119 - CODO's 2026 Beer Branding Trends Review Q&A

0:00I want to wait till they're at least 10 before they hear those slurs. gotta gotta have the context for the for the slurage the context is this is why your dad is f***ed up yeah yeah our parents didn't raise us they put us in front of like free hbo week and we all saw predator 2 hell yeah made us made us really really afraid of voodoo shamans

0:39Hey, Cody, what's up? Not a whole lot, Isaac. How are you doing today? Cody, I'm phenomenal. Hey, today we are going to wrap up our 2026 Beer Branding Trends Annual Report. It's been a minute. It's been a long ride. We spent two months putting out exclusive newsletters and podcasts, and along the way have received about two dozen really fun questions. from our little more than 11 ,000 newsletter subscribers now. So I'll cut the big preamble here, and I'll just say that we've grouped these and combined them and have grabbed about half a dozen that I think are fun and I am interested to talk to you about.

1:18And let's just answer them now. Do we have any housekeeping or should we just roll? I am limber and ready. All that cracking noise I heard before we got going here. All right. Q1 is on mid-strength beer.

1:38Howdy, Cotto. How do you see mid-strength shaking out in the market long term? Seems like it's in a no-man's land between non-alcoholic and full-strength beer. And I'm not sure consumers are willing to pay the same for it that they would for an NA. This is the main critique leveled against the segment, and we've heard it from wholesalers and retailers directly. There is some truth to it, at least for now. I'm going to kind of throw it back to you. Do you have any thoughts here, Cody? I think we both see a lot of potential in this segment, and it's worth saying that we see potential relative to where the beer market is today.

2:12So not potential compared to like a decade ago. To get there, however, I think a lot of the category needs built out. So specifically, breweries need to be educating consumers on what mid-strength beer is since the lack of definition is part of why the category would struggle right now. It's kind of that. There's a no man's land because nobody's really drawn the border. And this goes all the way down to like, what do we even call it? You know, is it mid-strength beer? Is there another term that's more catchy? But then most importantly, articulating for people, you know, if you're interested in moderation, you should really be drinking, checking out products like this.

2:49I don't know if it's going to be out. I don't even remember the order of these things anymore. But I had a great conversation with Mason from Small Beer. And he and I dove into the language side. So keep an eye out for that, listener. There are, speaking of, there are a handful of dedicated brands out there carrying that torch right now. Small Beer is one of them. Dad's Drink is a fun one. We haven't seen many, you know, kind of what we're missing are established breweries that are kind of putting one out as a sub-brand. Or a flagship might be early, but, you know, like a dedicated sub-brand. Harpoon launched low-key.

3:22But there hasn't been, other than that, you know, we're not really seeing too much movement. But to your point about consumer education, that is what we're missing. I know Boston Beer isn't really in a position. Well, that's not true at all. They just introduced a light bulb FMB or some ungodly creation. Print money with that thing. What's that? They're going to print money with that thing. Oh, yeah, they will. Yeah. My wife will drink light bulbs in the garage with me. I was going to say Boston Beer probably isn't in a position to be making bets. But what they're not doing right now is making beer bets, I should say.

4:00We need someone at that scale to launch something like this and really cut the ice. In previous years, that would have been Boston beer. But we need a Sierra. It's definitely not going to be New Belgium. But yeah, we need someone big to do it. Think about the non-alcoholic category before athletic brewing, specifically non-alcoholic beer. Was there one? Right. Well, think about how outrageous something like athletic would have seemed. If you were just talking about that, you know, but then it came along and it happened and now things are completely different. And I kind of see a similar scenario here, but they came out and spent lots of money on category building.

4:40When they, when they hit the scene, it was like, they were just throwing down as much, you know, whatever they could do to get in front of people and say, Hey, you know, this is what we're doing. This is what's going on. That cleared the way for other brands to follow along. So they reinvented a category that was pretty much a joke. You know, it's like people would like nudge each other and make jokes about duels. And that was the extent of it. And they helped reinvent that. So, you know, I see something, a path like that for mid-strength for, you know, small beer, whatever the name is. So the question was, how do we see mid-strength shaking out long term?

