How to take a legacy craft brewer into modern times
Highland Brewing Company is Asheville’s first craft brewery and has been around for nearly 25 years. But recently it bid adieu to its iconic tartan wearing Scotsman and the bagpipes to give its flagship brews, like Gaelic Ale, a more contemporary look.
When the retired engineer Oscar Wong founded the brewery in 1994 he decided to pay visual homage to the Scottish and Irish immigrants that settled the Appalachian region of North Carolina and to brew British-inspired beers.
Fearing that the heritage aspect will be lost on Highland’s present-day consumers, Mr Wong’s daughter Leah Wong Ashburn, who has led the company since 2015, last year went for an overhaul, with a streamlined logo and fresh packaging, point of sale and marketing materials. Even the taproom received a makeover.
The new logo evokes the Blue Ridge Mountains around Asheville and nods to the brewery’s status as Asheville’s pioneer brewery with a stylised compass and North Star. The logo also gives the date of the brewery’s founding as the Wong family is proud of its heritage.
However, more important than the rebranding was the shift in beer styles produced by Highland. Lately, Highland has become known for its American-styled IPAs and experimental limited releases much more than for its English pale ales and porters. Responsible for this transition was Highland’s head brewer Hollie Stephenson who left Highland in August 2017 to take a major role with Guinness at its new US brewery in Maryland.
Highland, which produces about 50,000 hl beer annually, might have suffered the fate of other US legacy breweries and lost out to hipper start-ups had they not adopted a shrewd modernisation strategy. In an effort to signal to consumers that it can do cool things too, Highland first changed its beers, which the Wongs and Ms Stephenson did over several years. In the effect, the transition was beer-led and the rebranding of the logo just the final step, Ms Wong Ashburn told BRAUWELT International.
With a population of only 90,000 people, Asheville is a Beer Town USA, sporting over 30 craft breweries, among them Sierra Nevada and New Belgium’s east coast breweries. More brewery openings are in the pipeline.
