Cue DJ Khaled’s “another one.”
The trend of craft breweries extending their flagship beers continues. The latest is Monster-owned CANarchy’s Oskar Blues Brewery, which has extended its Dale’s Pale Ale.
The Dale’s lineup now includes the original Dale’s Pale Ale (6.5% ABV), Dale’s Double IPA (9% ABV), first released in 2022, and a new Dale’s Light Lager (4.2%). The brand family also now has new packaging and branding, focusing on the Dale’s name to highlight “the strength of the Dale’s visual brand,” Oskar Blues marketing manager Aaron Baker told Brewbound.
“We’re excited to build on the name recognition of Dale’s as a groundbreaking American craft beer by bringing together three steadfast and no-nonsense beers under a name that sends us into the future while celebrating our past,” Baker said in a press release. “It may say Oskar Blues on the door of our breweries but make no mistake: Dale’s is the name this place was built on.”
Dale’s — the first name of Oskar Blues founder Dale Katechis — is also the name that is driving a majority of Oskar Blues’ sales to this day. Dale’s Pale Ale accounted for 45% of Oskar Blue’s total sales in 2022. Combined with Double Dale’s, the brand family made up nearly 60% of the company’s total volume last year, according to the release.
The new three-beer lineup is available in a variety 15-pack to “inspire trial” and “recruit a wide range of beer drinkers,” according to the release. Dale’s Pale Ale and Dale’s Double IPA will be available in 6-packs, 19.2 oz. single-serve cans and on draft. Dale’s Pale Ale and Dale’s Light Lager (also available on draft) will also be available in their own single-style 15-packs.
“Part of the Dale’s lifestyle is always pushing for more out of life and not wasting time on unnecessary nonsense,” Baker told Brewbound. “[Fifteen]-packs fit that ethos and creates more convenience and value for Dale’s drinkers. This is especially true for Dale’s Light Lager – a beer way too crushable to be limited by a 12-pack.”
The rebrand and line extension are being supported by a 360-campaign “Seize the Dale’s,” with paid and earned media, a dedicated @drinkdales Instagram account, in-store point of sale and on-premise activations. Additionally, Oskar Blues has agreed to a four-year sponsorship deal with the Colorado Rapids, a Major League Soccer (MLS) team. Dale’s is the team’s “official craft beer” and will be featured on signage in the stadium, including a Dale’s branded bar and patio, according to the release.
“The boundary-breaking origin story of Dale’s Pale Ale as the original craft beer in a can and the lifestyle it represents carved out a unique and irreplaceable position amongst craft beer pioneers,” Baker said. “Beer drinkers may not know the whole story, they may not know what or where Oskar Blues Brewery is located, but they know Dale’s.”
Oskar Blues first tested an extension of Dale’s in early 2022 with Dale’s Double IPA, released in celebration of the flagship’s 20th anniversary. Through the launch, Oskar Blues learned that “Dale’s resonated with beer drinkers,” Baker said.
The decision to add Dale’s Light Lager came from the desire to provide a crushable light lager, a market that craft beer brands “haven’t successfully cracked,” Baker said. The 95-calorie lager is intended to be an “incredibly crushable” beer “that doesn’t skimp on flavor.”
While Oskar Blues is focused on the trio of beers right now, it is open to adding another style to the lineup, as long as it “deserves” the Dale’s name, Baker said.
The extension comes a little over a year after CANarchy, the craft brewery collective Oskar Blues is a part of, sold to energy drinker maker Monster for $330 million in cash. Other breweries within CANarchy’s portfolio include Cigar City, Wasatch, Squatters, Perrin Brewing and Deep Ellum, as well as Wild Basin Hard Seltzer.
The craft collective produced 455,000 barrels of beer in 2021, the last year data is available from the Brewers Association (BA), a -5% decline year-over-year. In 2022, CANarchy fell from the No. 7 BA-defined craft brewery by volume to No. 8. Last year’s production numbers are expected to be shared by the BA later this month, which should shed some light on how much volume loss – or other breweries’ volume gain – contributed to the ranking shift.
While CANarchy is now owned by Monster, the BA still defines it as an independent craft brewery, as Monster itself is not a beer producer. That definition may help CANarchy in future BA volume rankings, as Stone Brewing, which overtook CANarchy in 2022 to take the No. 7 spot, will fall off the 2023 list following its sale to Japanese brewer Sapporo.
In the last 52 weeks (ending April 22), Oskar Blues recorded a -10% decline in dollar sales and -13% decline in volume in NIQ-tracked off-premise channels (Total U.S. xAOC + liquor plus + convenience). The declines were steeper than the overall craft segment’s declines in the same period (dollar sales -2%, volume sales -6%), according to NIQ data shared by 3 Tier Beverages.
Other breweries extending their flagships recently include Bell’s Brewery (Two Hearted IPA) and Rogue Ales and Spirits (Dead Guy IPA).