5:16I'm going to try not to make predictions ever again. I think I'm getting out of the prediction game, given what's happened over the last five or six years. But I will say that – I'll kind of speak for us here, but just say that I think mid-strength has all the makings. So all the value props, the distinct positioning ingredients, kind of macro trends of moderation and so forth. I think it has all these things going for it to become a real segment as opposed to just a handful of brands. selfishly, I hope that's the case. I know we've discussed this a lot in the show and you and I, you know, our opinion doesn't matter much here, but taking my branding agency hat off and just putting on my, I drink a lot of beer hat on, I love small beer.

6:03I wish it were local to me all the time. You know, more often than not these days, you know, I'm a craft drinker through and through, but I got Modelo in my fridge, you know, I mean, it just, I want something lower alcohol, but really flavorful. And if something were sub 4%, I would gladly switch to that. I want to drink more and I don't want to feel the effects of it. And that's what small beer is. That's what it delivers. It's a shame we can't talk about yet because I feel like they're going to be right here in the next year or so riding the wave of this category. They will. And we'll have on to talk about that work when it's time.

6:43So we probably have to redact that, but stay tuned. So let's stay here for a moment, actually. If the segment does grow, I think it's safe to say we're not bringing – well, I don't know if it's safe to say. I'm hedging. It's too early to hedge. We're probably not bringing new consumers into beer. We could debate that, but I think it's definitely targeting existing beer drinkers. We've done some pretty deep consumer research for a few recent projects in this space. Can you share some of that or just talk about it in broad strokes for our listeners? I don't think there's like a revelation here, you know, that this is predominantly millennial, elder millennial into younger Gen X kind of play.

7:24So I think people who grew up in the current craft wave and are in the process of or have already cut back on alcohol consumption. This is, you know, not a new conversation. we see the real opportunity here to take share away from NA beer and alcoholic beer alike because the main value prop of a mid strength beer is moderation you know you can still drink beer and you know almost like a buildable buzz you know you're taking little baby steps and that's just a borrow language we see in our cannabis work but you can still have the overall outcome of lower alcohol intake and drinking less by one metric at least and we know that in a beer, you know, in beer drinkers, at least from data that we've seen, overwhelmingly, they still consume alcohol.

8:09So you don't have someone that's genuinely on the wagon, sober, reaching for an NA beer. You know, I'm sure those people do exist out in the world, but it's something like 90 to 95 % reported from surveys by Athletic Brewing, as an example, that report drinking traditional alcoholic beer and, you know, NA beer within the same week, if not the same occasion. So it's a really, like it's mixed. It's really checkered. How many genuine addicts are grabbing in a beer? I don't, I'm not making a joke there. I can't, I don't know to put a number on that, but I would think it's pretty low just because, you know, you're just a hop, skip and a jump away from the problem.

8:48It doesn't really solve anything. But again, you know, that points towards a goal of moderation more than outright sobriety. And I'll, you know, I'll call them older because they're us, they're people our age, But let's say mid-30s and up. So if mid-strength beer can catch on, we think that would be a phenomenal cohort. Has full spending power, by the way, to tap into. So folks a little bit younger than us and up. I know the answer here, or at least our opinion. But just for the listener, is there any world in which this could be a younger LDA play? Yeah, sure. With the right lifestyle messaging, positioning.

9:25Yeah, probably so. So if I were going to invest in a mid-strength brand, though, I think a little bit older, someone who's already looking for moderation opportunities and you're not having to go, hey, this is beer. I'm introducing beer to you. And then also, hey, it's mid-strength beer is a little bit more of a tough path versus just, hey, drink this thing that's perfect for what you're looking for. I think it's a much more clear proposition. Coming back to the idea that we see in broader culture, but BevAlk for sure, that always from a marketing standpoint, everyone obsesses over teenagers and younger consumers because those are the people that drive culture traditionally.

10:05But when you think about Bev Alk or beer specifically, you just don't – it's like everyone forgets that – like the first thing that jumps to mind is that like with young kids, like 22, 23-year-old, like in many cases, they might not have developed a taste for beer. So why are we going to try to sell – like why are we going to go all in on trying to sell them a beer-flavored replacement, whether that's an NA beer or a mid-strength beer for something that they don't really consume or enjoy yet? It just never – it never – it's not impossible at all. But I bet if we dug into athletic data, I bet that it's overwhelmingly this group that we're talking about.

