Iron Horse Brewery

Est. 2013 | Ellensburg, WA

What do you do when 80% of your sales come from one beer? For years, Iron Horse Brewery’s answer had been to tie the entire brand to that juggernaut, Irish Death. With it being one of the most dominant SKUs in the region, sales were good for the Iron Horse brand — no matter how many consumers thought their name was Irish Death Brewery. As we dove deeper into the brand as well as the data, we realized that the only way to promote growth across the portfolio was to make one very hard decision. We split Irish Death from the Iron Horse masterbrand.

Core and seasonal offerings got a fresh, cohesive look under the new branding. Irish Death struck out on its own, launching a full family of beers with the addition of three seasonal variants. Initial sales numbers told us that our decision was the right one. Veteran beers not named Irish Death saw a huge spike in sales. The new Death Family releases also proved successful, and capable of boosting points of distribution without cannibalizing Irish Death sales.

After making the decision to let the Iron Horse beers and Irish Death each go their separate ways, we added depth and clarity to each line. Cohesiveness was addressed within the Iron Horse lineup, while still giving each beer plenty of its own personality through custom illustrations.