Beverage Dynamics is the largest national business magazine devoted exclusively to the needs of off-premise beverage alcohol retailers, from single liquor stores to big box chains, through coverage of the latest trends in wine, beer and spirits.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/751263
Holiday Beer "We put out a holiday series, with a new release every year. They are complex, high alcohol, cellar-friendly beers, with names that put a San Diego spin on The Twelve Days of Christ- mas," says Kiersten Winant, the company's marketing coordi- nator. "For our seventh year we are releasing Seven Sharks a Circling. It's an imperial smoked porter, brewed with a blend of caramel and smoked malts for bold flavors of chocolate and coffee and a little beach bonfire smokiness, as well. It will finish sweet and smooth." The 2011 beer in the series, Two Tortugas (a Belgian quad), developed a cult following and has been revived on a few oc- casions. It won't reappear for this holiday season, but will come back for the brewery's 20th anniversary. Some fans—and some members of "the Karl team"—are faithfully collecting the entire seasonal sequence, year by year. "One of the original goals was to brew big beers that can be cellared and enjoyed in a vertical tasting at the end of the series," Winant says. "The idea is each of these beers would improve with age in the hope that people will enjoy a bottle now and lay one down for later." Further north in Eugene, OR, Ninkasi Brewing Com- pany brews Sleigh'r Winter Ale for the cool months. The style, a dark alt beer, is an unusual choice and one that may be unfamiliar to many American beer drinkers. Alt beer has its origins in Düsseldorf, and is one of a handful of styles that com- bines elements of both ale and lager brewing: a hybrid that is fer- mented with ale yeast, but then conditioned at cool temperatures in the manner of a lager. The result is a beer that balances the fruity nature of an ale, with the crispness and smoothness of a lager. At 7.2% ABV, Sleigh'r is stronger than most alts. "Sleigh'r has been on our seasonal lineup since 2009," says Ali AAsum, communications director at Ninkasi. This winter seasonal features "layers of deeply toasted malt balanced by just enough hop bitterness to make it deceivingly drinkable." In addition to the alt beer, Ninkasi is brewing Noir, a coffee milk stout. "This is the second year we've released Noir. As a Special Release Series beer, it's only around for four months of the year, September through December," AAsum adds. Commenting on Ninkasi's approach to winter seasonals, AAsum says, "Instead of taking the route of seasonally-spiced beers, we play up the dark, warming complexities for the season by working with rich malts." FESTIVE PROMOTIONS Many breweries release their holiday seasonals with little fanfare, relying on the newness to attract customers. Others look to spe- cial packaging or large-format bottles to grab attention. Retailers know the appeal of simply shelving the holiday bounty together where customers can browse. At Devil's Backbone, the winter promotion efforts are more elaborate, focused not on winter beers, but on a holiday display program promoting the brewery's three year-round beers from the brand family know as the Base- camp Favorites. The goal of the holiday display program is to have consistent messaging across all channels: off-premise display and sam- pling, print advertising, social media and radio. "Within the brand target markets, wher- ever wholesalers and ac- counts are participating in the program, the consumer can in theory see the holi- day display piece in a mag- azine when they open it, they can hear about it when they're driving to the store, and they can see it in front of them when they're actually in the store," Lipscomb says. One could be forgiven for think- ing that this multi-pronged marketing approach is a result of AB InBev's acquisi- tion of Devil's Backbone last April. But Lipscomb credits the brewery's own in-house sales team. "This is actually the same campaign we ran last year for the holiday dis- play program, so these are examples of what our marketing team has been putting together on our own. Our goal is to have this all-encompassing holiday message going to the consumer in as many channels as we can." Whether brewery promotional efforts are ambitious or modest, the winter and holiday seasonals give retailers ample opportunity to promote beer as refreshment, with meals, for en- tertaining or even for holiday gifts. The growing interest in full- er-flavored beer is easy to satisfy in short months of the year. BD JULIE JOHNSON was for many years the co-owner and editor of All About Beer Magazine. She has been writing about craft beer for over twenty years. She lives in North Carolina, where she was instrumental in the Pop the Cap campaign that modernized the state's beer laws. "OUR GOAL IS TO HAVE THIS ALL-ENCOMPASSING HOLIDAY MESSAGE GOING TO THE CONSUMER IN AS MANY CHANNELS AS WE CAN." 28 Beverage Dynamics • November/December 2016 www.beveragedynamics.com