10:43Oh, sure, sure. Which goes back to your point about – I know this wasn't the original. I mean we asked the question 10 minutes ago. But I don't think this comes from 22-year-olds. I think it definitely comes from older folks and from NAB or specifically is where it shakes out. But yeah, I don't know. Random thought there. Yeah, it's like you have the two axes. you know you're trying to make a positioning graph and you have some white space you know I think something that gets glossed over oftentimes when you do that type of exercise is you need to interrogate why there's open space there yeah you know if you were going to make a product like this for someone who's like newly legal drinking age even if it technically was a beer I don't know that it would I don't know if the liquid would actually resemble beer all that much if it was going to catch on with that crowd because again You're taking several things for granted when you put a beer in front of a young person right now.

11:37And the fact is they're just not into it like we were. And there's probably a lot of different reasons for that. But, you know, yeah, there's probably a reason why you can't jump from I'm a kid who never drank before to here's a mid-strength beer. You know what that is, right? So maybe there's an opportunity there, but depending on how it works and the language around it could just be a dead end. I am 95 % certain in one of our last couple books is probably the Beyond Beer Handbook. I wrote about this idea and I said something under the header about like, not all the glitters is gold. And I made a really dumb example to be funny, but then like that thing ended up being made by a pretty high profile.

12:23I don't remember what it is, so I'm kind of shitting the bed here, but go read that book and I guess look for that Easter egg. you know, Quasimodo predicted this. All right. Question two. On the hidden risk of launching a non-alcoholic brand. I see your point, but no hangover is the biggest value prop for an NA brand, or at least it is when reaching for beer-like equivalent. So how do you balance this messaging? Ignoring it seems to miss an important point. I just want to quickly mention that our recommendation wasn't to ignore this at all, but to be conscious of the issue. It's easy to talk out of both sides of your mouth when you're doing this sort of, when you're releasing a product like this and marketing it and positioning it.

13:04The risk is not just saying that one of your products is superior to another, but that you are active, or rather that your kind of flagship, your full strength, whatever beer, is actively hurtful to your health. I think that makes sense. What do you think? Well, I remember when we were talking about that specifically too. It's like, if you were dealing only, like your company does not touch a drop of actual alcoholic beer and you're doing only non-alcoholic beer and you want to talk about the hangover issue, I think you have much more leeway to do that. But I think what we were speaking about, probably for the benefit of most of our listeners who are making beer and are curious about NA or what, you know, launching a kind of product there is when you bring up the hangover thing, you're also casting shade on whatever percentage of your other company, probably the majority of your business that you're already engaged in.

13:56So we're not telling people not to bring that up. We're saying, keep in mind the rest of your business and what you're saying about that when you bring that thing up. So yeah, it's a super important value proposition. Certainly doesn't need to be the most important message, you know, should be listed. calories, interesting adjuncts or flavors, whatever it is, carb count, whatever it is. But from the broader standpoint, and this is why we view these sorts of projects as brand architecture and strategy engagements first, not a shortcut because it still requires a lot of work to build the brand properly, but there are several brand architecture solutions to this problem.

14:34The most obvious being launching the NA or cannabis brand as an endorsed brand. Why? Because then you have - I'll play the part of the listener. Sure. Why? Because then you have more buffer between this parent brand that you're making that, you know, in this case makes alcoholic beer and this new brand. So you can more safely then at that point lean into that. You have a little bit of space between those things. And you're not necessarily speaking anti-alcohol, but the language that you're using can frame alcoholic products in a worse light compared to whatever it is you're selling. So just something to be cognizant of.

15:08Still need to be careful how you manage that messaging, what channels you're talking about it on. But that's way in the weeds. You could even do a shadow endorsement. And you can learn about that in our third book, which is the Beyond Beer Handbook, I believe. One other thought, and we can move on here. We usually recommend looking at this kind of class of products. We urge our clients to anyway. Look at these class of products as being additive as opposed to being reductive. So, yes, you stripped out alcohol. There's no alcohol. There's no hangover. Great. What is it that you're actually providing other than that?

