The Brew SiteCostco beer
I follow but usually don’t read closely the "Brew" Blog from Miller Brewing, but today’s post caught my eye: Costco is looking at selling private label beers.
Costco has been selling Kirkland signature wines for a number of years and over the past year has filed label applications for some private-label spirits, including a single-malt scotch.
The focus on beer appears to be a new effort.
The beers are brewed by Gordon Biersch Brewing Company, a California craft brewer. Interestingly, Biersch also makes private label craft-style brews for Trader Joe’s.
They’re planning an amber ale, a hefeweizen, and a pale ale. The beers would appear under their "Kirkland" signature line, though I don’t know how wide a distribution they’d receive.
The "Brew" Blog also has links to the application document and label design (shown here).
As someone who has a both a Costco and (soon) a Trader Joe’s available in the same town, I’d be interested in comparing both stores’ versions of, say, hefeweizen in a side-by-side tasting… since they’re brewed by the same brewer, do you suppose they’d use the same recipe?
I don’t go to Trader Joe’s or Costco, but isn’t Trader Joe’s along the lines of Whole Foods, while Costco is more like Sam’s Club?
I think it would be pretty freaky if the Trader Joe’s beer was exactly the same as the Costco beer. It would sort of be like the Dogfish Head Light Lager (if there were such a thing) being exactly the same as Busch Light.
I think the comparison is apt, although Sam’s Club (from what little I know of it) isn’t quite like Costco… could be wrong, though.
No, the point of the hefes/beers being the same is ’cause they’re brewed by the same brewer (Stan at Appellation Beer today has a similar post)… if Dogfish was brewing a Light Lager *and* Busch Beer, then there you go. 🙂