USA, NS: Spindrift Brewing Company rebrands to Burnside Brewing Company

Spindrift Brewing Company has changed its name after selling the Canadian rights to the Spindrift brand to an American sparkling water company, Huddle.Today reported on May 4.

The Dartmouth-based brewery has rebranded to Burnside Brewing Company. It’s a name Jeff Green says reflects the brewery’s “no-nonsense” philosophy.

“We’re selling beer, we’re not saving lives over here. There tends to be a lot of pretense in craft beer but that is not the Burnside Brewery way. It’s the exact opposite,” he says. “At the end of the day, we’re here to work hard, have some fun, and make good beer. And that’s all it really comes down to.”

Green is Burnside’s general manager. He tells Huddle the American Spindrift was looking to expand its market and approached in early 2022 about buying the Spindrift name.

The offer got Green’s hackles up at first, but he says the team ultimately saw the offer as an opportunity.

“Very rarely do you get an opportunity like this, seven years into the establishment or your business, to look and go ‘is this the right name? Is this the right fit? Is it the right feel? Is it where we’re at?’” he explains.

Burnside makes most of its money selling its Toller line of beer, which doesn’t carry the Spindrift banner. Many of its other popular beers, like its Killick lager and Seaglass IPA, have brands that stand on their own.

“And so rebranding was almost – and I say almost – risk-free,” Green jokes.

He adds that there will be almost no change in Burnside’s product line. The brewery’s Antigonish tap room will also stay open and require almost no brand adjustments.

Burnside Brewery sits in the Burnside Industrial Park, a place Green fully admits is “decidedly un-hip.” But that’s not something the brewery shies away from.

Green says most of Burnside’s beers are “approachable” varieties he argues are more accessible and straightforward than some of the more creative brews coming out of the “hippest” craft breweries.

“We’re kind of choosing to go at it a bit of a different way,” he says. “We’re brewing beers that our customers like, and I think that’s really important. We’re in an industrial park. We’ve got, you know, a relatively large blue-collar workforce within a couple of kilometers of us, and our beer kind of speaks to that.”

“Not to say there’s anything wrong with it, but you’re not going to find a vanilla bean, milkshake IPA here.”

Green says Burnside Brewing Company is also planning an expansion of sorts. The company is investing more than $600,000 to upgrade its production facility with a new canning line and lab program. It’s also “on the verge” of announcing another taproom in Nova Scotia.

Green says the production expansion is being helped along by a rebate from Invest Nova Scotia and is “completely unrelated” to selling the Spindrift brand. He would not say how much money the company earned through the sale.

He does stress, however, that there are “no hard feelings whatsoever” toward the American Spindrift. He says there’s been some chatter about a “big, bad company coming in and bullying” them out of their name but that’s not what happened.

“It was very much a mutual agreement,” he says. “There was some back and forth and ultimately it was settled, for lack of a better word, without any real substantial legal maneuvering.”

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