On Big Eddy

“So here it is.” My friend smiled and handed me a beer.  “It’s called “Big Eddy” and we got the growler from a bar we go to by our place.”  I take a sip and it overpowers me as well as brings a smile to my face.  That was a few years back we you could only get at a few bars around the Madison and Milwaukee area as Leinie’s was testing out the market.

Leinie’s has caught a lot of flack in the beer circles for 1. “selling out to Miller” 2. “making their target audience soccer moms” and 3. “ingoring the home market.”  Something needed to be done.  Since nothing shuts up beer nerds faster than a big beer.  Why not give them a big beer?

Leinie’s actually has a small brewery in Milwaukee called Tenth and Blake.  By all accounts it is a sparkling gem of what a brewery can be, except for the location that is.  Having a pilot brewery five hours away from your show piece visitor center creates confusion and even some resentment from the Chippewa Falls locales.  “Not good enough for us, I see, better put it next to the purse strings?” 

“The Chippewa Faultily is set up to handle lagers and Tenth and Blake handles ales.”  Never mind the fact the Point Brewery can make lagers and ales at the same facility, the Chippewa Falls Plant has solid production schedule and dedicating tank space to an experimental project would make no sense.  So the decision was made to make an India Pale Ale and a Russian Imperial Stout at Tenth and Blake in Milwaukee.  Beer nerds rejoiced at the prospect of two extreme styles being made by such a giant in the brewing industry.

After producing, disturbing, and observing the feedback the decision was made to go with the Russian Imperial Stout.  Perhaps the IPA market was too saturated?  Perhaps a RIS is an easier sell to non beer people? 

But how easy of a sell would it be?  The marketing posters and table tents look like a baseball trading card complete with a map of the Baltic Sea, gravity readings, and hops used.  Above all the single biggest marketing coup was the glass.  Leinie’s issued a special glass to the bars to serve Big Eddy in.  These got stolen all the time.  So now typically you have to give a credit card on hold until you return the glass.

As sales in the liquor stores Leinies over promised and under delivered in terms of quantity available.  This allowed a strong word of mouth to build that there wasn’t that much of this product around and you needed to buy it while you had the chance.  Duschetts did with Abyss a few years ago; advertize the scarcity to get a premium price.

In 2010 I took some friends from Austria to the Chippewa Brewery.  You were given a golden ticket to try Big Eddy.  The Austrians thought it was too much like coffee and gave me their tickets in exchange you my normal beer tickets.  I was pleased as to me Big Eddy is robust, smooth, and a pleasure to drink.

Bottom line:  When a major company enters a new market they will do it over the course of a few years and leave nothing to chance.  Beer Nerds will always find something to bitch about.  Big Eddy was a horse.