It was neither hell nor high water that felled 21st Amendment Brewery. Its closure last fall came from a less biblical calamity: overexpansion and underperforming sales. The canned-beer pioneer began in 2000 as a San Francisco brewpub, becoming one of America’s 50 biggest breweries and taking over a San Leandro Kellogg’s factory to produce plenty of Hell or High Watermelon wheat ale.
Ambition ran into the pandemic buzzsaw, compounded by distribution difficulties and can shortages. Obituaries lamented 21st Amendment’s rise and fall. However, reports of its death proved to be greatly exaggerated. This spring, Evil Genius Beer in Philadelphia purchased rights to 21st Amendment’s recipes and brands, restarting production and national distribution. From artwork to ingredients, “we’ve kept everything the same,” says Luke Bowen, Evil Genius co-founder.
Beer brands regularly disappear into the historic dumpster. After 177 years, Pabst Brewing recently put Schlitz Premium out to pasture. But will it stay gone forever? Nowadays, no once-popular beer brand needs to remain dead in a world nostalgic for simpler days and maybe a favorite amber ale.
Earlier this year, New Belgium released a 35th-anniversary variety pack reviving Blue Paddle Pilsener, Sunshine Wheat, and original-recipe Fat Tire Amber Ale. “People clamor for beers they loved from a long time ago to come back,” says Brad Wellman, a regional brand manager for New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colo., and Asheville, N.C. At a moment when the beer industry is struggling and fighting for relevance and market share, rebooting once-loved beers and brands can be a successful strategy for some producers.
Rebooting Modern Favorites
American craft beer only took off in the late 1970s and early 1980s, meaning many established brands are entering their 20s and 30s and eyeing middle age. It’s time to look back on youthful glory days.
Bell’s Brewery, which turned 40 last year, released the Throwback variety pack including canned revivals of Best Brown and the Smitten Golden Rye Ale. “We look at these as a tool for brewery celebrations,” says Bell’s brewmaster Andy Farrell. The beers appeal to longtime fans and brewers excited to revisit recipes. “It engages folks that have been here a long time,” Farrell says.
Reboots are sales boons for Lagunitas Brewing, which regularly resurrects fan favorites such as sweetly potent Shugga’ and Hop Stoopid double IPA. The comebacks pique the interest of “consumers that may have left the brand and a reminder that, ‘Oh yeah, I used to love that product,’” says Hannah Dray, chief marketing officer of the Petaluma, Calif., brewery.
“You’ve got the DNA already there for you. It’s just cracking the code on how to make that culturally relevant.”
Homebrewers cloned popular beers they couldn’t readily buy. Lagunitas is tapping that interest by partnering with Pinter, a simplified homebrew system, to offer a recipe for Sumpin’ Easy, a once-popular pale ale. “It’s unique to be able to brew a brand they love at home,” Dray says.
Homebrewing can create a deeper affinity for beer, or be a big disaster. Pinter mitigates potential through pour-and-brew pouches given the breweries’ stamps of approval. The result is 12 pints that taste like the past.
“Partnerships are a huge piece of our growth strategy,” says Paul Benner, the U.S. CEO of Pinter. The company also teamed up with Great Lakes Brewing on a homebrew version of Burning River Pale Ale, which the Cleveland brewery stopped packaging several years ago. This helps them answer their two most commonly asked questions: When will Great Lakes distribute in their state? How can I get Burning River?
“We can say yes to both of those now,” Benner says. Pinter shares profits with breweries — extra dollars are nice in a difficult market — and research shows that after homebrewing, customers have a more positive impression of a brand. “They’re more likely to purchase a brewery’s other beers,” Benner says.
Dusting Off Historic Brands
As easy-drinking lagers swing back into fashion, breweries are creating no-frills lagers with thoroughly retro branding. Freight American Lager, Howdy Beer, and Classic City Lager from Creature Comforts all look like they could be pulled from great-grandpa’s ice box.
Building a new-old brand from scratch can be challenging, so breweries are instead reviving beloved regional lager brands like Old Tavern Beer, a Des Moines, Iowa, favorite dating to 1908. “Old Tavern represents a chapter of Des Moines’ brewing heritage that deserves another life,” says Lindsey Pidgeon, marketing manager for Confluence Brewing in Des Moines.
