New hard tea and hard lemonade brands continue to populate shelves, while the No. 1 hard tea brand continues to grow its share, despite being more than 20 years in the game.
Spotted: Nate Archibald with a new job and a hard tea in his hand. Actor Chace Crawford has joined hard tea and kombucha maker Jiant as chief creative officer and part-owner. Crawford is best known for his TV roles on Gossip Girl (Nate Archibald) and The Boys (Kevin Moskowitz/The Deep).
Boston Beer Company’s Q3 financials were described by one analyst, Bernstein’s Nadine Sarwat, as “a messy set of results.” The company’s portfolio – including Samuel Adams, Dogfish Head, Truly Hard Seltzer, Angry Orchard, Sun Cruiser and Hard MTN Dew – reported a -1.9% year-over-year (YoY) decline in shipments (sales to wholesalers) and -3% decline in depletions (sales to retailers) in the quarter.
Duvel USA-owned Boulevard’s beyond beer offshoot Quirk is tea-ing up a 2025 innovation slate that touches on hot trends in the fourth category. Quirk Hard Tea (4% ABV) will roll out in early 2025 with a standalone lemonade tea offering and a variety pack, executives announced to wholesalers during Duvel USA’s virtual wholesaler summit last week.
Jack Daniel’s Country Cocktails Hard Tea is now available nationwide, following a six-month test period in select markets.
Twisted Tea accounts for the majority of Boston Beer’s volume and has become the company’s “only meaningful source of growth,” Bernstein analyst Nadine Sarwat wrote in a report focusing on the brand’s sustainability.
Flavor-forward innovations are driving beer category growth and this trend is accelerating, according to the most recent report from Bump Williams Consulting (BWC). Of the top 25 growth brands at total U.S. off-premise outlets year-to-date (YTD) through June 15, 13 were “flavor-centric” or ready-to-drink (RTD) offerings, BWC founder Bump Williams noted, citing data from market research firm NIQ.
AriZona Hard Tea VP of sales Lou Fabiano joins the Brewbound Podcast to discuss the opportunity for the hard tea challenger brand as it attempts to cut into Boston Beer Company’s 90% stranglehold on the market with Twisted Tea.
Boston Beer’s shipments declined again in Q2 – down -4.5%, to 2.3 million barrels. However, the company is still confident in its projections and its “strategic priorities remained unchanged,” founder Jim Koch said Thursday during the company’s call with investors.
Monster’s foray into beverage-alcohol is expanding, as the energy drink maker plans to leverage its early success in FMBs with the launch of Nasty Beast hard iced tea, company leaders shared during the company’s annual shareholder meeting. Monster joins another non-alcoholic beverage juggernaut, AriZona, in launching a hard tea
In two years, Loverboy has expanded distribution of its hard teas from four states to 44, partially initiated by retail partnerships with Total Wine and Kroger. To support the rapid expansion, the company is focused on “trying to grow into [its] own shoes” in 2023, founder and CEO Kyle Cooke told Brewbound.
PepsiCo and FIFCO USA have struck a licensing agreement to allow the latter to produce a hard iced tea using the Lipton brand, which will roll out next year through Pepsi’s Blue Cloud Distribution.
When Los Angeles-based Jiant launched its hard kombucha in the summer of 2019, the company had three full time employees, including its co-founders, Larry Haertel Jr. and Aaron Telch.
Lagunitas’ major innovation play for 2022 is not a new IPA — or a beer at all — but a hard sparkling tea, leaders of the Heineken-owned craft brewery announced today. Disorderly TeaHouse will launch in January ahead of March off-premise resets, Lagunitas chief marketing officer Paige Guzman told Brewbound.
