What's in a Beer Name?
When the time came to choose Revolution Brewing’s “innovations” for 2023, we decided that our lineup was due for a new *year-round* IPA. Four years had passed since we’d released Hazy-Hero alongside our long-time flagship IPA Anti-Hero, and we felt our fans were ready for a current expression of how the style has evolved. How to make a new IPA compelling in 2023 was the critical question faced, but naming the brand turned out to be a fascinating marketing dilemma that I wanted to share. With brand extensions happening at a record pace, there’s easy plug-and-play solutions for riffing off an existing IPA’s framework. But easy often leaves me feeling uninspired and if it makes me feel that way, customers may as well.
When I went on the Beer Temple podcast to kick-off the year and offer 2023 predictions, co-host Chris Quinn predicted “brand extensions” as one of his big calls for this year. I asked for clarification because we’d already seen countless Voodoo Ranger iterations, new “Little Things” from Sierra Nevada, “Jacks” from Firestone Walker, “Monkeys” from Victory Brewing, and of course “Heroes” from us at Revolution Brewing. This was nothing new.
Bell’s Brewing had always created spin-offs of the iconic Two Hearted brand, but didn’t necessarily try to make EVERY IPA extend off their classic fish look. Attempts included brands like Bell’s Official (Hazy IPA) and Juicy Gossip (Juicy IPA) in recent years. Both failed to develop staying power and now under New Belgium’s leadership were replaced by the more intuitive names & recipes like Hazy Hearted and Change of Heart (rotating experimental IPA). As 2023 has ticked by, to Chris’ credit we have seen more and more breweries of all sizes go deeper into this IPA brand family model. Even Chris’ favorite beer Head Hunter from Fat Head’s (Cleveland, OH) and recent winner of best American IPA at the World Cup, just showed off a new imperial version.
Keeping it in the Family
For a hyper engaged consumer, brand extensions don’t exactly spark the imagination. The name is generally the same as the original with one word changed. The artwork is similar with a modification or two, and there’s rarely a story behind the brand outside the obvious. But the value isn’t in the depth of the brand, it’s in its simplicity. In an overwhelming world of beer brands, these extensions are simple to explain to distributors and retailers, simple to get your point across to customers, logical to be placed side-by-side for a billboard effect, and allow the brewery to focus their limited time and energy elsewhere.
As most craft breweries face a conflicting pressure to be both innovative AND more focused, connecting multiple brands under a common theme allows a unified focus that covers an entire family of beers. In other words, if four IPAs are connected under a single theme (Hero, Hearted, Voodoo Ranger), the brewery can market that theme instead of each individual recipe and kill four birds with one stone. If each brand is given its own completely unique brand name and personality, that certainly has advantages to it, but it makes representing each brand with ample support a tough proposition and messages get lost with the wider, less engaged customers.
Easy or Deep?
In order to give the necessary focus to the beers that deserve it the most, there’s value in having some brands be as intuitive as possible. At Revolution, Anti-Hero came in 2010 before there were practically any local IPAs in Chicago. While the brand can always use some love, Anti got in on the ground floor and doesn’t need a whole lot of explaining at the point. When it came time to launch a year-round Hazy IPA for the first time in 2019, many adventurous names were considered, but the Keep-it-Simple-Stupid philosophy behind Hazy-Hero won out. It was the best decision we could have made.
When it came time for 2023’s release though, we’d worked really hard on what turned into the final recipe using our test system and our variety pack to test features that would be woven into its DNA. The beer’s origin stemmed from a hybrid of philosophies between classic and hazy IPAs, seeking a mid-point between these two dimensions, as well the opportunity to feature exciting hops (HBC #586 & HBC #1019) on the horizon that we’d gotten early access to. The flavor brings out a juicy citrus and lush peach character to the point that you’d swear there’s fruit in it. A lot of marketers would have taken a look around the industry and declared it’s name Juicy-Hero. But I just couldn’t do it.
My goal was to help us launch the next great IPA that could help carry our business into the future and slapping Juicy in front of Hero just didn’t do the story and effort justice. With so many “Juicy” brands already in the market, it felt like it would be a flash in the pan name that we’d be discontinuing in 18-24 months. But man, juicy is easy and get’s the point across right away. We ultimately went with the name Infinity-Hero which conveys strength and intrigue, but tells you nothing intuitively about the beer. Our system of Hero=IPA helps get the consumer to the style, but leaves an educational hurdle to the brand and the need for prioritization. So prioritize, we did.
Theodore Roosevelt said that “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty…” I ultimately convinced myself that by passing on the easy route and putting in the work through campaigns, programs, activations, and even a free comic book, that we’d get Infinity-Hero’s point across and build a deeper appreciation for the recipe and backstory in the process.