Last year, after securing brand rights, Confluence resurrected Old Tavern as a modern take on what a light lager would’ve tasted like in the 1900s, creating “a brand that feels both nostalgic and relevant for today’s drinkers,” Pidgeon says.
Nailing the look is as important as the recipe. Several years ago, Port Orleans Brewing in New Orleans licensed the rights to produce Jax — a lager brewed in the French Quarter until 1974 — from Pabst, investing in bottling equipment to package Jax in a brown bottle with a pry-top cap. “It had to feel like the original,” says Ryan Mears, the director of operations for Port Orleans.
The beer also meets customers’ requests for a light lager. Jax has been “the New Orleanians’ form of a Bud Light for generations,” Mears says. “If you give people a Jax on draft in the taproom, they always leave with a case.”
“You’ve got the DNA already there for you. It’s just cracking the code on how to make that culturally relevant.”
Prior to Prohibition, Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky were great engines of lager production. Cincinnati Beverage Company now owns and makes a half-dozen heritage brands including Little Kings and Hudy Delight, a light lager I crushed at Ohio University in the 1990s.
“If those recipes could win over drinkers decades ago, we believe they can still win over drinkers today,” says Elliott Culter, Cincinnati Beverage’s chief operating officer.
One of the most successful heritage revivals is Narragansett Brewing in Providence, R.I. In 2005, Mark Hellendrung rebooted the New England legend (established in 1890), and its flagship lager is now 21 years old. “We’re finally legal,” Hellendrung says, laughing.
Early on, Hellendrung decided against selling the lager to grizzled Bud drinkers. “Getting them to switch to Narragansett was nearly impossible,” he says. Instead, Narragansett prioritized selling lager in college towns to younger drinkers looking for lagers to call their own. Recalls Hellendrung, “They were like, ‘Wow, that’s a cool story. That’s a great-tasting beer at a good price point.’”
His brewery uses the brand’s heritage as a foundational anchor, including its famous “Hi, Neighbor, have a ’Gansett!” slogan and the lager’s placement in “Jaws.” Weather-beaten shark hunter Quint famously crushed a can in the film.
“You’ve got the DNA already there for you,” Hellendrung says. “It’s just cracking the code on how to make that culturally relevant.”
Comebacks Aren’t So Simple
Not every brand revival is a success. In 2014, as IPA fever broke across America, Pabst brought back Ballantine IPA, a pre-Prohibition IPA last brewed in 1996. The resinous, sticky IPA, evocative of barley wine crossbred with West Coast IPA, didn’t resonate with consumers gravitating toward soft, juicy New England IPAs.
“Having this tear in the corner of your eye for the past doesn’t give you license to do it,” Hellendrung says.
The key is staying in your lane and knowing what you stand for. Narragansett aligns with seafaring grit and the Atlantic coast. Fruited smoothie sours wouldn’t fly, but Del’s Shandy, a collaboration with the iconic Rhode Island frozen-lemonade purveyor, makes sense.
“You want to jump on all the trends,” Helledrung says, but “we have these lines that govern what we do.”
Sometimes a reboot can be too successful. Port Orleans couldn’t meet distributor demand for Jax, so “we decided that we’re not only going to make a 100-year-old beer,” Mears says, adding that hemp-THC beverages are core to its business. Port Orleans now exclusively sells Jax at its taproom. “You have to come to get it,” he says.
Fandom is fickle. In 2023, New Belgium modernized its former flagship Fat Tire by lightening the amber ale to make it more approachable. Drinkers wrote teary eulogies and angry online screeds, never mind that many probably hadn’t bought the amber ale in years.
“People are more prone to voice discontent with change,” Wellman says. “We have to take what we hear on social media with a bit of a grain of salt.”
Permanently reverting to Fat Tire’s original recipe won’t magically make those forlorn fans buy it by the case each month. Reviving the recipe every so often, ideally for special occasions, is the plan going forward.
A heritage brand can rekindle connections, but the goal shouldn’t be to help people relive old memories, says Cincinnati Beverage’s Culter. “It’s to create opportunities for new memories, so today’s consumers have their own stories to tell 20 years from now.”
