Garage Beer has been on a tear since it was relaunched at the beginning of 2023 by CEO Andy Sauer. Last summer saw the brand bring on Jason and Travis Kelce as investors, partners, owners and operators while sales volumes have grown over 460% in the last 52 weeks, per IRI data shared with Marketing Dive.
The football-playing Kelce brothers, who double as media stars and advertising darlings, have quickly become the face of Garage Beer, especially Jason, who retired from the NFL in 2024 and pivoted to a career in announcing.
In April, Jason starred in “Brewmite,” a humorous bit of long-form content from Garage Beer that reimagined the martial arts films of the ‘80s and ‘90s for the world of beer. Building on the success of the campaign, the brewer recently released a second installment of “Brewmite,” this time welcoming Travis and UFC legend Chuck Liddell to the dojo.
“Brewmite II” includes social and digital content, limited-edition merchandise (including a throwback VHS tape) and even a film premiere-styled release party. The effort demonstrates how Garage Beer is utilizing both its famous co-owners and a no-holds-barred approach to marketing to form a more authentic connection with its target audience, a strategy reminiscent of recent disruptor success stories from Liquid Death and Dr. Squatch.
“The brand stands on its own at this point, from a tone of voice and an aesthetic,” said Garage Beer Chief Creative Officer Corey Smale. “We already have a pretty good fire going, and then the Kelces back up a tank of gas on it.”
Understanding audiences
Garage Beer’s latest “Brewmite” comes as the brand sees more mileage to derive from the concept. Plus, shooting around Travis’ schedule is always challenging, as the 35-year-old prepares for the NFL season, among other commitments. But the larger effort also demonstrates how Garage Beer’s marketing is evolving, even if some of its ideas begin as riffs between Jason and the brand’s team.
“The fact that it can go from there to being a film and an actual event with a VHS tape is a testament to our team. We're still a very, very small brand and team, but the people that we have are always doing a lot of stuff,” Smale explained. “We always want to tie [together] real life and online as much as possible.”
Smale attributes the resonance of Garage Beer’s brand marketing to being one with its audience, with shared interests around martial arts parodies, beer-filled waterbeds and even pro wrestling. During his time as brand director at Pabst Blue Ribbon, Smale helped embed the brand in pro wrestling, including running TV ads and sponsoring a podcast about wrestling toys. When the podcast’s deal with PBR ended, it tapped Garage Beer as a sponsor — a move Smale said speaks to the power of micro niche interests.
“I think it’s cool to show audiences, ‘Dude, we are you,’” Smale said. “That’s hard to pull off, unless you really are a fan.”
Small brand, niche interests
The podcast partnership has led to additional content and brand opportunities, like sponsoring a world title match and featuring a green-haired wrestler in a campaign video around the brewer’s green-canned lime beer. For a small brand like Garage Beer, marketing requires agility and simplicity, sometimes without the contracts required by big brands and influencers.
“It's a little bit out of necessity,” Smale said. “I don’t have money to sponsor WWE or AEW [All Elite Wrestling], but I know how to get into a part of that world and grow it.”
As Garage Beer expands, so does its need to move into other cultural cul de sacs. The company on Aug. 11 announced a partnership with illustrator Tim Jacobus — best known for his iconic “Goosebumps” covers — for a Halloween-themed effort, “Garage Fear.”
The effort spans packaging (featuring Jason alongside a character resembling an eponymous horror icon), an adult comic book limited to 100 copies, a forthcoming animated short and a pop-up at a haunted house in St. Louis, Missouri. Marketing materials position “Garage Fear” as helping consumers who are “worried about having to ingest pumpkin beer this fall” and “So good, it’s literally striking fear into the seltzer industry.”
That type of horror-themed, competitive marketing recalls the success of Liquid Death, a brand Smale worked on for a year at agency Party Land.
“What Liquid Death has done will be a case study for generations,” Smale said. “That we can even be mentioned in the same [breath], that’s so cool for me.”
