As hard seltzer continues its astronomical growth in markets like the United States and United Kingdom, new brands are emerging in Australia.
One of those is independent Australian brand Fellr, which is launching two locally brewed alcoholic seltzers flavours in Lime & Soda and Dry & Lime.
Fellr comes from former Pernod pair Andy Skora and Will Morgan, who told TheShout they saw the huge potential for hard seltzer in Australia, but also noticed the RTD category hadn’t followed the locally-driven craft revolutions seen by the beer, wine and spirits categories.
“Will and I worked really closely together at Pernod, and we always talked about doing our own thing. We saw the way that seltzer was being launched in the US and the success it was having. We also noticed that the RTD category here just really needed a bit of a facelift.
“We saw that there was probably a big opportunity for an independent craft, premium company to come in and change that space. So that’s what we decided to go with and we jumped into it.
“We wanted to create something that people were excited to share with their friends, proud to consume and tap into those new craft trends that have done so well for beer.”
The pair have created an all-natural 83 calorie drink with less than one gram of sugar that is also gluten free and vegan friendly. The seltzer is also made using a custom developed brewing method which gives Fellr a fuller mouth feel, and while not able to go into detail on the process, Morgan was able to explain the thinking behind going with a brewing process.
“It’s a fermented base, so it’s a beer brew base, similar to the hard seltzers over in the US. Because we’ve had experience in spirits we looked at neutral spirits for RTD, but we just wanted to do something a lit bit more craft and have a bit more mouthfeel and a full of flavour beverage.”
Morgan added that the inspiration for the brand is Australia’s lifestyle and culture and that they wanted to create something unique and from Australia as this is a very different market to others around the world.
“We’ve created this lifestyle brand which is pulling cues inspired by Australia and then also having a brand ethos around not conforming and think a little bit differently and try to push the category into a new space.”
“The inspiration for the Fellr brand comes from what we call a ‘Land of Fizz’. We’ve taken our visual, tonal and lingual cues from the sunburnt country. The rugged beauty, endless beaches, pastel skies and rich, laid-back culture. Aussie’s are an excitable bunch too, who love chasing those moments of pure stoke. It’s those feelings when you’re just hanging with your mates, or when you’re just doing what you love that we’ve also tried to capture with this brand.”
He added: “The main thing for us is really calling out our brand and building the Land of Fizz positioning, so we want to be a lifestyle, local Australian brand.
“We know that others are going to come out with a similar product, but we have developed this process ourselves and it has got a really great mouthfeel and it will be something that means we can bring that craft story because we have developed and brewed it locally, rather than just buy in some neutral spirit from somewhere that no-one knows.”
Skora added: “We know it was mandatory for Fellr to have all-natural ingredients, low sugar and be gluten free. But we wanted to prioritise flavour, so we’ve retained less than one gram of real fruit sugars to maintain a fresh and real fruit taste, as most no sugar products taste pretty average. And we’ve still managed to make one of the lowest calorie drinks on the market.”
The pair are aiming to launch the two flavours on 1 June at selected online, retail stores, with a watermelon flavour to follow later this year. For more information about ranging Fellr, head to the website drinkfellr.com.