Jason and Travis Kelce Now Own One of the Fastest-Growing Beer Brands in America

There’s nothing all that interesting or innovative about Garage Beer. That’s the whole point.

The brewery makes “Beer Flavored Beer,” so it claims, with only two flavors on offer: a simple light lager and one with lime. But it seems that was enough to convince brothers Jason and Travis Kelce to become significant investors in the company, as announced this month.

“People crave quality and simplicity, and Garage Beer nails both for me,” Jason Kelce said in a press release. “We are light beer drinkers.”

“It comes down to quality, ” Travis Kelce added.

“Definitely not an IPA”

Garage Beer is currently headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, not far from the University of Cincinnati, where both brothers played college football.

The recipe was originally developed Braxton Brewing Co., which sold Garage Beer as a simple lager, but it became its own standalone brand in 2023. Garage Beer now distributes to more than a dozen states and is available at some Costco locations.

Investment by the Kelce brother means that the company will expand its reach before its offerings.

On its website, Garage Beer proudly prescribes to the mantra “0% IPA” and uses marketing language such as, “Beer that tastes like beer” and “If quality matters and clout does not” — a jab at the exclusive nature of small-batch IPAs that are traded like commodities on the internet. (At 26 percent, IPAs still represent the largest share of craft beer sales nationwide.)

Garage Beer also displays the words “Small Batch Brewed” on its cans, although it offers little information on its website about its production processes and if — or how — they might change as the brewery grows.

A simple lager life

Garage Beer’s focus on simple lagers stands out in a market saturated with IPAs but it’s far from the first brewery to dial in on the classic German style.

The Massachusetts brewery Jack’s Abby has long used traditional ingredients and techniques to make its award-winning Bavarian-leaning lagers.

Meanwhile, smaller-scale operations like Suarez Family Brewery have inspired pilgrimages among the lager faithful with complex, carefully brewed light beers.

“I’m just a sucker for simplicity,” owner Dan Suarez recently told The New York Times. He offers only two beers on tap at any given time.

But Garage Beer must be doing something right. According to Forbes, the brewery is one of the fastest growing names in craft beer, with sales up 252 percent in 2023.

The addition of two celebrity investors with as much clout as the Kelce brothers will likely do little to change that trajectory.

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