"Girl Beer" Joins The Industry's Biggest Trend
Regardless of what you read about the state of the industry, new beer brands are going to continue to launch in search of a fresh angle or niche. The model for many of these start-up beer companies is shifting to contract brewing, in part due to so much brewing capacity sitting idle. This also gives younger entrepreneurs without access to capital the opportunity to become operational faster, and with much less complexity. Many of us grew up through the rise of craft beer, where that physical location, complete with a tasting room and brewery tours, was so core to building a brand and loyalty. Today’s youth have new tools at their disposal though, which may disrupt the manner that young people, and young females in the case of Girl Beer, are marketed to.
I’m not sure anybody covers beer better than Kate Bernot. While speaking to Montana’s Brewers Association, she pointed out that when you look at the biggest trends in alcohol, the brand is planting the idea of how and when to drink it: Sunday Beer, Pizza Wine, Pool Pack…
My buddy Mark Gallo, an expert in CPG sales & marketing, expanded on this tweet with a TikTok talking about time & place. He adds other examples including Garage Beer which I talk about ad nauseam, Friday Beers, Tailgate Packs, Daytime IPA, Breakfast Beer, etc.
Chicago’s Off Color Brewing even built an entire series of beers around occasions such as Beer for Tacos, Beer for Pizza, Beer for Lounging, Beer for Ballgames, etc.
I’ll expand onto Kate and Mark’s trend that hits on how & when of this branding trend with the who? Who was the product built for, by, or who is the drinker aspiring to be? Think Mom Water, Skinny Girl Margarita, Real American Beer, Dad Strength, and the new brand launch that I want to talk about today: Girl Beer.
Pre-Launch TikTok
Back in June when “Girl Beer” was being piloted and pitched to retailers, a few can mocks leaked out. As a long time member of the beer industry, the first thought that came to mind was the negative reaction I anticipated from my wife, female colleagues, industry peers, and fellow enthusiasts who fight through stereotypes so that all beer is considered “girl beer”. I made a TikTok post about it, which reached a pretty wide 55K views, thus generating a significant amount of feedback:
If I had to estimate, I’d say 75% of the comments were negative, leaving plenty of positivity from the other 25% of people down to try it. Quite a few also said that the flavors sounded great, but they weren’t a fan of the name. What was especially noteworthy was when the regional buyer for a major chain reached out in my DMs. He mentioned how impressed he was with the founder, that he believed in her business plan, and intended to give her a chance. At that point I knew that Girl Beer was in business.
Girl Beer Goes Live
Fast forward three months and the brand has launched into Southern California Whole Foods and BevMo / GoPuff with the same two flavors that I saw on the mock-ups, Blueberry Lavender and Pineapple Yuzu. I am told that they have not partnered with a wholesaler yet, so the brand is currently being self-distributed. Pricing appears to be a $11.99/6-pack, putting it at National / Regional craft pricing, which is a tad steep for 4.2% 100 calorie beer, but far from out-of-bounds.
The packaging got a significant update in the final round with the cans becoming much less colorful, perhaps to downplay those “girly” stereotypes, but that’s just a guess. After sitting through an awesome presentation about GenZ insights and packaging trends at the BOPP Conference last month, thanks to Angie Meltsner of Tomato Baby Insights, Girl Beer’s packaging jives 100% with everything I learned.
Per the founder on LinkedIN:
We got on the topic of how cringe and ineffective consumer marketing can be, especially when traditionally male dominated products try to market to anyone that isn’t a man. This was overt in the beer industry where there were many attempts of overplayed, pink-washed beers. Simultaneously, we watched the rise of brands like Liquid Death that stood out in part because of their ability to flip narratives within tired categories - through humor, entertainment, creativity, and by being comfortable with going against what’s expected of a brand.
Over the following years, we concocted a dream of a weird, silly beer company that sought to bring the multitude of marketing and product observations we saw to the industry - an unexpected girl beer brand that subverts the traditional narratives of beer marketing and brings new flavor innovation to the category.
Positioning a brand around gender obviously requires a delicate balance. Through endless ad testing, branding iterations, focus groups, surveys, retail and investor conversations, crying at the club, crying in the car, crying on the way to work, and immense credit card debt, we’ve made something that we’re pretty proud of. We’re flipping the script of what you would think a “girl beer brand” would be with the help of an army of comedians and a bunch of beers for inspiration.
Beer Cruncher Reactions and Speculation
Fascinated to follow a beer brand being designed to market 100% toward women, likely GenZ specifically, compared to legacy brands like Coors trying to reach the broadest consumers, but directing specific campaigns toward women.
Curious if the founders ever hope to own their production, run a Girl Beer Taproom in LA, or if they prefer to stay lean and mean by outsourcing production and focusing on distribution. The latter seems most typical, but does contract brewing leave enough margin to build a sustainable business in the long term without massive scale? At $11.99/6-pack, perhaps! Or is the play to build the brand with an eventual exit and handoff to a larger company? I would have assumed that’s the likely play here, except I’m also…
Puzzled by the inclusion of hurray! on the can. Hurray was part of the original name for the beer before pivoting to Girl Beer and is a play on the founder’s name, Ray. It appears that they’re simultaneously building a Girl Beer, along with the parent company Hurray. Personally, I’d have let Girl Beer stand alone, at least in the early going, and not confuse the brand with a larger family of brands that doesn’t yet exist. If the plan was to grow, then sell, why brand Hurray on the can? So perhaps they do indeed hope to build a suite of different beverage brands. I like the think big mentality, I just don’t love contract brewing margins indefinitely.
Tipping my cap to the strategy of partnering with comedians to help get the word out. They have a natural knack for going viral on TikTok because of the nature of their content and clips from their stand-up sets. Comedy is a brutally tough industry, so providing up-and-coming talent with additional, passive income, could be a cost-effective and organic way to get the word out.
The Next Wave? 🌊
Just because the name Girl Beer caused me to tap the brakes doesn’t mean I’m not open minded to it being successful and interested in following its journey. I’ve had an absolute blast following the brand NOCA on TikTok, even though the product itself is not in my wheelhouse as a boozy bubbleless lemonade and tea. I believe we’re looking at the model for the next wave of beer brands and the biggest trend that nobody is talking is talking about (except Kate & Mark). Target a specific audience or occasion, name the brand after it, get it contract made, and use media/social partnerships to scale awareness efficiently. Like each era of beer trends, some brands make it through and become stalwarts in the industry, while others aren’t able to survive the medium-term and will disappear. At this point, its up to the execution.