CHICAGO – Dick Leinenkugel has logged countless hours in Texas and Southern California lately, spreading the gospel of shandies in locales with abundant sunshine and underdeveloped craft beer markets.
"I think we're poised for a very big year," said Leinenkugel, 58, president of the Jacob Leinenkugel Brewing Company.
As the craft beer industry continues to boom, Chicago-based MillerCoors — purveyor of mainstream beers like Miller Lite and Coors Light — is responding by doubling down on Blue Moon and Leinenkugel, the two top sellers in its Tenth and Blake craft and imports division. Beginning next month, quirky television commercials will attempt to introduce consumers throughout the U.S. to Leinenkugel: "German-style beer crafted with the spirit of Wisconsin."
Meanwhile, Blue Moon Brewing Co., best known for its Belgian White ale, is unleashing its own promotional barrage, including its first new packaging in more than 20 years, an ad campaign, and, this summer, the opening of a brewery in Denver's burgeoning craft beer scene in the River North art district.
It's all about staying relevant in a competitive craft beer landscape, said Ashley Selman, MillerCoors vice president of marketing. "We just need to keep introducing ourselves and to make ourselves accessible."
Last summer, millennials in consumer focus groups informed MillerCoors that the Blue Moon packaging was "dark, lonely and weirdly mystical," Selman said.
The new look is brighter and cleaner than the old, and intended to better represent the experience of having a Blue Moon Belgian White in a glass at a bar, typically garnished with an orange slice, she said.
With Leinenkugel, the challenge is to increase its following beyond the Great Lakes. One of the new ads features a multiracial group of 20- and 30-somethings — each with an instrument — camping on the banks of a river and drinking Summer Shandy. A moose swims by as they slowly groove into a shuffling, old-timey rendition of Boston's "More Than a Feeling."
"If you're from Illinois or Wisconsin, you know Leinenkugel," Selman said. "Other parts of the country still don't know us that well."
A debate over 'craft-brewed'
Whether Blue Moon and Leinenkugel are craft-brewed is a matter of some dispute.
From the MillerCoors perspective, Blue Moon is the top-selling craft beer in the U.S. by volume — the company cites data from the Chicago-based market research firm IRI — and Leinenkugel is a craft brewery dating back to 1867.
But the Brewers Association, the trade group representing the vast majority of craft brewers in the U.S., defines craft breweries as being small, independent and traditional. Neither Blue Moon nor Leinenkugel fits the criteria to be considered a craft brewer, said Julia Herz, spokeswoman for the association.
Blue Moon Belgian White is seen by many to be a "gateway" beer to craft, but its corporate ownership has long rankled some in the craft beer community. The Miller Brewing Co. acquired Leinenkugel in 1988.
"You've got the big brewers trying to act like the small and it remains to be seen whether the marketplace will support that," Herz said of MillerCoors' recent efforts with Blue Moon and Leinenkugel.
MillerCoors' Selman called the definition of craft "a moving target."
"Does it matter whether some people call [Blue Moon] craft or some people don't?" Selman said. "Not really. Ultimately, consumers decide whether they like our beer or not."
