In the 2022 National Liquor News Industry Leaders Forum, Luke Seager, Sales Director at White Bay Beer Co, talked about the young Sydney-based brewery’s 2021 learnings that will help it develop further in 2022.
In its first full calendar year of trading in 2021, White Bay Beer Co hit the ground running, with a number of highlights celebrated, a range of challenges overcome and ultimately a lot of learnings.
Sales Director, Luke Seager, described some of these learning moments, and said: “We learnt how supportive our customers are. We learnt how resilient and innovative our White Bay team is and we learnt how caring the industry is for each other. We are extremely proud to be a part of it.”
The pinnacle highlight for White Bay during this momentous time was the opening of its tap venue on the Balmain peninsula in Sydney. This has been complemented throughout the year with recognition for the brand’s products too.
For example, Seager said there was: “The honour of having two of the top 10 best beers in GABS Sydney coming from White Bay and more and more consumers experiencing White Bay beers through our on-premise and bottle shop partners. They’ve been huge supporters of ours with amazing feedback on the quality of our beers and how much flavour our brewing team are packing in.”
Then there was the launch of White Bay Crusher, the brewer’s third core beer in the market, which has been met with fantastic feedback as it capitalises on one of the biggest enduring trends of today – the ‘moderation beer’.
“[Crusher has] been referred to as a moderation beer that doesn’t drink like one due to the flavour profile. Sitting in tank for 28 days, and packed with nine grams of hops per litre, it’s an all occasion drink that is meeting the demands of people looking to stay in control but not sacrifice on flavour. We expect Crusher to continue its fast momentum into 2022,” Seager said.
That momentum is something that White Bay expects across the entire brand, driven from its main focus this year of staying authentic in everything it does.
“Our focus is to continue to be ourselves and grow organically with our supporting partners. We’re going to carry on making flavour packed brews across more styles. We’ll continue to focus on our core beers expansion into more on- and off-premise venues,
whilst releasing some more ripping White Bay limited releases that people can experience across festivals and supporting venues,” Seager explained.
To meet these goals, there will be a lot of things happening behind the scenes in 2022 at White Bay, as it scales from its current position to reach new heights.
“Our brewers Dennis, Jess and the team have been doing an amazing job keeping up with demand. We expect this to continue to increase, so ramping up our production capability, whilst not sacrificing on the quality of our beers is imperative,” said Seager.
“As we grow, there is more to be done and spread across the team. Like many young breweries, balancing the needs and the wants with cash flow, that best supports our customers, is a hire wire balancing act. We want to continue our close relationships with our customers and be agile, so our compass will always point towards fostering that environment.”