast if they want to. They've taken more of a test and learn approach as we've seen, and that they're continuing with Rally Dog. But I don't know what I'm looking for from Boston at this point. Like if I'm looking for like true innovation, like new world product, or, you know, if I expect them going forward to be this fast forward to try and see what's working in the market and improve upon it maybe. I haven't had Rally Dog. I can't speak to how good that is. I haven't had Lit and I would probably die if I had Lit just because the high ABV content of it and I am definitely not the market for that.
[00:14:42] Zoe Licata: It's been interesting to see that a good handful of these fast follower brands haven't necessarily been trying to add to the conversation or like add, like, hey, this is an elevated version of this, or this is slightly different because we're doing this. It seems to just kind of have very similar messaging to others. I don't know if that's intentional. It probably is to just really capitalize on, hey, this is what's working. And so how can we do that on our much larger scale with our larger marketing budget and distribution network? The exception to that was like Lit was like, okay, here you can have the high ABV and kind of wacky flavors of a buzz ball, but it's resealable. So there, there's something else you can have. But it hasn't seemed like there's as much of a, hey, we're Boston Beer, so this is how we can make this product itself better. Maybe you could argue Suncruiser because I know Jim has really emphasized that, hey, we know how to do teas, so we can really do this. Otherwise, there hasn't been as much of a link to, hey, we can do this because we're Boston Beer and this is how our product is superior.
[00:15:46] Justin Kendall: And at least with tea and Suncruiser for that matter, it kind of acts as a trade up. You're making more on a Suncruiser than you're ever going to make on a Twisted Tea. Yeah. That's one thing that we're going to be watching the rest of the year and going into next year. I think we got to talk about industry layoffs, unfortunately, and we didn't really get a chance to talk about what was going on at the Escondido Former stone brewing locations, I guess, but they are branded stone brewing. They are owned by Sapporo USA. Sapporo is. Basically completing the transition of the stone brand to Firestone Walker and Duval USA and brewing for those products are going to take place in Paso Robles as well as Kansas city, Missouri. So they really don't need the Escondido location anymore. And so we're going to start seeing waves of layoffs beginning with 58 people in mid-October and then it's going to ramp up to about 160 or so folks in mid-November. And that will be it pretty much for that brewery in Escondido and just the massive restaurant, the Stone World Bistro they have there in Escondido. And of course, there are still Stone World Bistros, the flagship being Liberty Station at this point for the ongoing Stone brand. But yeah, it's kind of a gut punch just for craft history is that was the flagship Stone brewery.
[00:17:29] Zoe Licata: Yeah it kind of feels a bit like almost like we're waiting for something like this to happen. I think even before the stone and firestone walker deal happened when Sapporo came in you're always kind of wondering okay what is their plan going to be and what are they going to prioritize space-wise and then who could have predicted everything that happened afterwards but Yeah, it continues that story of what Stone looks like now is entirely different than 10 years ago or less, like it's just an entirely new business.
[00:18:04] Justin Kendall: And this is going to be something that we're going to see a lot of going forward is what happens with some of these brands and where they live in the future and You see how very quickly Firestone Walker has done that with just two brands that they've taken on this year, and that's Trumer and Stone, and they're incorporating them into their existing brewery footprint to fill up that capacity. Obviously this is a scale game and everybody's trying to fill that excess capacity. And so I think it makes sense that there are folks out there who are looking at brand opportunities and ways that they can fill their own capacity by tacking on something here and there if they can and if it makes sense to them. Unfortunately, we got to keep talking about layoffs and this one is an integration that was happening. Mark Anthony Brands acquired the Finnish Long Drink and you, very eagle-eyed on LinkedIn, saw a number of folks saying that they were going to conclude their time at the Long Drink in late September and a lot of Salesforce workers. And what have you learned?
