West O, Blum, and banning exile brewery from your thoughts
- Thread starter Mr.G.Spot
- Start date
I'm not sure they had the option. Swarm may have wanted exculsivity.
That said I might be looking at this with Cardinal colored glass but from a brewery standpoint I think this is a negative for Exile and a positive for West O.
Personally I think the "collective beers" will be really popular for about a season or so and then the novelty will wear off. I don't think the beer itself is going to move the needle very much for either brewer, especially when you consider it's likely going to be a beer "brewed for the masses". So the win for the brewer is if this gets them more recognition as a brewery,
Exile is about as established as it gets in Iowa so I'm not sure this is going to get their name out there any more than it already is. They don't appear to want to get bigger than they are. Beyond Swarm I haven't seen a new beer from them in ages. So it isn't like a lot of people are going to discover Exile because of the Swarm beer.
West O seems the opposite to me. A decent amount know their Cocoa Stout but beyond that they are distributed widely. If people try the We Will beer and then decide to try Lake Beast, the smoked red or 6'6 then they could see some nice growth. I wouldn't personally rank West O in the top tier of breweries, but I think they put out more variety and better product than Exile. I could see them getting bigger from this.
By chance do you have more details on this? Is it a 24 pack of any of their beers or one specific type of their beers? Does the donation start retroactively or does it kick in on say July 1st or some other date. I don’t drink a ton so don’t want to go grab a case now if it won’t count to we will u til after a certain date or if it’s a specific type of their beer. Apologies if you’ve noted this somewhere already.
Haven't had a chance to listen to the pod yet, but it would be cool if We Will could have a beer tent during tailgating selling these.
They said they hope to have some ready for the Iowa State Fair.
In which case Swarm made a poor decision. Direct competition would have generated more revenue for both groups.
Kind of like how if you have a coke machine alone, it'll sell less coke than if you put a pepsi machine next to it. Because the decision in the person's mind shifts from "should I buy a coke?" to "should I buy a coke or a pepsi?"
I hope it’s a lot like a domestic light beer. The snobs have strong opinions on how bad Busch light/coors light/Miller lite etc is but it’s still by far and away the majority of what gets consumed on Gameday.
I can't remember what @brentblum words were exactly, but the intention is for it to be a session beer that you can drink a lot of at tailgates if I heard him correctly.
I'll buy it regardless when I'm in Iowa but I'd like for it to be something with a little more to it than just a light beer. A normal lager, a kolsch or a golden ale. But that's just me personally and I'm sure a straight light beer would be more appealing to people
And why wouldn't they since every Hawk and Cyclone fan threatens a boycott of whatever business sponsors the other.
If you’re counting owning a hawkeye t-shirt, then could be. The reality is 95% of hawkeye fans don’t know or care what Swarm is. There is a similar contingent of Cyclone fans that don’t know/care about We Will. The hope is the West-O beer is good and easy to get or ppl will just buy Busch Light.
West O makes some good stuff, I was already a fan of them before this announcement. Definitely will be getting some of the new beer. Nice location in Okoboji too.
Seems weird they could make Exile do that/them agree to do it. Are you sure Exile didn’t make it exclusive where Swarm couldn’t have a beer partner elsewhere instead?
I’m not going to boycott anything that I enjoy over sports allegiance, that’s stupid in my opinion. But I’m also going to go out of my way to support a product I enjoy JUST BECAUSE they are supporting ISU and We Will. So while I won’t not buy Exile, I am going to bypass it for this beer.
Seems like a very minor choice/change for me to help something I support and enjoy, right?
It’s very common to have exclusivity rights for a certain time period, at least to get initial attention and traction. I’d actually be surprised if there wasn’t at least a 6 or 12 month exclusivity window.
I get that, I just feel like it’s more common from the other side instead. Kind of like Bud Light doing all the NFL cans in the past, but no other brewer(years later other brewers started putting out Chiefs cans for example, but it was several years after and probably after the exclusive window).
In another article it mentions that Ruthie was a severe alcoholic and lived a tragic life. I think the family didn't appreciate her being used on beer cans because of her past. That was my bigger issue with Exile.
