Boston Beer Company Launches Marathon Brewing and Beers for Health Conscious Drinkers

The company's new gose beer made with sea salt is just one of three new "lifestyle" brands.

Boston Beer Company is launching three new categories of drinks in 2019 aimed at health-conscious drinkers. In addition to its flagship brand Samuel Adams, Boston Beer President and CEO Dave Burwick detailed three new "lifestyle" brands in an earnings release issued Wednesday.

The brands include a 26.2 Brew from wholly-owned affiliate Marathon Brewing Co. According to Burwick, the drink will be a gose beer made with sea salt targeted at runners. The two other brands include Wild Leaf Hard Tea, a craft hard tea with lower calories and sugar, and Tura Alcoholic Kombucha, an organic, light and shelf-stable alcoholic Kombucha with live probiotics and real fruit.

“We are now in the very early stages of our national launch of both 26.2 Brew and Wild Leaf, and we will launch Tura later in the quarter on a more limited geographic basis,” Burwick said. “To date, the response from our distributors, retailers and drinkers on these new brands has been very positive, but it’s too early to draw conclusions on the long-term impact. We’re in a very competitive business, and we remain optimistic for continued long-term growth of our current brand portfolio and our innovations.”

Overall, Boston Beer closed out the fourth quarter of 2018 with $225.2 million in revenue.