POTTSVILLE, Pa. (AP) — Breyers, Ben & Jerry’s, Edy’s and Yuengling’s: Which thing is not like the
others?
Trick question. They all make ice cream.
The
supermarket freezer aisle got a little more crowded Monday as Yuengling
— a name more associated with ale, porter and lager than vanilla,
chocolate and strawberry — took its place alongside the familiar brands.
Beer
drinkers up and down the East Coast know Yuengling as a 185-year-old
family-owned Pennsylvania brewery whose lager flows from taps in
countless bars and restaurants. What they might not realize is that
Yuengling used to make ice cream, too, starting in 1920 at the dawn of
Prohibition.
Now Yuengling’s Ice Cream is back after an absence of
nearly 30 years, available at hundreds of stores in Pennsylvania,
Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey. Additional
stores and markets could be added later.
"I was brought up with
it," said Bob Pomian, picking up a $4.99 carton of chocolate marshmallow
at a store in Pottsville, a few miles away from the brewery. "If it’s
the same ice cream I ate 50 years ago, then I’d be happy with it."
This
incarnation of Yuengling’s Ice Cream is a separate company with no
connection to the brewery. But it has already capitalized on that famous
name. Yuengling’s initial run of 100,000 quarts rolled off the
production line ahead of schedule because of high demand, fueled by
nostalgia and the popularity of the eponymous beer.
"One of the
biggest things in putting a new product on the market is getting
brand-name recognition, which is a problem we don’t have," said
Yuengling’s Ice Cream President David Yuengling, a cousin of brewery
owner Dick Yuengling and great-grandson of the man who started the
original ice cream company 94 years ago. "We are really popular for not
having been on the market for 30 years."
Made by a small dairy in
Tamaqua, Pa., Yuengling’s is available in 10 flavors — including black
and tan (Belgian chocolate and salted caramel), an homage to the ice
cream’s brewery roots.
The brewery side of the family, in fact,
had no problem with a relaunch of the ice cream brand, so long as the
frozen treat met expectations. They gave their blessing after trying
samples of chocolate chip and mint chocolate chip.
"Needless to
say, these received a thumb’s up from all of us!" Jennifer Yuengling,
the eldest daughter of Dick Yuengling and a member of the brewery
family’s sixth generation, said via email.
The original
Yuengling’s dairy was spun off into a separate company after Prohibition
ended, and continued selling ice cream and other dairy products for the
next half-century. David Yuengling’s father closed the business in 1985
because neither of his sons was interested in taking over, and
Yuengling spent the next three decades in the computer industry.
A
few years ago, a family friend approached him about rebooting
Yuengling’s Ice Cream. Yuengling, 51, was ready for a career change, but
wanted to make sure there’d be room for another brand in the $6.8
billion take-home ice cream market. He realized the Yuengling name would
probably get his product an initial lick — but to scoop the
competition, it had to be good.
"What is it that’s going to keep
us going? What are people going to like about this to keep them buying
it?" Yuengling said he asked himself. "It’s a tough nut to crack, and
it’s not an easy business."
Yuengling said his ice cream is made
without artificial ingredients, a higher percentage of butterfat and
less air. The ice cream is marketed as premium, occupying a space
between the mass-market brands and a super-premium label like
Haagen-Dazs.
Branding expert Rob Frankel, author of "The Revenge
of Brand X," said defunct but well-regarded brands can do well when
they’re resurrected.
"In Yuengling’s case, there’s a lot of really
great, rich history. The fact that it was an ice cream born of
Prohibition has a neat story to it. It’s almost like it was bootlegger
ice cream," he said. "As opposed to ‘Bob’s New Ice Cream’ that has to go
through all of these trials and tribulations, you are revitalizing a
brand that has a history and there’s a value to it."
Beer-flavored
ice cream, alas, isn’t in the cards. And while there’s been talk of
floats made from Yuengling beer and Yuengling’s ice cream, you won’t
find David Yuengling partaking.
"I’m certainly not gonna try it,"
Yuengling, a direct descendant of the brewery’s founder, said with a
laugh. "I just can’t see beer and ice cream together."
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