[00:19:19] Zoe Licata: Yeah, so we're noticing that, you know, ended up being, I think, around a dozen or a little more different posts on LinkedIn saying, yeah, that this as all with very similar wording of, you know, as a result of the acquisition of Long Drink, their positions. where they were being let go from the company. And so we got more information, slightly more information from Mark Anthony and they told us that, you know, they have been trying to integrate as much of the long drink business into Mark Anthony as possible. And that's happened in a couple of phases, but not every single position could be fully integrated. And they did have to let some folks go. They said they are supporting them through the transition. We don't know what that specifically looks like, but they have been working to help anybody affected. So yeah, it seems like it's mostly affecting sales folks. The people's territories ranged all over the East Coast, up into Michigan. There's at least one in California. So it seems like it's a couple different territories. But yeah. I think is what everyone kind of expects something will probably happen when a company gets bought by a much larger company. They have their sales guys already. They have folks that are ready to sell their brands and everything in their portfolio. And so that is what happened here. We didn't find any warn notices anywhere. So we don't have any official number on just how many roles were affected. Mark Anthony didn't share or declined to share an actual number as well.
[00:20:47] Justin Kendall: Those things can be tricky, too, with being spread out across several states. And maybe it's a handful of people here and a handful of people there. But unfortunately, we've got to keep talking about layoffs. I guess we don't have to keep talking about them. But there was one more instance. And this relates to last week. We were talking a lot about Diageo and what's going on over there. We finally saw war notice for them in New York City. They're North American headquarters. They're laying off 305 workers, effective September 30th. And this is a notice that was filed months ago at this point on June 30th. And it didn't post to the Department of Labor site until last week or even 10 days ago. I guess by the time we're recording this, it was August 21st. So Diageo employs around 839 workers at its three World Trade Center location. So just a bummer there and not really unexpected, obviously, because they are going through this $1.2 billion restructuring effort. And Diageo has said that 90% of that restructuring is expected to be completed by the end of September. So here we are, and there's more workers here in the U.S. who are losing their jobs as part of this effort.
[00:22:10] Zoe Licata: Yeah, that delay in the posting makes me wonder if we might be seeing more, like the restructuring efforts might be mostly done now, but we might not see some of the actual numbers and layoffs until the next few months.
[00:22:24] Justin Kendall: Yeah, so we will be following all of that. You can read all about those stories on Brewbound.com. You can get our free and insider newsletters. Become an insider today to get full access. But we haven't written about this yet, and you and I were just chatting about it offline. What's your read on this Pabst social promotion that they're doing? They have either taken a stolen truck of beer and turned it into a viral social media promotion, or they're maybe not being 100% truthful here.
[00:23:04] Zoe Licata: Yeah, if it is a PR move, which my inkling is always with any of these things, is to assume it is, they really convinced my boyfriend's mother because she brought it up very concerned at lunch yesterday, showing us the Instagram post and saying, look, it's real. They attached a police report. This is legitimate.
[00:23:25] Justin Kendall: Did you look closely?
[00:23:26] Zoe Licata: Yes. As Justin pointed out in our conversation, that police report that they attached in that post is not a real police report.
[00:23:34] Justin Kendall: Gotta read that fine print.
[00:23:35] Zoe Licata: Yeah. So it's definitely convincing some folks. I mean, who knows? There is always some sort of something happening with deliveries. And there could be some truth here. But my instant reaction was, oh, that's not real. Helped by the top comment on that post was from KitKat saying, oh, we're familiar with these situations. I mean, KitKat had done a very similar thing not too long ago.
[00:24:02] Justin Kendall: Now, I will say that there is something going on with stolen alcohol. This is a thing that the NBWA has brought up to us and mentioned. It's a conversation that's ongoing and my understanding is that it goes beyond alcohol that actually energy drinks are the number one thing being stolen right now, so Keep that in mind, but it's definitely something to watch and you wonder if there's a kernel of truth to this paps thing Maybe they had some pallets that were on a truck that was stolen, but I don't know it just seems like they They've tried to tap into something here and gotten very creative with it. And kudos to them for, you know, getting people outside of the beer bubble to talk about this. But I also think that they may be embellishing just a lot.
