American pharmaceutical, cannabis, and consumer packaged goods company Tilray stunned the craft beer community in August 2023 when it purchased eight brands from beverage giant Anheuser-Busch InBev for a cool $85 million. This grab left many industry professionals scratching their heads. Now, the company is making moves to expand the portfolios of its newly acquired brands.
In early February, news broke that Shock Top would be releasing a line of non-carbonated, 9-percent ABV hard teas under the name LiiT. And on Monday, beer industry outlet Brewbound confirmed the scoop and announced that Tilray would also be tapping into the NA beer market, the canned water sect, and other boozy beverage endeavors. Some of these launches include Runner’s High NA beer, Liquid Love canned water, new expressions from 10 Barrel Pub Beer, additions to SweetWater Brewing Company’s 420 Line, and soon-to-be-resurrected flavored malt beverage brand HiBall.
According to Tilray’s U.S. beer division president Ty Gilmore and new CMO Prinz Pinakatt, Tilray’s upcoming business strategies are built around three pillars: “Regional jewels that can win in their home markets; national brands, such as Shock Top and 10 Barrel’s category-crossing Pub platform; and innovation items that fill whitespace in key segments and flavors.” Gilmore and Pinakatt told Brewbound that Tilray will be moving quickly to bring these ideas to life, with the hopes of getting these products on shelves in a 90-day window.
“We’re doing innovation in two or three months, what a lot of companies do in five or six years,” Gilmore said.
There’s no doubt that Shock Top has fizzled out of the eyes of the craft beer crowd, so Tilray’s undertaking is no small feat. Nonetheless, Tilray plans to revamp the brand’s packaging and add a few expressions to its core lineup, including Shock Top Mango as a year-round offering and Shock Top Blueberry, Lemon Shandy, and Pretzel Wheat as seasonal releases.
According to Tilray, Shock Top LiiT Hard Tea will launch in April. The boozy tea will come in three flavors: Original Lemon, Peach, and Raspberry. It will be available in six-packs of 12-ounce cans and 19.2-ounce single cans. “The liquid is similar in the sense to [SweetWater] Gummies [IPA],” Gilmore told Brewbound. “It’s above 9-percent ABV, but you don’t taste that high alcohol that you do with brands that tried to play in that space numerous years ago.”
The news comes about four years after Patchogue, N.Y.’s Blue Point Brewing Company introduced LIIT, a line of sparkling hard teas named after Long Island Iced Tea. Blue Point was among the breweries acquired by Tilray last year, so it appears the company is taking the line in a new direction.
It looks like Tilray’s team has their work cut out for them.