15:42What's the benefit to me, the consumer? What do I get from drinking this just versus what you're moving? So there's no alcohol. What does that do for me? I can drink it anytime, anywhere. I can take it anywhere. I don't have to worry about driving after drinking it. I can stay present and still scratch whatever itch it is that I'm after. You know, like I just, I know you and I have talked about it many times. I want to drink beer all day, every day. I'm not an alcoholic. I just want to, I love beer. But, you know, I can't do that because I'd be a piece of shit if I started drinking, you know, 11 a.m.

16:14like your boy used to do. So think about your messaging like this. Prioritize it. Make sure that you're not leading with the obvious claims to frame your other products negatively. Honestly, that's a 30-second answer to this question. That's it. And to your point earlier, just to hone in on that, if you're a cannabis brand, if you're dedicated in a brand, yeah, I'd go all in on this messaging, just to be clear. Like, that is very important. Yeah, that's probably the piece that was missing from the question. Yeah, it really is. I mean, the threat here, like if you're, yeah, we're not talking about like, oh, don't, don't, don't cast dispersions on your competition.

16:48No, like, f*** your competition. Like, go hard on it. But if you have other stuff in your portfolio, be wary of that. All right, next cue. If a small brewery wanted to dip its toes into the Function 2.0 slash Beyond Beer World, do you have a general recommendation for where to even begin? Our team has some ideas, but we always start discussing which products we could make. That seems like we're jumping the gun. Oh man. Yeah. There's a lot that goes into this. I think we can just spitball here, but a non-exhaustive list of the things you need to be thinking about here would probably be starting with your overall positioning as it stands today.

17:30And we're just going to kind of take you through the rubric we use when we help clients figure this out. It's everything we captured in our third book. I feel like we're talking about that book a lot today, but yeah, that's just how it broke. So understanding what you stand for, who you serve, what products you make, how you're known in the market, how people regard you, how they think about you, how they talk about you. And the goal here is to understand where you can credibly take your brand or not take it. We're starting here so we can understand where our parent brand can exist. That doesn't mean that we cannot launch new products under a parent brand, but what we're trying to do when we work with our clients to helping them launch new products is to figure out in most cases to what extent their parent brand comes through on this new product.

18:14So you really need to start there. I know it's exciting to go jump into the deep end and start figuring out naming and positioning and packaging for this new thing, but you got to kind of start at the parent brand level. I'll also tell you that it's not uncommon for us to get into a project with a client that has a very clear vision for what they want. And then after just a conversation or two, we all kind of end up deciding that the approach that they had kind of come to the table with wasn't gonna work because it just doesn't jive with, again, where their parent brand is now or where they wanna take it.

18:45So for the ninth time, I think, starting there is really one of the most important things you can do. I know, again, it's not as sexy as you wanted us to answer that question with like, you need to do a hard tea or a coffee or an RTD or a cannabis thing. But really, you do need to start the upstream with the parent brand because there are knock-on effects for how you bring a new thing to market. You need to think about your wholesaler agreements, your retailer relationships, your different marketing channels. I could probably keep going, but I don't know. I want to stop talking. What do you think?

19:23I mean, I agree with everything you said there. You absolutely have to start by looking at what you're doing and your reputation and how people feel about you and what it is you're trying to accomplish or have accomplished. I think that's a great start because you'll probably find opportunities that are a natural extension of what you've already been doing. But another way to think about it is just to look at the market itself. And there's a couple different ways to look at that. You know, look at the competitive set. But look at what's moving and what's working. What would get out there and actually get people excited?

19:54So talking with wholesale partners, I mean, they can shine some light on that. If you have good relationships with folks to talk to, I would talk with retailers as well. Get out there, walk the shelf, see what's selling. Thinking about your community too and what people do at your brewery, what people do in your town or around in your market, what people get up to. I think there's going to be opportunities there as well. Again, this is kind of like a big puzzle. You're looking at all these pieces and trying to figure out the smartest way to put it together that lines up with the market and lines up with your reputation and what you do and lines up with something hopefully your brewer actually wants to make or engage in.

