Kyle Swartz is managing editor of Beverage Dynamics magazine. We don’t really have a marketing budget, so we rely on labels to be eye-catching enough to catch a customer’s attention. While many breweries focus full-time positions on sales and administration, early on we decided that art would be an important position. KS: Clown Shoes bottles have eye-catching artwork. For higher ABV/barrel-aged beers, we’re going to stick with bombers, but more-and-more we’re looking to the canned format to experiment. We got a canning line earlier this year and have designed a core beer for the line (Galactica) as well as monthly special releases that will be 7-9% ABV. can is an amazing creation, and we’ve had the plan to package in this format for a long time. bombers, but over the years we’ve had to adapt to a changing market and different consumer preferences. SG: We originally built our brand off 22-oz. KS: Clown Shoes recently released canned 4-packs. It is so much fun to do these, we’re looking forward to many more in 2018. Everyone loved the idea, and we realized that we could do more special projects like this in other markets, where we could tell a story that might be known locally or regionally and put a great beer forward. Instead, we built a Russian Imperial Stout brewed especially for Ohio with the ABV. We were getting hammered with requests for the beer from our Ohio customers, but couldn’t change the laws. One of our best stouts, Blaecorn Unidragon, wasn’t allowed in the state of Ohio because its ABV was too high.
KS: What’s the thinking behind Clown Shoes’ state-specific releases? We landed on MBBC as a partner because of the capacity they have, the name recognition they carry, and that it is an employee-owned company. It was becoming more obvious over the last couple years that we needed our own space, and building a facility large enough to accommodate our current and future size would have been a massive project. Dan Lipke was eventually hired onto the Clown Shoes side full-time: this made it possible to continue to meet demand, both domestic and international. was outstanding and gave us the ability to do whatever we needed to make the best beer possible. Funds were not available for a brewery early on. How did that work, and why the change to a standard brewery? Sales in Massachusetts took very well to the initial beer and concept, and a brand was born. He connected with Dan Lipke, then head brewer of Mercury Brewing Co., and they concocted a Black IPA as the first Clown Shoes beer (Hoppy Feet). The name did not win however, the dream to have beer brewed under that name stuck with him. Sean Geary: In 2009 Gregg Berman entered a Beer Advocate contest to name a Dogfish Head beer ‘Clown Shoes.’ This was a nickname an employee had at Gregg’s family’s store, Berman’s Wine and Spirits.
Kyle Swartz: What’s the origin story of Clown Shoes?
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