[00:24:54] Zoe Licata: I need a local brewery to do their own campaign or scheme and say that one of their beer trucks got sturrowed because it is officially sturrowing season here in Boston, which for anyone unfamiliar is when everyone is moving, college kids and everyone with expired leases are all moving around the city, driving moving trucks. Sturrow Drive has a very low bridge that those trucks get stuck underneath. And there was a great WBZ radio clip the other day talking to one of the guys that's involved in the cleanup of those. It's like his favorite thing on earth. He loves doing it. And he said, yes, he's obsessed. He's like, it's just it's fun. I get to go help all these steroid trucks. And he mentioned that one of his favorite days on the job was when a beer truck got steroid and there was just beer everywhere. And he didn't outright say it, but I'm sure he took some home with him. If we're doing PR campaigns around truck incidents, someone around here should do a steroid beer truck. Don't actually do it, but you can post about it falsely happening.
[00:26:01] Justin Kendall: I think Trillium had a label that was...
[00:26:03] Zoe Licata: Yes. Yeah, they did. Yeah. Did they actually get it steroid at that point? I think they might have actually steroid it too. And then ended up turning it into a beer afterwards.
[00:26:16] Justin Kendall: Have they ever discussed doing something to raise this bridge?
[00:26:20] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I don't think that will ever happen. Boston infrastructure is just a mess. I think the process of shutting down that major road would cost too much.
[00:26:30] Justin Kendall: If this were New York City, you could text, you know, or tweet Momdani.
[00:26:35] Zoe Licata: Momdani would probably fix the sterling problem. This is true. The trillion problem was indeed a truck that got steroed and they turned it into a beer.
[00:26:44] Justin Kendall: Okay. Would the people of Boston miss this if it went away?
[00:26:49] Zoe Licata: Yeah, I think so.
[00:26:50] Justin Kendall: Do you think there's some charm to it?
[00:26:52] Zoe Licata: There's charm to it when you're not stuck in traffic because of it. And even then, if you are stuck in traffic, when you see that it's a sterile truck, there's still a little chuckle that comes out. So it's part of the charm.
[00:27:05] Justin Kendall: Miss that charm. Although I don't miss being stuck in Boston traffic.
[00:27:09] Zoe Licata: There's got to be traffic anyway. So I guess if the reason is because someone didn't read the sign and now their truck is split in half, but no one's injured. Okay. Add some excitement to the road, I guess.
[00:27:22] Justin Kendall: There's got to be a thought process that goes on too when you're in that truck and you're just like getting right up there and you're like, man, that bridge is a little low, but I think I can do it.
[00:27:32] Zoe Licata: The guy who works, I wish I remembered his name, the man who works with the cleanup jobs, he said, People have run away. People have done it and they're like, oh, no, and just have tried to flee. He said that it's not actually a lot of college kids. So college kids get a lot of bad rep saying, hey, they're coming in, moving to college. They don't know the rules. No, he said it's mostly commercial vehicles and like delivery trucks.
[00:27:57] Justin Kendall: There's just no way out once you're like on it. Right.
[00:28:00] Zoe Licata: Yeah, once you're on that strip of road, I mean, there are lots of signs everywhere saying, hey, if you are over this height, get off now. You are not going to make it. They warn you in advance or before you even get on that street, but not everyone's paying attention. And it's just, it's bound to happen. They think they can get away with it. Even the man himself said he had accidentally steroed one time and he's the expert. He was carrying some sort of equipment that had elevated slightly higher than he thought it was. And he steroed.
[00:28:30] Justin Kendall: Maybe don't feel so bad about it then if that guy has done it anyone can yeah, definitely check out the WBC Radio clip on Sterling because it is quite entertaining Well, I'm gonna go check that out and we will be back next week Happy Labor Day to everybody out there. Enjoy the weekend and help this category out
[00:28:56] Speaker 3: And that's our show for this week. Thank you for listening. The Brewbound Podcast is a production of BevNET CPG. Our audio engineer for the Brewbound Podcast is Joe Cracci. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt and our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smerlinski. Our designer is Amanda Huang. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your colleagues and friends and review us on your listening platform of choice. You can find our work at Brewbound.com. And we also welcome feedback and suggestions at podcast at Brewbound.com. On behalf of the entire Brewbound podcast team, thank you for listening. We'll be back next week.
