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BRAND SPOTLIGHT

DAYS BREWING

In this brand breakdown we take a deep dive into Days Brewing.

CATEGORY: NO-LOW ALCOHOL

Days Brewing

📘BRAND OVERVIEW

🔍LET’S GIVE SOME CONTEXT

  • A moment of pure product focus: Quitting their jobs in January 2020 to focus on Days Brewing could be considered very unlucky timing with COVID around the corner, but for Mike and Duncan it was a crucial part of their story. They caught the last flight out of London to Edinburgh before lockdown and spent the following 6 months at the brewery focussing on just one thing – brewing great tasting beer.  

 

  • A Powerful Feedback Loop: With so many people stuck at home, they had a pool of people who were more than happy to receive care packages of beer to feedback on. They sent them to ex colleagues at AbInBev, potential investors, restaurateurs etc, collated their feedback, taking it back to the brewery and refining the recipe. 

 

  • D2C Launch: With bars and restaurants closed, D2C was the only available channel to launch. For the first couple of years it remained the dominant channel, only recently on and off trade has caught up.

  • Strong Start: Post COVID, people were more focussed than ever on health and wellness. When emerging from lockdown, it wasn’t alcohol and hangovers that people missed, but social connection and those classic beer moments. The timing was perfect to launch an alcohol free brand.

🏢 BEHIND THE SCENES

  • Headquarters: Edinburgh, Scotland

  • Year founded: 2020

  • Employee count: 1-10

  • Investors: 4 funding rounds to date. A mix of family offices, high net-worth Angels, strategic value adds.

  • Purchasing Options: Online, On-trade, Off-trade

👉 PRODUCT AND AUDIENCE SNAPSHOT

  • Category: Alcohol free beer
  • Products: Lager and Pale Ale
  • Innovation: 568ml pint bottle
  • Target audience: 18-35 year olds
  • Brand positioning: Positive, energetic, down-to-earth, honest, fun. They talk about “beer for doing”; their brand strategy is all about celebrating doing and doers. They are proud to advocate and stand for drinking less alcohol and they want to talk about the benefits of drinking less alcohol in a fun way.

🧡 THIS GETS US EXCITED

  • 100% alcohol free – Days Brewing fully understands the occasion and the importance of delivering to that consumer need. The occasion can be alcohol free allthough 90% of their consumers also consume alcohol. Despite alcohol-free being very hard to achieve, they refused to compromise and whilst many competitors settle for 0.05% or even 0.5%, there’s no uncertainty with Day’s 0.0% ABV. 

  • Consumer learning  – Launching D2C meant they were speaking to their consumers every day, right from the start. They really understand who they are and how they drink – they used this knowledge before building out traditional channels. They recognise they are catering to a new beer consumer, one that is focussed on their health and don’t get distracted by the aggressive marketing tactics of the big players. 

  • Worlds first and Tiktok – Days launched the worlds first alcohol free pint bottle format, which was borne out of trade customer conversations demonstrating their customer-centric approach.  The team have taken to Tiktok over the last 6-8 months in a big way jumping on all the latest trends and documenting BTS action

🤔 POTENTIAL BRAND CHALLENGES

  • Big brand machines” to compete with – the category is already competing with the false assumption that “no alcohol” should be cheaper. Big brands with huge volumes and cost efficiencies on their side are adding to this pressure on independent businesses such as Days Brewing.

🏁SOME OF THEIR COMPETITION

🛒 WHERE TO FIND THEM

WHAT NEXT?

  • Building the world’s next great beer business 

    • Brand: Days are all about building something engaging and relevant for a younger consumer. With the younger generation drinking less alcohol they recognise that if beer doesn’t stay relevant it will lose. So expect them to double down on their marketing efforts to reach this audience in a fun way.

 

  • Availability: reaching more consumers is important for any new business, but for Days it is also a strategic play. If they want people to consider Days in occasions and places where beer doesn’t usually live, then they must be visible and available in those moments. 

 

  • Team and Culture: Days Brewing have big ambitions. Being a challenger brand that is trying to reinvent a category and encourage a reappraisal is going to need a lot of creative and fresh thinking. Only a dynamic team with an innovative culture can crack such a task! 

🧢  MEET THEIR TEAM

All data is correct at time of writing. 

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