Stone Brewing Is Launching Its Own Hard Seltzers
More hard seltzer, but from an unexpected source.
Every day, we get closer to the dream of every company in the US having its own hard seltzer. The Hallmark Channel even has one now. Yet, that's somehow less surprising than Stone Brewing launching a line of hard seltzers.
Here we are, though. Buenavida Hard Seltzer will be hitting shelves in July. The name is reminiscent of a relatively recently-released Stone beer that has become one of its fastest sellers, Buenaveza Salt & Lime Lager. In the unveiling, Stone acknowledges that the brewery doesn't feel like the most obvious brewery to start a line of hard seltzers. That's both because of the general aura the brewery has cultivated and that Co-Founder Greg Koch has been a hard seltzer skeptic in the past.
"Surprisingly, perhaps more to me than anyone, I’m fine with it even though I know that I’m likely to get merciless shit over us releasing a hard seltzer… and perhaps deservedly so with all the fun I’ve poked at the category," Koch said in the announcement. The company says that Buenavida will be the first line of hard seltzers released exclusively in glass bottles. The seltzer brewed with cane sugar will come in four flavors: Mango, Black Cherry, Mandarin, and Watermelon & Lime.
"I admit that I was on the leading edge of that skepticism," Koch said in the announcement. "My intermittent interactions with the world of hard seltzers had left me… and I’m working hard to be kind here… nonplussed. The category as a whole confused me, and I struggled to see why we would want to play in a space that seemed to overtly espouse a philosophy of mediocrity."
Stone jumping into the world of hard seltzer is another sign that the category is around to stay. (At least for now.) If your curiosity has been piqued, you're going to have to wait to find Buenavida across most of the country. The July release date is for Southern California only, with a national rollout planned for January 2022. If you're near a Stone location, however, you can stop in to try it right now.