After successfully extending the Truly Hard Seltzer brand with Truly Lemonade Seltzer — which has quickly become Truly’s second-best selling SKU — Boston Beer will debut Truly Iced Tea Hard Seltzer nationwide early next year.
“In the past year, Truly has outpaced our wildest projections,” the company wrote in a release. “In an increasingly competitive environment, Truly is the only hard seltzer brand that has grown share sequentially since the start of 2020.”
With success of Truly Lemonade, the leap to another beverage-inspired hard seltzer is a logical next step.
Truly Iced Tea Hard Seltzer will launch in variety 12-packs in January 2021 with four flavors: Lemon Tea, Raspberry Tea, Strawberry Tea and Peach Tea. Each checks in at 100 calories, 5% ABV and 1 gram of sugar.
“We’re very hopeful and optimistic that Tea could be as big as Lemonade,” Boston Beer CEO Dave Burwick said in a statement to Brewbound.
The new product is “a combination of refreshing hard seltzer with real brewed tea and fruit flavor,” according to a press release from Boston Beer.
“Think of a slightly sweet, cold glass of iced tea with a touch of fruit flavor and a bit of effervescence,” the company continued.
Truly Lemonade is available in variety 12-packs featuring Black Cherry Lemonade, Original Lemonade, Strawberry Lemonade and Mango Lemonade. The pack has earned $136.6 million in sales at multi-outlet grocery, mass retail and convenience stores year-to-date through August 9, according to market research firm IRI. It accounts for nearly 10% of the hard seltzer market, Truly said.
Lemonade “has plenty of room to grow,” Boston Beer said. “More importantly, it’s bringing mainly new drinkers in, growing the entire hard seltzer category by expanding what a hard seltzer flavor profile can be.”
Truly’s second product innovation for 2021 is Citrus Squeeze, a new flavor that features a “mix of orange, lime and grapefruit flavors with a bright, citrus taste and tropical undertones,” Burwick said. It will replace Orange in Truly’s citrus variety pack, and the packaging will be redesigned through a collaboration with artist Gemma O’Brien as part of the Truly Originals artist series. This marks the first time an artist in the series has designed packaging; previous collaborations involved T-shirts, koozies and other drinker giveaway items.
Variety packs account for nearly two-thirds of hard seltzer sales, and Truly’s portfolio is arranged accordingly. Its top four SKUs are all mix packs, three of which have sold more than $100 million at IRI-tracked off-premise retailers year-to-date through early August:
- Truly Berry Mix Pack, $147.6 million, +27.7% over the same period in 2019;
- Truly Lemonade Mix Pack, $136.6 million, new for 2020;
- Truly Tropical Mix Pack, $104.5 million, +237.4% over the same period in 2019;
- Truly Citrus Mix Pack, $70.7 million, +23.9% over the same period in 2019.
Boston Beer already has several brands in the hard tea space — Twisted Tea and Wild Leaf — but Burwick said he is not concerned about cannibalization.
“Truly Iced Tea is targeted to a different drinker and has a different proposition than Wild Leaf, so we think of them entirely separate from one another,” he said. “At its core, Truly Iced Tea is a hard seltzer and delivers on the expectation of effervescence and carbonation, but with more flavor and slight sweetness.”
Wild Leaf checks in at 100 calories, 5% ABV and 1 gram of sugar. It is available in three flavors: Black Tea with Lemon and Honeysuckle, Green Tea with Apple and Honey, and Black Tea with Peach and Mango. Launched in 2019, Wild Leaf donates a portion of sales to international rainforest conservation.
Twisted Tea, which the company launched in 2001, is the beer category’s 14th best selling brand family at IRI-tracked off-premise retailers. Year-to-date, its dollar sales have increased 31%, to $304.1 million, according to IRI data ending August 9.
“It’s a different product entirely with different benefits, so we’re confident we’ll continue to see growth,” Burwick said.
Earlier this week, Boston Beer announced plans to launch a non-alcoholic Samuel Adams branded offering, Just the Haze IPA, in 2021.