Why to Capitalize on a Trend

With a headline like that … you might be thinking Hard Seltzer, right? It’s been the ‘it’ thing for the summer of 2019, but White Street Brewing isn’t looking at the liquid when Jason Faulkner and Will Haddock spoke of a trend, instead they were speaking about packaging size.

Pint cans have become a hit and many smaller breweries, like the Wake Forest, North Carolina brewery, have scrambled to appease the consumer.

White Street introduced its Kolsch in 16-ounce cans recently and Faulkner — the brewery’s Sales Manager — said the size and the liquid were made to hit on two experiences: quality and enjoyment.

​”​You want each drinker to have the exact experience in the exact enjoyment of that beer, but then also the experience of what it is they’re doing,” he said. “Whether it’s a food pairing or they are on a hike, they’re on a paddleboard or at a ball game. We want to make sure that we’re hitting on all of those different points for drinkers.

“I think that’s the direction right now. I think what everybody is starting to figure out if you can’t just make beer and people are going to come buy it. You need to be very focused in on your strategies and your tactics.”

Marketing Manager Will Haddock added, “we’re trying to innovate in ways that are not new but in ways that are new to us.”

​Creating a pint can​ help capitalize on a trend that is quickly becoming the norm, but on the liquid side, making a crisp and not overly bitter Session IPA was also on the docket, the brewery unveiled Relaxession.

Faulkner said the team taste-tested nearly 20 Session IPAs to help hone in the beer.

“From the sales side … I kept harping on: It needs to be full-bodied,” he said. “Too often Session IPAs are too watered down.

“As a brewery, we need to make sure that we understand the duality of the Session IPA. You have the IPA side. And you have the session side. I think the problem is when you go too much to the IPA side you lose the session side. So we worked really hard to get the body and mouthfeel. That’s one of the hallmarks of our beer.”

Faulkner said he feels in the industry there is a lot of great beer/good beer but then you’re seeing a lot of beer that’s just made thin.

“We really take pride in not being a beer that is thin,” he said. “Let’s get the body and then let’s get the hop profile that we want.”

After three rounds of sampling and determining the proper dry-hop schedule, Relaxession was created.

Haddock said the brewery used its original brewhouse — which is now the pilot brewhouse — to work on four or five different recipe propagation to dial in the recipe.