20:34So you're trying to connect all those dots and, you know, you're going to see those big major players, those broad liner brands. They're always moving. It doesn't mean that that's something that you need to do. You don't have their resources, so you can't necessarily take their approach. But it will give you a sense of what's there and what people are looking for. You know, is there anything interesting? You know, are there any diamonds in the rough? And again, you're just trying to feel out the market and get a good understanding of what people are after. You touched on something there, and this maybe could be a standalone episode, but how much do you think – there's no right or wrong answer, but I'm just curious your opinion.

21:12C-Note. How much does passion come into this? I know we've talked about it maybe on the show before or we wrote about it. I can't remember, but we're not going to name them, obviously. But we have a client that put out a seltzer kind of back in like 19, and they hate seltzer. The guy. Like I'm thinking of his beautiful smile right now, but he held his nose and made it and it's become a decent part of their business. He still doesn't like it. Do you think that you need to be passionate about a product to bring it to market? No. And let's say – because like the answer there obviously is no because I'm really passionate about printed grocery bags.

21:50No one gives a f**k about like most of the stuff in our world. Yeah. But like for, you know, what we're doing here in BevAlk. Also, you know, expecting everything you do to line up with the shallow and whimsical wiles of the market is foolish. I mean, you know, there is this kind of like inhuman numbers game that happens and trying to hang your hat on that. I don't know. Again, you're not one of those big boys. You don't control the distribution channels, which is the real secret of all of this. However, that's kind of cynical, and I think it will serve you better if you are excited about the product.

22:25And that's because of the type of business we're in. I think with craft beer, part of that initial explosion and success and that ride that we saw in the 2010s was driven by that. People's passion was harnessed there, and it became associated with the product itself. Having a kind of a grouchy brewer that listens to loud metal and loves what they make is part of the package. Now, if it's something that you actually enjoy yourself, whether that's you or the founder or the sales director or the field rep, whoever it is, they're going to be a great frontline server in your taproom if you're more passionate about what you're doing.

23:02You know, I think that's obviously going to shine through, but no, of course not. You know, do you think someone at Campbell's Soup is really excited about, you know, what they're putting out there? I'm trying to, is that 3D printed chicken? Yeah, yeah. What you're talking about there? I was well that's really rude while you were talking through that thank you for dropping the the oh god the candles that thing is so funny I feel like we've been in such a crazy news cycle for the last like yeah yeah some 20 years have just gotten buried yeah okay yeah so shout out to whoever whatever PR team buried that I guess going to multiple wars and whatnot buried it but But yeah, check out the Campbell Soup PR team.

23:47Let's actually give, again, I think everything we just said is correct and would be how we would approach a project. But let's actually just touch on, because this person was like, hey, what do we make? So what have we, very anecdotal, we're one agency in a sea of many. What have we been working on the last year? We've been working on spirit-based hard teas. A lot of cannabis infused in a beer. Not at cannabis. We'll just call it cannabis, whatever. Apologies to the pedants out there. Pet, pedants, pedants, pedantics. When is the last time we did a seltzer?

24:31I mean, non-alk ones, you know, hop waters. Regularly, yeah, yeah. Sorry, an elk seltzer. Okay, I think that hop water. we've done a handful of those. I think that segment's kind of, I mean, really what we're talking about with the messaging around mid-strength earlier, I think that segment's struggling to gain traction, much to our chagrin. People don't understand what it is. The cost is definitely a hurdle when you boil it down. It's just sparkling water. But I don't know, anything else? I don't know how helpful this is at all to Alan. Sorry, Alan. Yeah, I don't know. Did you bring up, did you bring, I wasn't listening to you at all.

25:11Cider? I wasn't listening either, but no, I don't think I said cider. Yeah, we have been doing a lot of cider, haven't we? Yeah. I shit, apologies to...

25:25We're going to have to redact all those, but yeah. Cider is always a good thing to think about. I know it comes down to licensing. It's interesting, 50 states, 50 different sets of rules and laws, but it seems like getting a wine license. You know, it's usually a wine license. It's kind of easier and cheaper maybe than a distilling or brewing license. Obviously not an attorney here, but just kind of seems like something that you can easily do. Not easily making the thing, but, you know, it's not as hard to get into as like a spirit-based RTD if you're a brewery that's never done any Beyond Beer beverage.

