Powered by Winter Seasonals, Great Lakes Delivers Big Holiday Profits
By: Joshua M. Bernstein
Spring and summer are typically the biggest sales seasons for breweries. For Great Lakes Brewing Company, though, sales go up as the temperature goes down. The Cleveland, Ohio, staple produces an industry-leading portfolio of winter-friendly seasonal beers led by the spiced Christmas Ale, a staple of gatherings and celebrations since 1992. To make holiday gatherings even merrier, Great Lakes offers barrel-aged versions of Christmas Ale and Blackout Stout, plus a cookie-inspired milk stout that Santa might want to snag. “Two things that Great Lakes does very well is their seasonal portfolio and flavors,” says Kelly Davis, a Brand Manager at Origlio Beverage. We caught up with interim co-CEO Chris Brown to discuss how Great Lakes is approaching the holiday season and why we should be cracking cans of Midwest IPA.
This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
Heady Times (HT): Seasonal beers are a strength for Great Lakes. How does that play out in market demand?
Chris Brown (CB): We’re an interesting anomaly. If you look at most breweries around the country, their best beer-selling months are from April to August. Our best months are from September through February, and it’s because our seasonal portfolio is so strong. If you look at seasonal sales, we’re top five in the country, so we way out-kick our coverage. Our seasonal sales are growing, and we’re continuing to try to lean into it. And it’s because of the power of Oktoberfest, Conway’s Irish Ale, and Christmas Ale. The latter is a beast and our largest brand in our entire portfolio, and we only sell it for 10 weeks. It just hits all the needs of the holiday season.
HT: Many new beer brands flame out after a year or two. Great Lakes first released its spiced, honey-infused Christmas Ale in 1992. To what do you credit its lasting success?
CB: There’s something about this beer that goes beyond the craft beer consumer. Here’s one of my favorite stories about the power of Christmas Ale. I’m sitting in a grocery store line, and there’s a guy who had his overalls just Great Lakes put their newest winter seasonal, Cookie Exchange, in a variety pack with fan-favorite Christmas Ale to drive trial. Great Lakes, Great Expectations Powered by Winter Seasonals, Great Lakes Delivers Big Holiday Profits By: Joshua M. Bernstein destroyed in paint. He’s been out working his butt off all day, and he has a 12-pack of Heineken, a 12-pack of something light, and then a case of Christmas Ale in his cart. I meet people who are domestic beer drinkers all year long, but they love Christmas Ale.
HT: Great Lakes created a line extension with Barrel Aged Christmas Ale, which is aged in bourbon barrels and stronger, at 10% ABV. Do you see this as a brand to grow, or do you want to keep it limited?
CB: The idea is that there’s a finite amount each year. If you look at a lot of the great barrel-aged beers over time, what happens is they just keep growing and eventually find out that there are not enough interested consumers. We have a certain volume we’re going to do every year, and that’s it. Christmas Ale takes all that we have from our small but mighty brewery, and there isn’t a lot of room for other iterations of Christmas Ale.
HT: The Imperial Blackout Stout is no longer a core seasonal. How have you adjusted production of the brand?
CB: Blackout Stout is so hard to brew and takes about two months in tank, and we just don’t have a lot of space in the production schedule for a beer to sit around that long. It’s much easier to brew it and then put it into barrels. We release four-packs of Barrel Aged Blackout Stout for the weekend of Black Friday. Last year we released around 1,800 cases of the Barrel Aged Blackout Stout, and that’s it.
HT: Last year, Great Lakes introduced a new winter seasonal, Cookie Exchange Milk Stout. How will that play into your seasonal portfolio?
CB: It’s a milk stout that’s going to change every year to a different cookie flavor. Last year was a Biscoff-type flavor that did extremely well for us, and this year will be a peanut butter blossom. Instead of our regular seasonal 12-pack, we did a special 12-pack with six Christmas Ales and six Cookie Exchange Milk Stouts. We did that in limited quantities to get people to try one or the other, and that was really successful. It’s that time of year when people are going to parties, and there’s something for everybody.
HT: Lastly, Great Lakes is finding success with the new year-round Midwest IPA, and depletions are up 2% year to date through July. What led to the IPA’s creation?
CB: The styles of IPAs have evolved over time. We have our Commodore Perry IPA, which is an English-style IPA. That’s around 1% of all IPAs sold. We’re the 17th largest brewery in the country, and we’re the only brewery in the top 50 that didn’t have their IPA in the top 75 IPAs in the country. It was a weak spot. What could we do to get better? We did full-scale research on what’s driving consumers. We tasted the top IPAs from California to Georgia and talked about what we liked and didn’t like. Everyone knows West Coast IPAs and the New England style, but nobody really talks about the Midwestern IPA. The light went off. We melded the two styles to create an IPA that’s softer, not too bitter, and very flavorful. We’re a Midwestern brewery, so we decided to lean into it. We’re trying to create a new version of IPAs that will be interesting to our consumers for the next 30 years.
Go for the Gold
At the Great American Beer Festival in 1990, Great Lakes won a gold medal for its German-style Dortmund lager, the Heisman, later enshrining the victory in the beer’s new name: Dortmunder Gold Lager. Memories of the medal faded over the decades, and “people really think that gold nowadays means it’s the color of the beer,” says interim co-CEO Chris Brown. “It’s more of a brand name.” In September, Great Lakes overhauled the beer’s branding with a vibrant gold label that calls out the beer’s style. “Lager is written just as large as the brand name to make people realize that this is still a very drinkable craft product,” Brown says.
About the Author: Award-winning beer journalist Joshua M. Bernstein is the author of six books, including The Complete Beer Course.