SO18 Cover Story

Ghost of the Rhine

How Cincinnati’s favorite craft brewery is igniting a renaissance in the city’s urban core

By Michael J. Pallerino

“We’re in the urban epicenter of Cincinnati’s beer renaissance.” That’s how Bob Bonder and Bryant Goulding, founders of Rhinegeist Brewery, describe the home of their widely popular craft beer. Their story can be traced to the story of their building, which goes back to 1895.

At the turn of the 19th Century, Over-the-Rhine was home to nearly 45,000 inhabitants—most of whom were of German descent. Led by the city’s largest brewery, the Christian Moerlein Brewing Company, Cincinnati was home to 38 breweries. The Moerlein building, which spanned three city blocks, produced more than 300,000 bbl annually before Prohibition.

So there’s all that history. Fast-forward over 100 years and the story of Rhinegeist starts to take shape. After founding the Tazza Mia coffee business, Bob flirted with the idea of starting his own brewery, getting serious when he discovered Moerlein’s building lying vacant. His first call was to Bryant, who was selling beer on the West Coast for Dogfish Head after a stint with Anderson Valley Brewing. After a few impactful visits to Cincinnati, Bryant joined forces with Bob and the duo started their brewery-building journey.

Their plan revolved around that historic brewery building on 1910 Elm Street. What once was a lifeless brewery became the start of a brand looking

to spread its wings. Joining the team was Jim Matt, a brewing guru who also happened to have 20 years of chemistry experience, and Luke Cole, who had been roasting coffee and brewing at Rock Bottom’s downtown Cincinnati brewpub. The last piece of the puzzle was Dennis Kramer-Wine, who would help form the foundation for the brewery’s self-distribution model.

Together, the Rhinegeist team opened its doors in June 2013, brewing its first batch of beer and innovating a dazzling array of beers for all craft lovers.

CBAM sat down with Bryant to get his insights on why branding is critical in this age.

Give us a snapshot of today’s craft brew market.

When I look at the market today, I see a congested marketplace. Brands that have built a reputation for quality and innovation are growing, but the era of building national brands may be closing.

It’s tougher to grow further away from your home market today. By the time you get to a place like Massachusetts (our furthest territory) you have some amazing regional and local breweries popping up in smaller towns and neighborhoods, and serving the market in a way they weren’t a few

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years ago. The further you grow, the greater the challenge to tell your story to an audience further away from home and less inclined to embrace it than those in their backyard.

Where is the next phase of growth taking the marketplace?

You really have to stand for something today. I think there is more growth ahead for brands that make a commitment to innovation and intentional branding.

But you have to be able to cut through the noise, especially in this age of Instagram and interconnectedness, the scale of which is unprecedented in our lifetime. Successful brands must have a branding strategy to get through that congestion.

We saw an opportunity in Cincinnati to bring a brewing tradition back that had been basically lost since Prohibition. We wanted to pick up that history and carry it forward into modern day with a relevant roster of beer styles.

What is the Rhinegeist story from a brand perspective?

We really knew that a key foundational element was entrepreneurial mindset and work ethic. We didn’t have a whole lot of money between us when we started. I used my last $5,000 as a down payment on the brewing system that I discovered when I was in Mexico. When I returned to Cincinnati, we discovered our building in a neighborhood that really offered a special opportunity.

So we let our imagination go from there. Our building’s story goes back to 1895. At the turn of the 19th Century, Over-the-Rhine was home to nearly 45,000 inhabitants—most of them of German descent. There were 38 breweries here. Our home is in one of them—the Christian Moerlein Brewing Company. It was the city’s largest brewery, which extended over three city blocks and produced more than 300,000 bbl annually. That old bottling plant is our home. Our space, which has more than 120,000 square feet, an old freight elevator and big skylights, fosters community in a way that most buildings don’t anymore.

Our brand is about people—our employees and our customers. When we opened, we had more than 2,000 people come through the weekend we opened. We built a place for gathering—communal tables, ping pong and the occasional dinosaur exhibit. Beer brings people together and creating

a space for many types to collide delivers a great positive energy to our space & brewery.

Walk us through your branding strategy.

With our historical foundation, we wanted the brand to be clean and minimalistic to speak to our innovative nature and modern stance on beer production. We were drawn to block colors and hoped to create compelling brand mark that would sear itself into your memory. We wanted a look that was unique and contained—that could raise eyebrows, but also be worn by our mom’s. We wanted something edgy that spoke to history, but something vivid that would compel people’s curiosity.

We worked with Helms Workshop out of Austin (Texas) to create our logo and initial can designs. We brought their team here and toured them

through OTR and the building late at night when you could really get a sense of the soul of the place. They brought back to us a concept of “a drop of history in every batch,” and it translated into a logo that delivered on the special space we brew in and yet was vivid and memorable. We wanted to show our community that we are high energy and a little eccentric—that we like to have fun, but also that we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

It has been really informative and rewarding to be able to build an intimate connection with our customers in our taproom. We get a ton of feedback from them on beers—feedback that we can incorporate into what we do and help us move concepts forward.

That’s what makes your culture so important to your team and your customers, right?

Yes, our culture at the brewery is potent. We don’t spend a lot of time defining what it is, but we do

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spend time investing in communication and respect and a focus on delivering great beer and service to our customers. Our brand is our beer and our people. We never had the intent to sell out and there was power in that from the early beginning in that we aspired to build a brand that would leave a legacy.

