It’s one of the responses Neil Reinhardt said they get most often.
“I don’t like beer, but I like pickles…I’ll try it,” said the DESTIHL Brewery‘s Director of Sales and Marketing. In late June, the Illinois brewery teamed up with a fellow Illinois company to create SuckerPunch Dill Pickle Sour.
”It’s also so unique that people feel like they have to try it,” he said.
DESTIHL was focused from the beginning on finding a pickle company to partner with to give the beer what Reinhardt said would be “pickle cred.”
“Collabs are always fun and creating a beer with a partner outside of beer makes it even more interesting,” he said, adding he reached out to SuckerPunch Gourmet‘s CEO, Alok Advani, via LinkedIn to kickstart the idea. “We also wanted to keep the beer as local as possible so we were looking for a pickle company in Illinois and so we found SuckerPunch pretty quickly.
“Also, they are a gourmet product, much like a craft beer, so it was a great match.”
Using their Here Gose Nothin’ as the base beer, Brewmaster & Production Manager, Alex Albers, worked very closely with SuckerPunch Gourmet’s head of operations, Will Hatch, to develop the pickle brine recipe for the beer.
”We tested and tasted multiple brine recipes until we found the perfect combo,” Reinhardt said. “We are now making the pickle brine at Destihl. Using SuckerPunch’s brine specifically works best rather than any random brine because of the spices and full flavor of the brine. It was the perfect beer to complement the SuckerPunch Gourmet pickle brine.”
Reinhardt said they have been focused on traditional beer markets so far, but a brand like this with SuckerPunch could allow the brewery to find new outlets.
“I think the potential to work with Suckerpunch and their pickle brands is a step in that direction,” he said.”There is also the potential for fun uses in creating cross-merchandising programs with the SuckerPunch Gourmet brand at retail that should get the beer displayed outside of the beer section.”
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