JF19-Cover story

New England Made

Inside the wonderful world of the Lord Hobo Brewing Company

With its unique ability to bring people of all

By Michael J. Pallerino kinds together, beer is the unifying factor we need today. Who couldn’t get behind that line of thinking? Just ask Daniel Lanigan, the founder of the Lord Hobo Brewing Company (LHBCo). From the lords that only enjoy the finer things in life, to the hobos who work hard to earn their small pleasures, Lanigan believes that great beer is an accessible luxury.

Lanigan is a craft beer veteran. After building a deep connection to argu-ably some of the best beer bars in the country including but not limited to, the Moan & Dove in Amherst, the Dirty Truth in Northampton, and Lord Hobo Craft Beer bar in Cambridge Massachusetts), Lanigan set out to redefine craft style New England beers.

Photography by @splfilms

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Enter Lord Hobo, the hop-focused brewery Lanigan founded in 2015. Its flagship beer, Boomsauce, became an iconic offering for craft beer fans everywhere. Today, it has expanded its core portfolio offerings which previously included the classic line up of: Glorious, Galaxy Pale; Steal this Can, a West Coast Style IPA; Consolation Prize, a Double IPA; and Hobo Life a Session IPA to include various styles and experimental options for all palates. The Taproom, in Woburn has 40 taps, of which at least 50% of those are LHBCo brewed products.

And as the Lord Hobo legend grows, so does it distribution, as the demand for its New England style taste is gaining national interest. The brand also is eying building satellite breweries in the United States and abroad.

CBAM sat down with Andréa (Drea) Hudson, Director of Brand Marketing, to get her thoughts on what makes the Lord Hobo one of craft beer's fastest growing brands.

There is a ton of noise in the industry. Cutting through that chatter with a unique perspective, top tier culture centric partners and creative talent is what sets us apart.

appetite for new portfolio options versus focus on flagship and branding. Style-wise, the New England IPA earned it's definition last year, along with the Hazy IPA, which as you know, we take great pride in being pioneers of that style.

We see trends that lean into Sour, Gose and Session, which we currently have on tap at our HQ for R&D purposes. We're always keeping our eyes and ears out for what's coming next.

Photography by @srirachow

Give us a snapshot of today's craft brew market from your perspective. What’s likely to happen next?

Given the explosive and well deserved growth of the craft beer industry, what happens next is determined by the brands that choose to dominate the industry by innovating, differentiating and staying focused on their communities. From our perspective, when we started on this journey four years ago, we had one goal in mind—to produce world class beers that were accessible to all.

Now that we've expanded our distribution to 14 markets domestically and are beginning to export, we are well on our way. What's next for us is strategic expansion, continuing to invest in our team and our quality control, taproom focus and making sure that we're always taking care of our key partners, from distributor to fans and everything else in between.

What trends are defining the space?

Trends are an interesting topic. Some may say style, others may say packaging. In our opinion, it's a combination of understanding the consumers

What is the Lord Hobo story from a brand perspective?

We're grateful everyday to be one of the Top 100 largest breweries by volume as of 2017 and Top 5 by volume in Massachusetts in such a short amount of time. We know that this only happens when your partners, distributors and fans also understand your vision. Our founder and CEO, Daniel Lanigan, is a seasoned craft beer veteran in this industry and knows his stuff when it comes to beer. When we started to craft the story of Lord Hobo, we wanted to connect a few elements. It's important for us, that our fans know that we are serious about beer being one of the most affordable luxury items in the world. With that, it's also imperative that our story of Lords and Hobos alike, we all deserve to drink like royalty resonates.

Beer has been a connector of all kinds of people for centuries and we firmly believe that we are bridging the cultural gap with our beers and branding by bringing people together who may not come

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your brand is built on releasing premium products, where quality comes before quantity and maintaining relevancy in key territories is always top of mind.

