Today’s post is a continuation of a two-part article about Chris Bradley and Brendan Watters, heads of Kings & Convicts Brewing, which last year purchased Ballast Point Brewing from Big Beer entity Constellation Brands, and in the process returned the 20-plus-year-old San Diego interest to independent-brewery status as defined by industry organizations such as the national Brewers Association and San Diego Brewers Guild.
Leaning on Heritage and Employees
In acquiring Ballast Point, Bradley and Watters were well aware of the company’s reputation for producing quality beer. But being Chicago transplants, it wasn’t until they moved to San Diego to manage the company that they learned how much it meant to the county and the craft-beer culture it helped establish.
“The longer I’ve been out here, the more I’ve come to understand just how much people in San Diego have a real love of Ballast Point,” says Watters, who has been in town since last December. “I feel an obligation.”
That civic pride—much of which was decimated when Constellation Brands took over, corporatized and subsequently struggled in managing the company—makes the job of reinvigorating the Ballast Point brand and gaining back San Diegans’ trust a more difficult proposition, but Bradley and Watters aren’t shying away from it. On March 2, when the sale became final, the company launched a campaign across radio, publications and social media, touting the importance and expertise of the employees whose efforts had grown the business and will continue to guide it. While sleek and well done from a marketing perspective, there was more to the multimedia campaign than P.R. glitz.
Ownership enlisted independent consultants to conduct off-site focus groups where Ballast Point employees were asked what the company used to be like, what it had become and what it means to be part of the San Diego brewing community. From those sessions, three key terms arose: innovation, quality and approachability. That and other ideas and language unearthed during those focus groups can be found in one of the ads it spawned. That piece features an “open letter” cobbled together using employee statements and sentiments set within the framework of a beer glass.
But Bradley and Watters didn’t just ask employees for input on messaging. They are working to create dramatic change, distancing themselves from the dynamic where Chicago-based Constellation Brands managers were remotely dictating directives to employees, to one where on-site owners are asking brewers for insights on where to go from a new-product perspective.
We want to act like a craft brewery again. What these brewers have is off the charts. They have their finger on the pulse of what’s going on in beer more than Constellation Brands did. This is not about going back to what Ballast Point was. It’s about taking all the good things Ballast Point grew from and having a look through the back windshield. The industry has changed, and we have to bring this back to an independent-minded brewery.”
Brendan Watters, CEO, Kings & Convicts Brewing & Ballast Point Brewing
To that end, Ballast Point unveiled its Brewers Series of beers earlier this year. The first was Grinner, a tropically inclined IPA brewed with Motueka, Nelson Sauvin, Galaxy, Strata and Mosaic hops. Like the rest of the beers in the Brewers Series, it was available exclusively on draft throughout the month of its release. The series has thus far also featured a hazy IPA.
Bradley says putting the Brewers Series release calendar together was easy. “Everything was already done. Ballast Point’s Little Italy site is producing five-to-ten new beers a month. We want to get more people to understand that there’s a lot more to Ballast Point than Sculpin, and the innovation that was here hasn’t gone away. We can do that by letting these guys brew what they want to be brewing.”
“[Accounts and consumers] want different beers and they want them to rotate,” adds Watters. “San Diegans can expect lots of upcoming releases—some the beers that have never been out of our taprooms will make it out, and we’ll be dusting off some that have fallen off, including Longfin Lager and Calico Amber under its original name.”
And look for Kings and Convicts beers to debut in San Diego, as well, including Kings & Convicts IPA, a refreshing India pale ale with a juicy, tropical nose and additional limited can releases of beers from the parent company.
Owning a New Home
For Bradley and Watters, establishing a bankable foundation in their home market is Business 101. They realize that can carry the day through industry fluctuation and want to keep fans they have while adding new ones and bringing back those lost during the Constellation Brands era.
“We need to have beers that work in San Diego versus making beers that work over the whole country,” says Watters. “One out of every five Ballast Point beers is sold in San Diego County and 90% of all sales comes from a dozen states. We don’t view that as changing, so we are focusing on San Diego and California first.”
That mentality will extend beyond Ballast Point’s local venues in Miramar, Little Italy and Linda Vista (Home Brew Mart). Whereas the majority of the company’s specialty and small-batch beers were off-limits to bars and restaurants under previous ownership, Bradley says if a beer is in their portfolio and in kegs, retail establishments are welcome to it. He hopes this shift will get them back in the good graces of accounts that stopped carrying Ballast Point because they weren’t interested in only being able to order core beers such as Sculpin, Grapefruit Sculpin and Ballast Point Lager.
Speaking of Ballast Point Lager, while Watters says he likes the beer, he has different feelings about just about everything else pertaining to it. “The design looks like a gym sock. It’s so corporate. And the naming. Screw that!” When asked about the possibility of Ballast Point expanding into other segments of the beverage industry such as hard seltzer or hard kombucha, he gets similarly feisty. “Ballast Point will not chase trends. All we’re going to do is brew the best beer we possibly can because that’s what we know how to do.”
To further strengthen Ballast Point’s place within the local beer scene, it has reenlisted in the San Diego Brewers Guild and California Craft Brewers Association as Constellation Brands’ exit renders the company an independent brewery as defined by those trade organizations.
On an individual level, Bradley and Watters have spent a great deal of time visiting breweries and getting to know their contemporaries. Having lived in New Zealand for 12 years, Bradley has become particularly fond of University Heights’ Kiwi-owned Kairoa Brewing. Watters’ go-to spots include Pizza Port’s Ocean Beach and Solana Beach brewpubs and Kearny Mesa’s Societe Brewing. They’re also quite fond of neighbors and often “wander up the hill” behind Ballast Point HQ for beers at Duck Foot Brewing and Pure Project Brewing. They’re like local yokels already.
“Chris and I have ingrained ourselves here. San Diego is where we are spending our time,” says Watters. “The more time we spend here, the more we feel comfortable here. The people have been awesome. Much in the way that we love Chicago because it’s real, we love it here because it’s also real. It’s a different real, but it feels right for us.”