Unsurprisingly, many suggest serving your Shock Top with an orange wedge garnish. Shock Top’s flagship Belgian white is brewed with orange, lemon, and lime peels, along with two-row barley and imported Hallertau hops blended with Cascade and Willamette hops. In 2017, for the first time in the brand’s history, Shock Top refreshed its branding, giving it “a dynamic look sporting a fresh new logo, hand-drawn graphics, and a reinvigorated Wedgehead.” An edgy block-letter logo replaced its previous, more traditional serifed font. Forbes called it “a pithy gift of an ad” in 2016. In a 2016 Super Bowl commercial, an animated Wedgehead exchanged verbal jabs with actor T.J. It even has its own Twitter account, …And It Even Starred in a Super Bowl Commercial That cool, mohawked orange slice gracing every Shock Top can and bottle has a name, and an apt one at that: Wedgehead. Upon its success - the ale took gold in the Belgian white category at the North American Beer Awards - Anheuser-Busch added it to its year-round portfolio.
Blue Moon Belgian White Belgian-Style Wheat Ale, the nation’s top-selling craft beer with an 8 share, posted an 8.2 percent sales bump, and the Leinenkugel’s Shandy franchise rose 10.4 percent, according to Nielsen.Anheuser-Busch InBev released Shock Top’s first variety, originally named Spring Heat Spiced Wheat, in 2006 as a limited seasonal offering. New Belgium, meanwhile, posted a 7.3 percent gain. Nielsen sales figures show sales dollars in Boston Beer’s Samuel Adams franchise fell 16.8 percent and Sierra Nevada dropped 6.2 percent. (The figures did not include Shock Top, Leinenkugel’s or Blue Moon.) Total volume for the top 17 craft brewers as measured by volume fell a combined 1.2 percent, according to a Beer Marketer’s Insights analysis. The effort to prop up Shock Top comes as many national craft brands sputtered in 2017. 2014 story in Beer Business Daily (subscription required.) And while the brand has struggled over the last three years, it still holds a 3.3 share in the craft beer segment. In 2014, the year before the slide began, it posted impressive numbers, growing 45 percent faster than Blue Moon and increasing its penetration by 13.2 percent, according to a Nov. Shock Top’s decline has been precipitous. In 2012, it released a lemon shandy under the Shock Top banner, five years after Leinenkugel’s launched Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy. (Both Blue Moon and Leinenkugel's are part of the MillerCoors portfolio.) It continued its decline in 2016, falling 7.2 percent.ĪB launched Shock Top Belgian White (then called Spring Heat Spiced Wheat) in 2006, following the success of Blue Moon Belgian White Belgian-Style Wheat Ale. Shock Top volume fell for the first time in 2015, down 4.8 percent from the prior year, according to Nielsen. 1 national craft brand in the U.S.” That year, it bought a Super Bowl ad featuring the comic TJ Miller and spent more money on marketing in its first quarter than it did in all of 2015, per BMI. Andy Goeler, the former vice president of marketing for AB’s High End division who now leads Bud Light and its “Dilly Dilly” campaign, said at the start of 2017 that he hoped to keep Shock Top flat over the year.Ī year earlier, in 2016, Beer Marketer’s Insights reported that Anheuser-Busch aimed to “reverse Shock Top’s decline in 2015 and make it the No. 30.Īn Anheuser-Busch spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.Īnheuser-Busch’s resuscitation plan also comes after two failed campaigns to right the ship for Shock Top, which rolled out a re-branding campaign in May 2017 and released new flavors, including a grapefruit-flavored wheat ale and a beer made with Buddha’s Hand, a type of citrus fruit. The effort to revive Shock Top comes amid a difficult stretch for the brand franchise, which finished 2017 down 17.4 percent in sales dollars on a 19 percent drop in case volume, according to Nielsen all-outlet data through Dec. And the brand is asking distributors to merchandise Shock Top next to its fast-growing Michelob Ultra Light. Shock Top plans a “big bet on shandy” this year and will introduce new 15-packs of cans and 25-ounce single-serve cans, according to the BMI report. He said the brand is gaining features and displays at retail and its citrus-focused approach is working. Anheuser-Busch is reportedly investing in its flagging Shock Top brand this year, hoping to return the beer to growth after three straight years of declines.Īccording to a report from Beer Marketer’s Insights (subscription required), Felipe Szpigel, president of Anheuser-Busch’s High End division, told a crowd of distributors late last month to “expect positive performance” for Shock Top in 2018.