Out of Character: Can Lager Masquerade Within an IPA Brand?

When consumers stare down the intimidating variety of craft beer on store shelves, a series of assumptions, biases, and memories go to work beneath the surface. It’s up to the brewery to position their brand and packaging to not only stand out, but communicate as much with as little as possible. One way to go about this is through the use of brand families, where multiple beers in a portfolio share some commonality not just in the liquid, but the name and aesthetic. A popular example of this built-in narrative would be New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger, which is the best selling IPA family in the country. Upon recognizing their popular skeleton character, hoppy beer fans know they’re getting a high quality, approachable IPA. But that’s about to change…

Styling and Profiling

Through the release of variations including Imperial, Experimental, Jucifier, Hazy, and a retro 1985 version, along with a creative social media presence, Voodoo Ranger has managed to stay fresh in the eyes of the consumer. Adventurous IPA drinkers with a history of enjoying New Belgium’s approach do not need to put much thought into their decision after spotting a new variation on the shelf. They recognize the illustration, recall the quality, and into the shopping cart it goes. It’s the MOST significant craft beer brand in the country right now, but can this success be bridged outside of IPA? We’re about to find out.

New Belgium recently announced that the Voodoo Ranger brand family is testing a roll-out of “Devilishly Light Lager” in North Carolina this month. The move not only extends the series outside of IPA, but into the “light” and better-for-you segment boasting only 99.9 calories, a far cry from Voodoo Ranger’s typical DNA 🧬. I’ve created a series of unwritten rules for myself as I manage Revolution’s brand families and this chess move breaks most of them, like bringing your Queen out too early. An equivalent would be if Bell’s Brewery introduced a light lager called “Gold Hearted” with a fish on the label or if Firestone Walker rolled out “Crispy Jack”. Similar to Voodoo Ranger, “Hearted” & “Jack” have always been used as bat signals to hop fans, so the risk of confusing and/or failing to deliver on expectations gets escalated when trying to cross styles.

Maintaining a tight and thoughtful brand strategy isn’t a privilege limited to the big budgets of National craft brewers either. Countless local examples exist, such as Chicago’s Alarmist Brewing whose Le Jus won the Gold medal at the Great American Beer Fest in Hazy IPA’s inaugural year. The win and continued success of Les Jus, representing 54% of the brewery’s sales, spawned an entire “Jus” series with clever name extensions, including my personal favorite Au Jus, a Black IPA naturally. While all of these riffs are unique in different ways, they are all IPAs.

Photo courtesy of Alarmist Brewing

Lager Temperatures Rising

It’s been a running joke since 2014 to predict that the upcoming year will be “The Year of the Craft Lager” and challenge IPA for it’s throne. In those early days, breweries were content to introduce a single, year-round craft lager into their portfolio and call it a day. That strategy would usually fail to give the SKU any real momentum as it lacked the spice of life that makes IPAs so engaging. A patient approach full of options that rotate with the seasons is what has more recently allowed lagers to gain steam. Over the past couple years, many IPA-focused breweries have successfully launched a regularly rotating lager series. In addition to diversifying their offerings and expanding their own range, these portfolio moves have helped the lager category gain a bigger share of the industry’s constantly evolving conversation.

It may never be the “The Year of the Lager” because you simply don’t convert an impactful enough percentage of cheap light lager drinkers to $11.99 four-packs in a single year, nor would a mass exodus from IPA occur in that same timeframe. I am very open to the idea of the 2020s being “The Decade of the Lager” though. Over the last 52 weeks, recycling tough comparisons from COVID’s initial Spring & Summer trends, Pilsners are up +2.3% in craft scans nationally, where as 7 of the top 10 styles are down. Locally in Chicago, where I’ve seen lager’s rise first hand, Pilsners are up 16%. And that scan data includes essentially none of the massive shift into flavorful lagers that we’re seeing from the industry’s long tail. Craft lager has never been a failure, its success simply needs to be measured over a longer stretch of time.

“Devilishly Light Lager” however doesn’t appear to be following the strategy of rotation, which has been the blue print for Voodoo Ranger’s continued evolution and growth. While that certainly could be in the cards later, it’s hard to line extend a light lager built around the constraint of 99.9 calories. As a 12-pack only, the brand feels like it’s using it’s clout to create a more contemporary vibe and aesthetic to meet an otherwise future Michelob Ultra drinker.

While I personally wouldn’t use the phrase “Dark Side” on a light and crisp yellow beer, the packaging checks an otherwise important box for me by distancing itself from the character-driven look. By taking a more abstract approach and revealing only about 1/3 of the skeleton’s face, a signal is made to the consumer that this is something different. The risk then becomes whether the artwork has gone so far away from Voodoo Ranger that the brand’s reputation and connection gets lost on the casual consumer. That then begs the question, what’s the point of using this famous IPA brand to launch a Light Lager? I have a theory…

The Devil in the Details

There’s never been a more challenging time to gain new shelf space at big chain retailers. Hard Seltzers and RTD Cocktails are eating away at craft beer’s opportunity to further its growth, so when you have a winner you must continue to parlay its success. Each year when it’s time to make presentations to key retailers, sales pitches are backed by supporting data to help rationalize each new request for shelf space. Launching a light lager in 2022 under a new brand with no historical data would be subject to skepticism from retail partners. By attaching the ask to the Voodoo Ranger family, which has the strongest data selling story by far, how could anyone say “No”?

By following a preconceived set of rules for managing a brand without an open mind, you risk playing not to lose. When a brewery with New Belgium’s track record strays this far from that methodology, instead of criticizing, ask yourself if they’re actually a few moves ahead. In poker, you can’t win what you don’t put in the middle, and in beer, you can’t sell what hasn’t earned a spot the shelf.