Canned cocktails are growing in Michigan — and Odd Side Ales is jumping on the trend

While talking about Odd Side Ales' new line of canned cocktails, Wes O'Leary joked that the popular Grand Haven-based brewer might have to drop "Ales" from its name soon.

"Beverage manufacturing is what we are in," said O'Leary, director of sales and marketing.

O'Leary is referring to Odd Side's penchant for exploring alcoholic beverages beyond craft beer, beginning in earnest in 2020, when it launched a successful line of hard seltzers a decade after first opening its brewpub in downtown Grand Haven. Since then, Odd Side — one of Michigan's largest independent breweries — has dabbled in dozens of different seltzer flavors, launched several variety packs (including a "Drink Box Series" meant to mimic the flavors of popular juice boxes you enjoyed as a kid), and introduced a small line of juicy "fruited seltzers,," such as pineapple tangerine and pomegranate orange passionfruit.

The latest experiment is Odd Tails, a new line of spiritless, ready-to-drink canned cocktails at 10% alcohol by volume and now in stores and on taps across Michigan. They soft-launched in June, starting with Margarita, Paloma and G&T (gin and tonic). They've since expanded to include Long Drink (grapefruit) and Razz Daily (raspberry, tea and lemonade). The drinks are meant to mimic the flavor profiles of some of America's hottest cocktails while maintaining the light mouthfeel and carbonation of a hard seltzer, and they've been a hit among beer and non-beer enthusiasts alike, O'Leary said. Josh Gordon, plant manager at Odd Side, said the brewpub sold five cases of Margarita over the course of one July weekend.

"They might be too easy-drinking," Gordon said, with a laugh.

'We saw the market shift'

While many ready-to-drink canned cocktails use a vodka or other spirit base, Odd Tails drinks don't contain any liquor. Because Odd Side's lone distiller's license is for its downtown Grand Haven brewpub and not its much larger brewing facility, it instead uses a hard seltzer base of fermented sugar, up to a strong 12% ABV, before being diluted down to 10% by incorporating various ingredients to create the necessary flavor profile, such as soda syrup or real fruit puree.

"Once we got our process down with the fruited seltzers that we've been doing, processing them to make them shelf-stable, it was a pretty easy jump to make seltzers that mimic actual cocktails," Gordon said. "We have our seltzer base down, all we have to do (for Odd Tails) is scale that up."

It's an easy transition to make and, for brewers with Odd Side's footprint, perhaps a necessary one. RTD ("ready to drink") is the latest segment to cut into beer's market share of the alcoholic beverage industry, growing nearly 36% in sales in 2022 and projecting to be a multi-billion-dollar global industry by 2030. That's on top of the rise of hard seltzers, nonalcoholic beers and mocktails in recent years, all of which have had a hand in keeping beer sales flat, if not in a decline, year over year.

That kind of market shift makes it incumbent upon a brewery of Odd Side's size to expand its beverage portfolio beyond craft beer, though beer remains a heavy focus. Odd Side, at nearly 8,500 barrels of production in 2022, is one of Michigan's largest brewers.

"The market's at a weird crossroads right now, with beer down across the country," O'Leary said. "We're seeing a shift. Because we don't have the ability to distill and use liquor in canned cocktails, we had to go spiritless, maltless, in order to breathe new life into the market through these products. You've got to keep up with the trends."

Craft beverages, diversifying

More and more Michigan breweries are doing the same, especially since 2021, when Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation that expanded the distribution of mixed drinks in the state, including ready-to-drink canned cocktails. New Holland Brewing Co., the largest independent brewery in Michigan, has a long-running line of canned cocktails on top of its repertoire of beers, spirits and seltzers. Others — such as Mothfire Brewing Co., which opened its new taproom in south Ann Arbor in July — offer cocktails, sometimes on draft, at the brewery itself as a way to provide options for guests who prefer alternatives to beer.

Even the annual Michigan Brewers Guild's Summer Beer Festival — one of the most popular showcases for Michigan craft beer, featuring more than 100 Michigan breweries every July at Ypsilanti's Riverside Park — served as a harbinger for what's coming.

"It kind of threw me off, but there was a ton of people there who don't drink beer," said O'Leary, who was slinging Odd Side offerings at the festival. "It was like, 'It says beer fest in the name, why are you here?' It's the usual thing, either a friend invited me, or (my significant other) wanted me to come. And they were so relieved to come to our booth and find options that weren't only beer, whether it be someone who's gluten-free or someone just looking for a stiff drink, the seltzer or the cocktails. We had a great reception to the whole lineup."

Odd Side plans to keep the Odd Tails canned cocktails available year-round across the state, in four-packs for $11.99 and on tap, with Margarita, Long Drink and Razz Daily flavors, while mixing in other seasonal options, such as Seabreeze in the summer (cranberry and grapefruit) and Moscow Mule this fall. Margarita currently is available at most Kroger stores across Michigan.

While there isn't much competition or collaboration yet among Michigan breweries in the canned cocktail space, O'Leary expects it to grow as breweries look to adapt and meet customer demand. That doesn't mean a shift away from craft beer — it just means thinking more holistically about what craft breweries can be in the beverage space.

"Of course, you'll have some craft beer industry people trying to judge you on the side, but any of them who've tried (Odd Tails) know it's a good product," O'Leary said. "You're not just a brewery. You can make other products. It doesn't have to be alcohol, it can be NA, juice, root beer, or it can be what we're doing here. You've got to keep up with the times."

Brian Manzullo covers craft alcohol for the Free Press. Contact him: bmanzullo@freepress.com and on Untappd, bmanzullo and Twitter, @BrianManzullo and @SpiritsofDET.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misidentified Odd Side Plant Manager Josh Gordon.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Odd Side Ales enters growing canned cocktail market with Odd Tails