William Jaquiss said he fell in love with spruce tips while brewing in Oregon a few years back.
“Spruce is such a fun, festive ingredient — it just feels perfect for the season,” the founder and Brewmaster for Meanwhile Brewing.
Now in its third year as a winter seasonal, Jolly is a Winter Lager that the Austin, Texas brewery creates to channel the flavors of the holidays with an unconventional twist for a brewery in the South.
For Jaquiss, the brewery’s seasonal strategy focuses on balancing fun, unconventional ingredients like Canadian spruce tips with familiar Lager styles. This combination has resonated with local customers and drives sales across taproom and select retail spaces.
To maintain the anticipated flavor profile, Meanwhile has refined the recipe since its debut, adjusting spruce tip dosages each year to strike the right balance.
Jaquiss told Brewer that spruce tips are surprisingly delicate and have a fruity profile, which can lean more toward strawberry and lemon notes rather than the woody essence many expect.
“We’ve increased our dosage over the years to present a more saturated flavor,” Jaquiss said. Education has also been essential, with bartenders and sales reps trained to explain Jolly’s unique ingredients to consumers, underscoring the brewery’s approach to customer engagement.
Outside the brewery’s taproom, Meanwhile’s sales team relies on talk sheets and tastings to bridge the gap for consumers unfamiliar with spruce tips, which can spark interest with a customer.
In terms of production logistics, Jaquiss said the Canadian spruce tips are frozen for freshness and overnighted before being added in the whirlpool phase to maximize flavor impact.
“We’re lucky to have a large chest freezer to store them,” he said, noting that even with the extra steps, the ingredient is a standout for the seasonal brand.
READ MORE: The Importance of Adding Fruit to Your Brewery
This year Meanwhile has expanded Jolly’s distribution, increasing production to meet taproom demand and reach a handful of off-site accounts best positioned to convey Jolly’s story to a broader audience. As Jolly hits taps and shelves this November and December, its limited-time availability aligns perfectly with Meanwhile’s distribution strategies to create a seasonal hit with just the right amount of exclusivity to help encourage quick sales and more of a demand than a supply.
“It’s exciting to see our Jolly cans hit select grocery stores,” Jaquiss said.
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