26:01You know, it's a lower hurdle or lower barrier to entry. So, yeah, cider is a good one. coffee. We haven't talked about that very much in the show here, but we think more breweries, I think we have a question on this later too, but need to be exploring coffee, canned coffee for the question asker here. Yeah. We are working on a handful of those. Yeah. Out of nowhere. I don't know if everybody should be thinking about that. Yeah. Caveat. It's just a little different when you have a product that doesn't usually have alcohol. So I don't know. I'm assuming you're not suggesting alcoholic coffee products necessarily or not.

26:43I'm not, but that would be hilarious. I still don't understand. I think the move of becoming a beverage company, so a broader Bev company and producing non-beer things, opening up different day parts, something like coffee is interesting. But yeah, I mean, The route to market's weird. The product dev, making sure it's shelf-stable is weird. It's a whole different world when you get into that space, which I think anyone that's done it can attest. So, I don't know. We are rambling and wasting Alan's time. Do you have anything to add here before we move on? Just don't underestimate the amount. If you're branching into a new category, it's going to take time.

27:26you know there's a lot of moving parts to consider and you're potentially getting into the nuts and bolts of something that you haven't done before allow yourself some time to get it right you know think of the first launch as a soft one treat everything you do with it as an experiment and try to measure and see where you can take it and see if the potential is even there and that way you don't overextend yourself you don't get too behind something that isn't going to work or if you do stumble on an awesome opportunity, you'll be able to take it. All right, question four is on coffee. Actually, I said it was gonna come later and I was technically right.

28:04So this question is... The coffee programming section is interesting. Do you think that should fly under a brewery's parent brand or its own thing? Also, do you see this as an off or on-premise play? I'm gonna throw it to you first, Cody. I would say it could. It's gonna be case by case. so should the coffee brand fly under your brewery's parent brand or become its own thing depends on your market it depends right i mean like that's that's the only answer i think there is a world where you know you use maybe like a linked name or part of your name um but you know you you tag on you know roastery or whatever the whatever the the the qualifier is going to be I think maybe people would want to see a little bit of a space there just because it's exciting, it's new.

28:55If you really want to grab someone's attention, I think maybe a little bit of something new there, whether it's even just like a new color scheme or something really surface level like that. And then the question as an offer, on-premise play, definitely on-premise, right? You want people at your facility for longer during the day to help pay for it. This opens up a whole new category for folks to do that. If you're smart, like some of the breweries I've seen around here, you've got a whole cafe set up where people can take meetings during the day or peck away on the laptop or whatever it is. And then people just hang out after they work and go over to the brewery side and drink beer, ideally anyway.

29:39But we're seeing that that kind of like greater campus model, a brewery as a place to just go hang out for five, six hours. And I think that that is probably primarily the beneficial thing versus putting a retail product out and not having the leverage or the time or the resources to be out in the world and convince people at market why they should be buying that thing. I think the majority would be on-premise play, at least for the folks that we talked to and the projects we worked on. I think it also makes sense for most breweries out there, just given their scale. You know, most breweries, the average brewery is something like 400 barrels a year or something like that.

30:21So do you really need to be putting your energy and effort into canning a coffee if you're interested in it? I mean, if you see an opportunity, for sure. But yeah, on-premise play or on-premise, 100%. I remember, and this was like 12 years. When did we work with North Pier? I mean, I remember Jay putting out a nitro coffee, and it was like the most innovative thing we had ever heard. This was like 2011. Yeah, and this was years and years ago. But yeah, I mean, absolutely. And they sold the shit out of it because people just come in and go, yeah, it's like a little early for me. I'm just here for lunch.