There is a ton of noise in the industry. Cutting through that chatter with a unique perspective, top tier culture, centric partners and creative talent is what sets us apart. So the biggest challenge is, and always will be continuing to follow the vision that has been set forth, while being able to pivot as needed without diluting the brand that you've been building.

together otherwise. We hold beer to the highest regard, and brew a premium product with ingredients that we can stand behind.

Walk us through your branding strategy.

Our branding strategy is simple. Keep it authentic.

What's the biggest issue today related to the marketing/sales side of the craft beer business today?

It's easy to release a bunch of mediocre beers to get fans excited about something new, which seems to be a trend for some. The challenge is when

Lords of the Ring...

The Lord Hobo team includes: Daniel Lanigan Founder & CEO

Andrew Bousquet VP of Business Development

Andréa (Drea) Hudson Director of Brand Marketing

Rob Day Director of Product Marketing

Chuck MacSteven Lead Graphic Designer

What is the secret to creating a branding story that consumers can buy in to?

Back to the authenticity answer. It's less about fans buying into your story and more about crafting a story that's relatable and easy to remember. There are times where people are so focused on getting consumers to "buy in" to something that it comes off as fake. Count us out of that.

What is the one thing that every craft beer brand should be doing in the way of marketing?

Deciding “why” they are doing what they're doing versus “what” they are doing. Marketing is not a one-way conversation, it's a twoway street, once you know your why, the rest comes easily.

What do you see as some of your biggest opportunities moving ahead?

Large scale partnerships and collaborations with brands that you'd least expect to see a craft beer working with. This industry

Photography by @beersandcameras

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is so fresh, we're excited to shift the paradigm when it comes to those who should be drinking craft beer, when really craft beer is for everyone. The industry has been pretty one note for awhile, we're going to change that—one marketing campaign at a time.

What's the biggest item on your to-do list right now?

Locking down our influencer marketing strategy.

Sitting down with...

Andréa (Drea) Hudson, Director of Brand Marketing

How does your taproom space integrate into your branding/marketing strategies?

Our Taproom is our home. It's the heartbeat of our brand and when we had to renovate last year. Our job in marketing was to bring that heartbeat to people at external events since they weren't able to come here. Now that we have the Taproom, we have infinite opportunities to connect with our fans, be strategic about beer releases, programming and perks for fans. The Taproom will be a huge driver in our future success, and we're looking forward to integrating it as much as we can into our global marketing plans.

Photography by @beersandcameras

Does music and/or other arts play a role in your overall brand strategies?

Yes, 100 percent. Beer is our core product, but when we talk about our mantra of connectedness we think bigger than beer. We think about the other components that have similar effects bringing people together. The pillars for our brand are music, art, style and adventure. Everything we do on the marketing side of the house, should connect to one or all of these pillars in some way shape or form.

On the music side, we work with our venue partners and support emerging musicians. On the art side, if you ever come to an LHBCo produced experience, there's likely a pop up art element featuring a local art partner. We also have a quarterly artist in residency program where we invite local artists to display their art in our Taproom and take no commissions for any art sold.

When it comes style, we can wear beer well. Merchandise can be fashionable and partnering with other style brands are important. The adventurer exists in all of us. With partners like Parlor Skis, we lean heavily into the Vagabond Royalty side of our brand, which is all about going your on path and owning your adventure, whatever that may be.

What’s the most rewarding part of your job? The trust that my team has in me to lead with creativity.

What was the best advice you ever received? If it doesn’t inspire you, motivate you or elevate you, it’s not for you.

What’s the best thing a customer ever said to you? There’s something about Lord Hobo that’s different, it definitely has a vibe that stands out from other breweries.

What is your favorite brand story? It’s unreal to be outside of our home territory, like Colorado at GABF and have fans come up to you complimenting your content strategy, cohesion of packaging design and relating to the voice of our brand. Every time it happens, it does two things for me. First, it reminds me that we are in the middle of building something much bigger than we even know, no matter how many metrics we have. Second, we’ve got some kick ass work ahead of us.

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