One of our goals is to create an employee-owned company. We’re growing toward that with a profit sharing model but more so making decisions always thinking about the impact on the brand. Building sales today at the expense of building our brand in the long run is not something we’re interested in. How do we build our sales strategy to balance brands we have and innovation that could

What’s the biggest issue related to the marketing/sales side of the business?

Sales. There is so much great beer being made today. Every day more breweries are opening up while retail shelves are not getting any bigger. It’s challenging for retailers to find the right mix of brands on their shelves.

Consumers can find great beer in pretty much any neighborhood now, and try a variety of styles at their local breweries. Basically, the consumer has more quality options than ever before. Staying relevant through quality and consistency is paramount. If consumers come back to your brand it is because they know it will deliver what they expect

become key beers in the future? How do we treat people and our customers and our community in a way that grows and gives back in a powerful way over time?

So it’s about what feels right.

I think we have tried to stick our neck out and push in different directions to see what feels right. I think the balance of sticking to the core and being committed to quality and innovation is enough to get into a comfort zone that creates a strong foundation for trial and error.

When it comes to branding, we’ve built a marketing team to support a lot of creativity in packaging that speaks to that. People really love our brand. People love to wear T-shirts that stand for something they believe in. I think they appreciate what we stand for. And that doesn’t come from a strict published code of values that we’ve built, but it’s earned each day with how we treat each other, and how we treat our beer and customers. We have worked hard to build trust internally and externally, and we hope our brand resonates with that trustworthiness. We work hard every day to deliver on quality and innovation and transparency.

every time then you’re doing something right. With all these options in the market, many consumers are always looking for what’s new and innovating and staying nimble is paramount. We are often looking at the beer world and asking ourselves what’s next.

That question, “what’s next,” is a big issue. It’s hard out there. There’s a degree of sophistication that breweries need in order to break into channels like grocery and convenience. This is where you have to invest in data and have the chops to analyze it, to make a compelling argument for why your brand demands the shelf space.

And that’s really challenging. You have to have great relationships with wholesalers so that they’re keeping your brand paramount, and work hard to understand retailers business models and how your brand best fits into it.

Is the industry as a whole bonded together by this?

We have a ton of respect for the breweries that have come before us. There was a time when craft beer was a hard sell and many brands that have come before us have paved those tough roads.

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We’re lucky to work in an industry where we can enjoy each other’s products and compete out there in the market. It’s a very co-operative space. But we’re lucky in our industry that when we go home at the end of the day, we have respect for the other breweries that we’re competing against.

I love waking up and going to work in an industry that I love. We get to pick each other’s brains, and collaborate and learn things from each other, as opposed to other industries where there are sharp elbows and no love lost.

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

It’s authenticity. That’s the word I would use. You have to reflect on who you are. When you put the right people together, you’ll know. You know what your values are and what is the right way to move forward. Your brand broadcasts your personality out there in the world, and you have to be intentional with that.

In this age of polished brands, we all have to enjoy what each other does. We’re not Apple; we’re a handful of hardworking people who enjoy each other and believe in loving and sharing beer. That has to expand into the public and onto the shelves. I think how that story is told is different for every brand, so when you see authenticity it is a critical piece. You can turn up the volume on who you are and what your brand is. You can shout it from the hilltops with no distortion.

What’s the one thing every brand should do to market their brand?

Take it seriously and have intent. Everything we did as we got the brewery off the ground was thrilling and we worked hard to convey that excitement. So you want to keep the excitement going and deliver

Bryant Goulding Co-founder & VP Rhinegeist Brewery

What's the best thing a customer ever said to you? There is not a single thing. I am always humbled when your customers compliment the product or branding. The compliments that mean the most are the ones when we are referred to as great partners. We work hard to be someone you want to do business with and it’s satisfying when we get that feedback.

What is your favorite brand story? Truth. It is what this brewery is built around. We felt like the world did not need another IPA, but if we could brew one that was compelling enough to grab attention we were doing it right. We knew the quality of our IPA would be a key indicator of future success, so we named it Truth. Without honesty, you really can’t build anything lasting.

it in a powerful way that keeps people grinning and maybe even get the occasional chuckle.

Do you think that some brands outthink themselves when it comes to branding?

You have to be unique. You don’t want to go through the motions. It’s quality, not quantity. There are so many ways to tell your story and deliver compelling content.

If you take the time to have good conversations with your team and your customers, you’ll find the right things to say. Working in the craft beer industry puts me in touch with so many great, hardworking and insightful people. If you’re going through the motions, I feel like you’re in the wrong industry. It’s fantastic what we get to do for work.

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

We still have some markets that we can open that are thirsty for the brand. We stayed disciplined in 2018 and did not expand into a single market focusing our growth in our backyard and on leadership internally. We will look to open just one city in 2019. We also are excited about some innovation projects we have in development—just fired up our 8.5bbl innovation brewhouse in our Spring Grove facility.

Most important is people. We are only five years old and made a big bet last year on scaling our sales organization. We added two national sales account directors, a wholesaler relations director, team leaders in self distribution counties and additional personnel in support roles throughout the system. We’ve built strong teams and focused a lot on communication across departments and what leadership means for us as an organization. We have many great leaders in our organization in all ranks and that means we get great insight and decision making from within.

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