30:53But then you sell like a$6 nitro coffee. Yeah, they specifically write on a golf course too. So not unusual to have guys coming in after like an early tea at like 1030. So are you going to sell those guys your imperial stout? That might be tough. But if you have a delicious nitrogen boosted coffee, I think you would have a lot of takers there. Sounds good. I'm going to go downstairs and get one. F*** this podcast. I know. I had to stop drinking it. Shout out to Tinker. We got a nitro coffee, nitro keg at the office at all times. I drink it like I'll have an ounce and a half. and that'll be yeah that's my point i'll fill up my 16 ounce no don't be like that why why do i have a heart attack whenever i yeah yeah i stopped doing that a long time ago because my sleep got all screwed up because you're an adult just found my limits that's all standardized brewing out of ohio fertile ground out of jackson yep yep uh we can't we'll redact this but uh from i made a mistake because i started naming clients which means we're going to forget some.

31:57Do we have anyone else that's doing heavy, heavy coffee work? Big Lug, certainly. Yeah. Yeah, they do. And especially at their breakfast spot up in Noro, right next to the canteen. They do awesome, awesome coffee there. We have a lot of clients at different scales, folks making eight, nine, 10 ,000 barrels a year down to small groups that are - Gugman. Gugman has that awesome - They're phenomenal. They have their own small house on their property next to their brewery that has a great little cafe and that. So, yeah. They make stellar pilsners. Okay. Yes, they do. Next question. Regarding the nostalgia branding trend, do you ever see this waning?

32:38Okay. This is a much broader question and topic than just beer. Nostalgia is an entrenched part of advertising. I don't see it ever going away, ever. I don't want to speak in absolutes because, you know, I think saying that it will never not be a, or say that it will never not be a thing, but I genuinely don't see how it couldn't be just as compelling 200 years from now as it is today, as it was for our parents or our grandparents, because everyone has some nostalgia for something. That could be a nostalgia for, a beautiful weekend at the park with your kids and you were out too late and you just had a beautiful evening and your phone was left in the car and you had ice cream afterward.

33:25It could be this beautiful thing I had last weekend that I'm thinking about right now instead of talking to you. Or it could be nostalgia for being a kid and not having any real responsibility if you were lucky to have a childhood like that. So the idea of, or for college, or for when you just met your partner or whatever. The idea of evoking that and tapping into that to sell someone they don't need is always going to be a very important arrow in a marketeer's quiver. Now, there could be a more interesting take on this conversation about the era. So let's speak to the folks who are listening to this are likely overseeing brands.

34:07They're they're building brands, they're selling beer, they're building breweries, whatever. There's an era or a period that we kind of tap into or that we encode our visuals with. That will always shift, right? I mean, I think we're seeing that as we speak. So when you think about traditional beer branding, like craft beer, capital C, capital B, it's always that nostalgic regional aesthetic or has been, you know? So kind of the de facto lager look and feel, 50s, 60s, 70s, kind of maybe mid-century or even post-war. That's usually where it lands. But right now, we're seeing this just big blender of 80s at a moment, 90s for a little bit.

34:50Y2K was big. I don't think it is now, but like for a blip and time. I'm rambling completely. No one's listening, so it doesn't matter. Do you have any thoughts on this? I don't know that I even made a point. the um human beings apologies yeah nostalgia is it's like just part of us you know it'll always be there try to pick trends and not fads you know try to pick stuff with legs on it there you can get caught in the moment sometimes and then here in two three years it can look kind of corny that happens sometimes and and also you know not everybody views things the same so you're in One man's golden age is another man's hateful whatever.

35:31So just keep that in mind. But yeah, no, I think you covered that pretty well. We touched on that pretty heavily in our Nostalgia podcast, an episode or two back. So go listen to that for more of a deep dive there. And let's now get to the, if question five was penultimate, this is the ultimate. So this would be question six, our final one. And then we're done, done, done with 2026 beer branding trends. On to bigger and better things. Question six comes from, who was this? Was this Sarah? This is from Sarah. The HyperProvenance newsletter was interesting. And I agree, we don't see anyone doing this in our market.

36:13Not sure we have the scale to do it right, though. Do you think this is solely a move for larger breweries? Or can a smaller brand like ours, around 900 barrels for reference, pull this off as well? Uh, yeah, I think you definitely can. I think that draft is going to be a major part of this, actually a potentially very large part of it, uh, for, for gaining local traction. So just because you're not big and also 900 barrels, decent size, but just because you're not big, meaning you can't, you know, get three truck loads of painted cans and saturate the market doesn't mean this isn't a thing to do.

