Hard Soda Wars? Maybe, as Big Players Pounce on Opportunity

Brace yourselves. More hard soda is on the way.

The country’s two biggest hard root beer producers — Pabst Brewing and Boston Beer Company — have simultaneously announced the national rollout of more soda-inspired ales, albeit with very different marketing messages.

In a press release, Coney Island Brewing Company, a Boston Beer subsidiary and part of the company’s Alchemy & Science innovation group, announced the nationwide release of two new hard soda offerings: Hard Ginger Ale and Hard Orange Cream Ale.

Meanwhile, Pabst, via its own Small Town Brewery brand, will follow-up the wildly successful Not Your Father’s Root Beer with the launch Not Your Father’s Ginger Ale in 40 states. Nationwide coverage is expected in early 2016.

But the two companies are taking decidedly different approaches to marketing their new products.

While Boston Beer seems content to play on consumer curiosity by leveraging Coney Island’s circus sideshow identity, Pabst appears to be angling for a more craft-savvy consumer, calling its new product a “gruit-inspired botanical beer brewed with ginger.”

“We’ve worked hard to create this gruit-inspired brew that pays homage to the classic taste Americans know and love,” Small Town front man and founder Tim Kovac said in a press statement…CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY AT BREWBOUND
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