Like the Beer? Buy the brewery

After numerous successful brewing years and countless beers, the Garagista Brewery was up for sale. Owner, Steve Miller had decided it was time to move on and wanted a buyer who can carry on the spirit of the brewery.Garagista is renowned for some fairly out-there advertising for their Tears of the Hipster and Bat Piss craft beers, so of course, selling the brewery had to be something out of the ordinary too.

It was with this expectation that, together with their ad agency DUKE, Garagista developed For Sale Ale – a bittersweet Indian Pale Ale created with a single purpose: to sell the brewery whilst giving you a literal taste of what you’re buying, namely the quality of the brew and the spirit of the brand.

The story, however, wasn’t just in the beer, but the label too. DUKE created a classified ad advertising the sale of the brewery, which ran in a regional newspaper. That exact classified ad was then turned into the actual label design. The design not only appeared on the bottles, but on a limited-edition bottle wrap too, effectively stealing media space in bottle stores, a place where few craft beers can afford to advertise.

The result? The Garagista was sold in the same month as the campaign launched.

For those wishing to try the first beer that was created to sell a brewery, you can still find it at Garagista’s brewery in Riebeek Kasteel or at selected specialist beer merchants in the Western Cape.