CHICAGO – MillerCoors is the latest big brewer to embrace the growing “hard soda” trend, with their recent announcement of plans to start selling Henry's Hard Ginger Ale and Henry's Hard Orange sodas beginning in January.
In a twist from the ever-popular Millennial-targeted marketing, the new line—which will be available nationwide in six-packs of 12-ounce bottles (suggested retail price $8.99) and in 16-ounce individual cans—is aimed at Gen Xers who grew up drinking soda and now have more disposable income to spend on boozy alternatives.
Over the past decade, MillerCoors has lost share of the U.S. beer market in large part to its craft beer competitors whose combined share of the beer market crossed double digits for the first time in 2014, according to Ad Age. In response, the beer giant has focused on expansion of its own craft offerings, such as Blue Moon and Leinenkugel's, while branching into hard cider as well.
In a logical next step, MillerCoors sees big opportunity in the hard soda category, which has remained largely untapped. "This is a true white-space opportunity in the marketplace," Bryan Ferschinger, MillerCoors' director of innovation, recently told Ad Age. "We're seeing very strong trends in craft sodas and other flavorful offerings with alcohol, and we see huge consumer appeal that will allow this to be a strong national play out of the gates."
Henry's Hard Ginger Ale and Henry's Hard Orange sodas are sweetened with pure cane sugar, with alcohol content of 4.2%, comparable to a typical light beer. While the line will launch with only two flavors, more varieties are in the works. "That's why we're calling it the launch of our hard soda platform. Everything we see leads us to believe this is not a flash in the pan," Ferschinger assured the news source.
Thus far, the hard soda category has primarily been comprised of spiked root beer from companies like Midwest-based Small Town’s Not Your Father's Root Beer, both of which launched in the Chicago market and have seen exponential growth. Their growing regional popularity expanded to include the east coast’s Coney Island Hard Root Beer from Boston Beer, maker of Samuel Adams beer. Notably, Small Town recently sold the Not Your Father's brand to a group of investors that include Pabst Brewing CEO Eugene Kaspher.
