Shiner seltzer
Iconic Texas beer brand brews up White Claw seltzer competitor
Add Shiner to the list of beloved Texas brands seeking some of the sweet White Claw cash. The Spoetzl brewery says it will soon debut Shiner Straight Shooter, a "craft brewed" hard seltzer.
Available by the end of August, Straight Shooter will offer four flavors at launch: Wild Cherry, Lemonade, Mango, and Grapefruit & Lime. The beverage is gluten-free, has zero carbs, and only contains 90 calories per can.
“When we set out to make our first hard seltzer we knew it had to be genuinely craft brewed," Shiner brewmaster Jimmy Mauric said in a statement. "With that in mind, we use just a few simple ingredients and water sourced from our artesian well. We brewed it so it would live up to its name ‘Straight Shooter’— it is a straightforward, transparent, delicious, and refreshing craft brewed hard seltzer.”
Shiner's entrance into the hard seltzer category certainly makes financial sense. Led by White Claw and Truly, the market grew more than 200 percent in 2019, according to data compiled by the IWSR, which tracks global sales of beer, wine, and spirits.
That success has triggered a flood of bubbly competitors. Recently, Coca-Cola announced that Topo Chico would bring its own hard seltzer to America in 2021. Global beverage brand Anheuser-Busch InBev now produces three different brands of seltzer.
White Claw proved so popular in 2019 that it experienced a shortage where bars and restaurants couldn't get enough to meet the demand. Consumers like the seltzers because they're easy to drink. Each can typically has less than 5-percent alcohol-by-volume and only contains around 100 calories.
Whether Straight Shooter will trigger a similar frenzy remains to be seen, but the pairing of an iconic Texas brand with appropriately sweet and tart flavors certainly sounds like a winning combination. Can the days of floating the Frio with a cooler full of Wild Cherry cans be far behind?