So long, Rum Stripe. We barely knew you.
The news Heineken UK has retired its rum-based Red Stripe brand extension just a year after launch highlights the difficulty big brewers face in diversifying amid shifting consumer tastes and declining mainstream beer sales.
In the US, hard seltzer and malt-based beverages are churned out with clock-like regularity by the major brewers, and have proven an effective way to retain health-conscious drinkers and appeal to new demographics.
But here in the UK, hard seltzer has failed to take off, and other non-beer innovations from the big brewers have had – at best – mixed results. That’s despite a buoyant RTD category that has grown 10.9% on volumes up 7.1% in the past year [NIQ 52 w/e 14 June 2025].
So, why has big beer not been able to tap in to the opportunity?
Heineken’s mixed fortunes
On the surface, Rum Stripe looked like a smart piece of NPD from Heineken. Indeed, this (now somewhat red-faced) writer labelled it “a stroke of genius” that would make the most of Red Stripe’s cultural heritage and help Heineken tap into the rapidly growing RTD category.
But the sales figures don’t lie. Despite being bang on trend, Rum Stripe only generated £189,000 in the year to 19 April 2025 [NIQ], suggesting the extension was not enthusiastically received by the general drinking public.
Rum Stripe isn’t the only failed ‘beyond beer’ innovation from Heineken UK in recent years. After being backed by a £12m launch campaign in 2022, hard-seltzer imitation Strongbow Ultra also failed to gain meaningful traction. Its annual sales peaked at around £5m but quickly slumped and by this year amounted to just £74,000 [NIQ].
Heineken insists it’s not all doom and gloom, pointing to the “significant growth and strong rate of sale” of RTD cocktail brand Served, as well as recent cocktail extensions for Desperados and Old Mout.
“With our ‘Beyond Beer’ team, we continue to broaden our range of adult drinks and the increased investment in Served demonstrates our commitment to this,” a spokeswoman says.
Other big brewer flops
However, other big brewers have run into similar issues when developing ‘beyond beer’ innovations of their own.
Molson Coors spent £25m on improvements at its Burton-upon-Trent brewery in 2021, claiming the investment would help it meet “expected rapid growth in demand for hard seltzers”. It also committed a further £5m to support an off-trade rollout of its own hard seltzer proposition Three Fold.
Fast-forward to 2025, however, and Three Fold is nowhere to be seen, having posted off-trade sales of less than £200 (yes, two hundred) in the year to the end of April [NIQ].
Even the likes of AB InBev and Asahi have seen little UK success with non-beer experiments. Only BrewDog, with its Wonderland Cocktail Co range of RTDs, appears to have mustered any sort of momentum.
Consumer differences
Beyond beer launches have struggled in the UK due to “consumer, pricing, and legislation differences, particularly to the US”, believes Chris Hannaway, co-founder of the Infinite Session and Brisk beer brands.
Where in the US hard seltzers are “stacked high in supermarkets and bought as fridge-fillers for big gatherings”, UK duty rates meant hitting comparable price points was “almost impossible”, he says. “Many hard seltzers in the UK were sold as single cans and at a higher price point than core beer and cider – that makes hitting those volumes a lot less likely.”
Plus, converting a UK consumer to hard seltzer was always going to be a challenge given the country’s “tighter regulation on health claims” and “draught-led pubs and stronger wine culture”, he adds.
Branding failures
There’s also the sense big brewers may have lent too heavily their own brands. AB InBev, for example, leveraged its Corona brand for its own ill-fated foray into hard seltzer in the UK. Heineken did the same with Strongbow Ultra and Rum Stripe.
“Part of the problem is trying to use beer branding on non-beer products,” says GlobalData beer and cider analyst Kevin Baker. “A lot of the appeal of pre-mixed cocktails has been driven by their association with recognised spirits brands such as Gordon’s & Tonic, Jack Daniel’s & Coca-Cola and Captain Morgan & [Pepsi] Cola. Beer brands don’t have this association with cocktails.”
That would certainly help explain why, of all the beyond beer innovations from big brewers, it is the likes of Served and Wonderland Cocktail Co – neither which have an obvious link to beer in their branding – that are making the biggest inroads.
Lack of patience
If big brewers want to play a greater role in the RTD category, “they should look at acquiring a brand with recognition, or maybe a startup that produces generic cocktails”, Baker advises. And by upping its stake in Served – which has itself pivoted from seltzer to cocktails – that looks to be the route Heineken is taking.
Finding the right proposition and format “often takes a bit of time, development and backing”, Hannaway points out. In retiring Rum Stripe so quickly, even despite poor sales, there’s a sense Heineken wasn’t all that committed to the innovation in the first place.
Read more: Cocktails get their groove on: trends in RTDs & hard seltzers 2025
“In the face of flat to declining beer volumes in many markets, brewers are understandably seeking opportunities outside their core business,” says Baker. “However, it is extremely difficult to create an overnight success. It could be argued that companies are not prepared for the long haul, pulling out of categories if they can’t provide a ‘quick win’.”
If non-beer NPD is to avoid being put on ice, perhaps more patience is required.
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