Sitting on 17 acres in a rural outpost near the Brazos River, Revolver Brewing looks the part of a Texas icon.
Now, with its first major brand update since its inception eight years ago and a slate of new beers, including its Texas Haze IPA series and Y’all’s Bock, it’s looking to claim the mantle as a brewery that’s as Texas as they come.
“We felt it was time to reflect the brewery we’ve become over the last eight years, which is a modern Texas brewery in the Texas countryside,” says Manny Gutierrez, Revolver’s vice president of sales and marketing.
Revolver sits in the rolling hills of Granbury, Texas, about an hour south of Fort Worth. Known primarily for its flagship Blood & Honey ale, the brewery became part of Molson Coors Beverage Company’s craft division Tenth & Blake in 2016.
Revolver’s new look, which debuted March 1, seeks to modernize its packaging to stand out on store shelves, while showing consumers what they’ll experience when they crack open a can. Dominated by white and accentuated by bursts of color, Revolver thinks it will be a hit with younger legal-age drinkers who are accustomed to seeing their favorite beverages in a colorful display.
The brewery’s core brands are packaged with a clean look, giving Revolver leeway to be more creative with its seasonal offerings, including a new line of hazy IPAs. In addition to a revamped IPA lineup, Revolver is introducing a new year-round bock, both of which aim to please drinkers looking for sophisticated flavors that don’t knock you out.
“The tastes of Texans are changing over time, so what we look to do with our beer is put a modern twist on the traditional beer style,” Gutierrez says
Y’all’s Bock riffs off the state’s most popular style – about a third of all craft beer sold in Texas is bock – and represents a sessionable take on the classic Texas beer. At 4.8% alcohol by volume, the year-round addition is lighter than a traditional bock, with caramel and toffee notes balanced by hop flavor and aroma.
“Texas is the only state where bock beer has this massive of a presence,” Gutierrez says. “It’s a beer style that Texans seek, and it’s a beer style where there’s not a lot of sessionable options.”
Revolver retooled its IPA lineup as well, releasing a rotating fruit-forward IPA series called Texas Haze that combines consumer preferences for hazy IPAs and fruit-forward flavors. First up is a peach flavor, which uses peaches grown in nearby Parker County and weighs in at 5.5% ABV and 35 IBU.
“The second you bring it up to your mouth, you get an IPA aroma, but you also get hit with a huge punch of peach,” Gutierrez says. “Then you get that light bitterness that you’re used to in an IPA at the finish.”
The series will rotate every few months; on deck is pineapple, followed by blackberry.
The new portfolio additions come after Revolver in September introduced a lighter version of its flagship Blood & Honey Texas Ale, Blood & Honey Citrus Blonde, which quickly has become its second-best seller.
Revolver also has solidified a partnership with Bulleit Frontier Whiskey. Earlier this year, the pair produced a limited run of bourbon barrel-aged porter that sold out quickly. In the summer, Revolver will produce a bock aged in Bulleit barrels. Another barrel-aged beer will follow in the winter.
The brewery also established a music series called Red Dirt Live, partnering with country musicians Kylie Frey and Shane Smith and the Saints. The artists will perform quarterly online concerts, as well as acoustic sets at Revolver locations.
Revolver’s makeover comes after a leadership change in the fall, when James Gleaves was named president upon the retirements of brewery founders Rhett Keisler and Grant Wood.
Atop Revolver’s to-do list is to stake its claim as the quintessential modern Texas brewery, Gutierrez says.
“We make world-class beer in the Texas countryside,” he says. “We know who we are, what we want to be, and we have the right people in place to achieve those goals.”