36:51And just as a reminder, what we mean by hyper-provenance are brands that seek to completely and clearly own a local area with a very, very pointed and on the nose. Alabama Beer Co. is a fun example that we've been – we don't work with them, but we've been following them for a minute. I mean, that's a great example. Named after a very specific place and targeted just at those people. Yes, there can be an aspirational angle to that. You know, Malibu Brewing can travel. Someone, you know, everyone in the world knows Malibu and thinks it's beautiful. So that can travel a little bit. Denver Beer Co., you know, like names after places.

37:31Yes, it can work for a smaller brewery. However, if you're a larger brewery, I'm surprised we don't see this from like every top 50 brand, you know, especially the ones that are having two conversations. We got to get back to our backyard. We got to, you know, we got to like remind people that we're from here or here or here, but then we're also trying to, you know, get out of these markets. So I just think it's. Yeah, we're trying to open three new states. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Okay, well. It's like, I mean, you kind of should maybe just choose the former, but hey, who am I? I mean, so a question like that, like you can always work toward this, right?

38:06Like just because, you know, this is an aspirational thing. Like the idea of controlling a community is like really funny actually to think about. Like, this is our turf. But of course you can move to do this. And I think it goes to thinking about the tactics of how people find and buy your product. You said draft could be big. Do you have a cool tap handle? Do you have cool point of sale, like 10 tackers to give your account so that people go, hey, what's the story here that says your town's name on it or whatever? so that people just automatically absorb that and start to associate that without even thinking about it.

38:44How are you putting that out in front of folks? Do you take advantage of things like delivery vehicles or your company vehicles to get your name out there? All of that kind of stuff. And you don't have to do every single one of those things, but all of those things will help you build that story. And just because you make 900 barrels of beer doesn't mean you can't make those moves to do that. Yeah. I think another kind of major opportunity, a coup even, if you could pull this off. If you think about Rheingeis, like I was in Sensi recently with my kids. We went down to the zoo there. And I saw probably three Rheingeis shirts.

39:25Made me happy. I've seen people wearing beer shirts. Or think about Noda, right? I mean, like people that when your shirt can kind of become, Sun King here in Indy, When your shirt can kind of become the – just like the local icon, almost like a sports team. You'll see a Colt shirt or a Pacers shirt or a Sun King shirt here in Indy. That is unreal. And that's another opportunity. I mean just the hyper-providence thing could almost become – the beer could almost be secondary. It could be more of a lifestyle positioning or just a celebration of the city or the place that you're from. I mean, I think that can be a huge, huge opportunity.

40:10Obviously, there can be a lot of revenue to come from that, but there can be special in a lot of different ways. So, yeah. You have anything else to add or are we going to kick off this 1130 presentation that we've been looking forward to for a week? Yeah, no. I mean, again, like it's a journey. You don't just snap your fingers and become the hyper-provenant whatever. That's not the game we're playing. Who decides? Yeah, exactly. They're not the hyper-provenant one. Yeah. It's not a Highlander scenario, and everything you do is a step toward that. It's a journey. So think about it that way. Think about it like a beautiful journey of a thousand steps.

40:54Wow. Another turning point. A fork second. And I wanted to introduce my children to the Highlander movie, speaking of Highlander, but I forgot how many slurs were in the first 13 minutes of that movie. Yeah. Yeah. That's a big thing with movies from that time. You got to vet that before you're shown hateful propaganda. I want to wait until they're at least 10 before they hear those slurs. Got to have the context for the slurage. The context is this is why your dad is f***ed up. Yeah, yeah. Our parents didn't raise us. They put us in front of like free HBO week and we all saw Predator 2. Hell yeah.

41:37Made us really, really afraid of voodoo shamans. Well, I don't think any of this will make it in the show. Thank you, Corey. Thank you.

41:48Thanks for listening to Beer Branding Trends. If you like what we're doing here, if you find this valuable, please rate and review us over on iTunes. And head over to BeerBrandingTrends.com to join more than 5 ,000 subscribers who receive our monthly email newsletter covering strategy, currents, and actionable advice from Kodo Design, a branding firm on the front lines of beer and beverage branding. Take care. We'll catch back up with you soon.