Pro Football Hall of Famer and color commentator Troy Aikman has joined a new team, this time in the beer industry.
Aikman and a crew of industry veterans are launching Eight, a lager brewed with organic grains that checks in at 4% ABV, 90 calories and 2.6 grams of carbs.
“Eight is for the drinker who consistently puts in the hard work,” Aikman said in a press release. “These folks, myself included, are conscious of what we put in our bodies, and options for a light, refreshing beer that’s brewed with organic ingredients are virtually non-existent.”
In addition to Aikman, Eight’s co-founders include co-CEOs Doug Campbell (former Brewery Ommegang president) and Ruchi Desai and Jake Duneier. Aikman is “heavily involved in the day-to-day details,” Campbell said.
“He will be, for a little while, the public face of the brand,” he continued. “Of course, over time, we’ve got to build a brand that will stand on its own.”
Austin-headquartered Eight will roll out in Texas on draft in on-premise accounts on February 1 and in 6- and 12-packs and in 19.2 oz. single-serve cans at off-premise retailers in March.
“We’re really proud about our distribution network,” Desai told Brewbound. “It covers 90% of the state already.”
Eight’s distributors include a mix of Molson Coors and Anheuser-Busch InBev houses:
- Andrews Distributing, which covers Dallas, Allan, Fort Worth and Corpus Christi;
- Faust Distributing, which covers Houston;
- Brown Distributing, which serves Austin;
- Glazer’s Beer and Beverage, which serves southern and western Texas.
The brand has tapped Dwayne Jones, former VP of financial planning and sales operations at Austin Eastciders, as its sales director. Jones is building out the sales team, with positions for sales representatives in Houston and Austin, according to LinkedIn.
The company plans to remain within Texas for now – a logical decision given that the Lone Star state led the country in beer shipments through November last year, with 20 million barrels (a 4.6% increase compared to the same period in 2020), according to the Beer Institute.
“If we do our job right, we would love to get out and expand but Texas is an enormous market,” Campbell said.
Eight’s target drinkers are who the brand calls “early risers” – “people who roll out of bed every day and try to be a bit better than they were the day before,” Campbell said.
A-B’s Michelob Ultra – the third-best selling beer category brand at off-premise retailers tracked by market research brand IRI year-to-date through November 28 – arguably dominates the demographic, but several other brands have attempted to steal share. Of those, Molson Coors’ Saint Archer Gold, Sierra Nevada-acquired Sufferfest and Boston Beer’s 26.2 Brew have all been discontinued.
Eight’s point of differentiation from Michelob Ultra and others is that it’s brewed without adjuncts. The beer was developed in partnership with Oregon State University fermentation science professor Tom Schellhammer and research brewery manager Jeff Clawson and former Brewery Ommegang brewmaster Phil Leinhart. The beer is brewed with “antioxidant-rich” Hallertau Taurus hops, according to the release. New Orleans-based Faubourg Brewing produces Eight under contract.
Aikman was immersed throughout the two-year product development process, Clawson said in a video on the brand’s website.
“Troy’s involvement in this project has been spectacular – someone that’s engaged and very hands on, right from the beginning,” he said. “We’d meet and send prototypes. We got excellent feedback that allowed us to go back to the brewhouse and come back with a new iteration. It takes a lot of effort.”
The former Dallas Cowboys quarterback’s ties to the beer industry go back to a summer in college when he worked at a Miller distributor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before his transfer from the University of Oklahoma to UCLA.
“He remembers it so fondly,” Campbell said. “It’s a game of a different sort – there were a lot of parallels.”
Eight is recruiting a Texas-based community of “early risers” and brand ambassadors it has dubbed the Eight Elite Athlete network, similar to efforts by non-alcoholic craft beer brand Athletic Brewing Company, hard kombucha maker JuneShine and others.
“Eight Elite Athletes are thought leaders, wellness enthusiasts and community builders,” according to the brand’s website, which includes an application portal. “They are an extension of our team and represent our brand through mission building, social promotion, and community engagement.”