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Los Angeles-based Beer Girl has had a quick glow-up over its first coupla years after being founded in 2023 by Caroline Renezeder Foulk and her husband, Griffin, a former hockey player. Last wk, the 3.5%-ABV, low-gluten brand finally outgrew its SoCal roots with distribution in FL, TX, NC and TN. It's aiming to ship 200K cases in 2026, which would represent a fivefold jump over last yr, Caroline said. It certainly won't hurt co's causes that she'll appear on the Mar 18 edition of Shark Tank to pitch the distinctly retro-styled product, and while she was tight-lipped about the taping, nothing has dampened her enthusiasm for the fledgling business: "It resonates in a way that's hard to articulate." "We Knew This Was a Brand That Was Ready to Go National" Caroline and her family opened a brewery in 2020 and she quickly grew curious about the large number of drinkers grabbing for beyond beer options in suds central. Customers would order stuff we didn't make in house, so I'd ask, 'Why don't you try one of our beers?'" The answer was often "beer makes us feel heavy and bloated," so she would steer them to Mexican lagers made from a corn base. Sensing an opportunity, she brewed her own and put it on draft and "had some fun with it," calling it Beer Girl. A new recipe followed and did even better. By the time co rolled out a second product, an amber lager, "we knew this was a brand that was ready to go national."When the Going Got Tuff, Caroline Got Going The tuff state of the industry didn't dissuade Caroline from jumping in. Quite the opposite. "I think when an industry has issues it's the best time to enter if you have a solution," she said. "That risk wasn't something I was ever afraid of. I was so confident when I saw the problem." Caroline designed the logo with a friend, her own sister and one of her employees, inventing the Helvetica-esque font that graces the red-and-white retro-looking cans. "We were obsessed with the vintage Americana aesthetic," she said, and her "small but mighty team" got the job done.A "Trojan Horse" for Low ABV "Most beer has been made by men, catering to men," Caroline said, but women "still make up a good part of the beer category as a whole." Putting "Girl" in the name was a conscious choice, aimed at Zennials, who can "sniff out what's inauthentic." In distrib meetings, "my story never changes," she adds. "It's not even a sale, it's my story." Insofar as there is a pitch, it's that wholesalers "have nothing that looks like this," that it's an "incremental add" of something "you don't have in the back of your warehouse." Her goal is nothing less than to be a "Trojan Horse" for low-ABV and woman-targeted brands. "When the consumer starts asking for Beer Girl," Caroline added, that's when she'll know the brand has really made it.Distribution as Marketing Just as she did in SoCal, Caroline is focusing on the on premise in her new markets, where co has put supplier reps to work alongside the distribs. A previous foray into AZ didn't have a sales team behind it, and the effort fizzled. She's not making that mistake again. "In alcohol, route-to-market is everything," she said. "You could invest heavily in digital marketing and people will be like, 'Oh my God, I'm so excited about this product, but where can I buy it?'" In short, advertisements will follow the distribution. That said, she is planning to piggyback on her Shark Tank appearance with digital spend, including influencer partnerships, as the brand matures.Into the Shark Tank Beer Girl isn't the only woman-focused suds brand that's getting off the ground. There's also Girl Beer, but outside of the name and extremely general premise, Caroline says the brands coexist far better than they clash. "We have very different value propositions and very different markets," she said, adding that "it's almost better when we're next to each other" on shelves. Is there (girl) power in numbers? Stay tuned - and because of Shark Tank, we mean that literally.

The Evolution of Low-ABV Brand Beer Girl, from One CA Brewery to 5 New States and "Shark Tank"

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