Des Moines, Iowa-based Exile Brewing Company is launching Exile Beverage Company to house all of its non-beer products. The first offering to come from the spinoff operation is a line of vodka sodas that are expected to hit retail shelves around the Memorial Day holiday.
The ready-to-drink, spirits-based canned vodka sodas will come in four flavors — Elderflower Mixed Berry, Grapefruit Tangerine, Pineapple, and Tropical — and will be sold in single-flavor 6-packs, as well as mixed 12-packs. Each 12 oz. can checks in at 5% ABV and 99 calories.
Exile sales manager Nick Cervine said higher ABV products aren’t a part of Exile’s company ethos, with the majority of its core offerings hovering around 5% ABV.
“We don’t really put high octane out as our flagships,” Cervine said. “We want it to be highly sessionable and highly drinkable. That’s how you get volume from it.”
Exile’s goal is to continue to reach more consumers in its home state of Iowa. The answer was creating a new identity along with new product lines for a set of people who either drink across categories or don’t drink beer while leveraging its brand equity, Cervine said.
Diversifying Exile’s product portfolio with beverages beyond beer is also about entering occasions throughout the day, Cervine said.
“There’s an entire demographic of humans that live here in Iowa that don’t drink beer, so they have no way of interacting with our brand,” he said.
Beyond occasions for alcoholic beverages, Exile Beverage Company will look to offer products for all times of the day.
“Whatever R&D that I want our team to pursue is going to be targeted at that very concept of ‘Hey, what’s our middle of the day or our lunch beverage?’” he said.
Exile’s vodka sodas will come with a suggested price point of $11.99 per 6-pack and $18.99 per 12-pack. Cervine said the company has seen higher priced beyond beer offerings, namely hard seltzers, hit a wall when they exceed price points above $19.99.
The canned cocktails will launch in Iowa before expanding to Exile’s full footprint of Illinois and Omaha, Nebraska. The focus initially will be on off-premise grocery stores, and Exile plans to feature the product at music festivals during the summer, including Hinterland in St. Charles, Iowa.
Exile sourced the vodka for the canned cocktails from Foundry Distilling Co. in Des Moines.
“We’re putting emphasis on making sure that we’re buying ingredients from our community,” Cervine said.
For Exile, the vodka soda line is about driving innovation in the state of Iowa. Cervine recalled how Exile began selling sour beer and another brewery owner told him that people would never drink sours. Now, it’s a part of that brewery’s business.
“I want to be back in that space, where we’re so far ahead of our peers here and in Iowa in terms of innovation that they think that we’re making a mistake and then it ends up being a part of their business later on,” he said.
Cervine said if Exile Beverage Company accounts for 10% of overall business by the end of next year, he would be “very happy.”
As for Exile’s beer business, sales of the company’s flagship Ruthie lager are up 40% year-to-date, Cervine said. Ruthie sales alone account for around half of Exile’s overall business.
Also on tap for 2022 is a collaboration series with Iowa breweries including Kinship and SingleSpeed Brewing. Exile is also launching two new year-round beers: Tico Time, a fruited tropical wheat ale with guava and dragonfruit, and Tursi Pils, a result of the company leaning into its lagering capabilities, Cervine said.
Meanwhile, Exile is shifting all of its products into cans, with the exception of Ruthie, Hannah (wheat beer) and G.G. (dunkel), which are also sold in glass bottles.
Meanwhile, Exile’s taproom business is coming back. The company’s taproom was fully covered in Christmas decorations during the holiday season and that led to reservations from open to close for a month-and-a-half straight, Cervine said.
“Not an open table in the place,” he added. “That’s really reinvigorated people’s enthusiasm down there.”