While most brewers are battling industry headwinds, San Diego’s Karl Strauss Brewing Company is growing and continuing to up its game.
“People keep asking us how we can grow in this tough environment, and all I can say is we are just keeping our head down and doing a lot of little things right,” said Co-Founder and President Matt Rattner. “We’ve been making beer here in San Diego longer than anyone and the fact that we didn’t sell out and are still independently owned probably makes us kind of a safe haven for drinkers who want the real deal.”
One of the ways Karl Strauss is attracting new drinkers is with the launch of Hard Cherry Cola, a 5% ABV, gluten-free, flavored malt beverage that has created a lot of early excitement.
“We noticed that less people are drinking beer than in the past, so we wanted to create something unique that spoke to those who sometimes want something other than beer,” Rattner said. “Many of those people are picking up flavored malt beverages (FMBs) like Twisted Tea and Mike’s Hard Lemonade, which is one of the few bright spots in the beverage alcohol world. We let our brewers go wild and the drink they created really knocked everybody’s socks off because it tastes just like the old time hard cherry colas people grew up with. And the response has been like nothing we’ve experienced before.”
That response includes orders from major retailers like Disney, Vons, Albertsons, and Total Wine & More as soon as the product became available.
“Hats off to our brewers and production team because this early spike in orders caused them to juggle a lot of balls to keep up with Hard Cherry Cola’s early success, and so far there have been very few out-of-stocks,” said Chief Operating Officer Chad Heath.
The consumer shift to more flavor-forward drinks like FMBs isn’t a trend; it’s a sustained shift in drinking behavior. In 2023, the category reached $4.6 billion in U.S. sales, up 15.9% year over year, with case sales climbing 13.6%.
Momentum continued into 2024, with FMB dollar sales up 5.5% and contributing an additional $304 million in off-premise channel sales. This shift, and the desire to continue innovating in new areas, felt like a natural evolution for the Karl Strauss brand.
As drinkers gravitated toward fruit-forward, cocktail-inspired beverages, Karl Strauss saw an opportunity to take something familiar and make it better. Hard Cherry Cola is rooted in the flavor of classic cherry cola and brings the same confident, high-energy vibe as cocktails like Dirty Shirley or an Espresso Martini. But instead of syrup and mixers, it keeps things crisp and not heavy or sticky while balanced for repeat sips.
Another recent release from Karl Strauss is an original favorite, Amber Lager, as a seasonal special for spring.
“We get so many requests to bring back this beer that we had to find a way to fit it in,” said Heath. “It’s been 11 years since we made this great beer available in package format, and if people are still asking for it, we figured we needed to give them what they want.”
Hard Cherry Cola and Amber Lager, the first beer ever brewed by San Diego’s first post-Prohibition brewery, are both available now at select retailers throughout California. Visit Karl Strauss’ beer finder at www.karlstrauss.com/find-beer.
The beverages are also available at Karl Strauss’ nine Southern California brewpubs in Anaheim, Corona Dos Lagos, Costa Mesa, Downtown Los Angeles, San Diego (4S Ranch, Carlsbad, Downtown, Sorrento Mesa), and Temecula.
