Beers to Bud: Crafting Cannabis Beverages

Oh Hi Beverages co-founder Matt Vincent shares a beer brewer’s perspective on the canna-beverage market

We’ve talked before at Cannablurbs about what cannabis beverages could mean for the future of the industry. But how exactly does starting a THC seltzer brand compare to, say, traditional beer brewing? We sat down with Matt Vincent, co-founder of Oh Hi Beverages, to hear how similar and different the experiences have been, and how the Colorado market is developing.

You hail from a background in beer. What led you to breaking into cannabis beverages with Oh Hi?

I’ve always been a big proponent of cannabis. In my earlier years, I dabbled in horticulture but wasn’t good enough to go professional. Several years ago, I had the idea of putting weed in a can, but I was thinking about flower. I spoke to a couple of my friends that were heavily involved in the industry, including my current partners in Oh Hi, but it never really materialized.

That changed when my now partners at Oh Hi, Jonny Radding and Aaron Miles, approached me about making a cannabis beverage. I hadn’t really been keeping an eye on things as I was focused on canning beer and making packaging equipment for canning. I hadn’t realized that cannabis was available in a beverage format. My head exploded! I was immediately on board and Oh Hi was born.

How has a beer background helped in building Oh Hi?

I would imagine going into a project like this without knowing these things would be even harder. My background in brewing not only gave me a strong understanding of the equipment and processes involved in beverage formulation and packaging, but also a good understanding of production, distribution, and marketing of beverages in general.

While the process is very different from brewing beer, it is still akin to making any kind of beverage. Over the years at Ska Brewing, we had made soda and sparkling water (more so for fun and experimentation than revenue). I was able to utilize my knowledge base and develop a plan to make a cannabis beverage. As we know, oil and water don’t mix, so the development of water soluble THC and CBD made the process less challenging.

I am also on the equipment side of the beverage industry with my other company, Ska Fabricating, so I get to talk to a lot of people about what they are doing. It provides a lot of insight into what is happening across the entire beverage space. Once enlightened by Jonny and Aaron, I started to do a ton of research saw where the future of cannabis beverages was headed.

What do you see as the biggest differences between canna-beverages and beer?

I’ve really found that it can be very different. The beverage side of the marijuana industry is relatively undeveloped. You see that the cannabis industry tends to be a lot more tight-lipped than the craft beer industry, and people are still a bit less open-minded when it comes to purchasing. So, getting dispensary buyers to understand and sell what we make is often challenging. Our intention is to attract new users to the industry that otherwise might not want high potency products.

That’s interesting. So how do you think Oh Hi! fits into consumer’s needs?

On the consumer side, beer has been around for years so there is no education necessary. But drinkables are relatively new, so there’s a lot of explanation of what it is and how it works. Single serving drinks can also be a hard sell, especially to people that have high tolerances.

But — it’s important to note — drinkables are designed to be a more socially acceptable way to consume cannabis. The majority of the world doesn’t like smoking. Most other edible products don’t warrant an occasion as beverages do. You eat an edible and it’s done. With beverages, it’s a continued experience — you can sip on them for a while or you can share one with someone else.

So how do you educate the new consumer? What’s the process for marketing?

Selling and marketing drinkables is hard in general due to legal issues surrounding cannabis. You don’t benefit from a lot of the “easy” social or viral aspects of beer. With beer, you can walk into a liquor store with samples and you can sit down with the buyer and do a tasting. You can go to a bar downtown and have a sample with a bartender. You can give someone a case of beer out of the back of your vehicle. You can go to a beer festival on Main Street, USA and try a hundred different kinds of beer.

Virtually every one of these grassroots marketing tactics is illegal in Colorado with any form of cannabis. It’s helping that there are more consumption events popping up, but it’s still a pretty limited crowd. It’s hard to turn the general public onto a product that you can’t let them try in an open setting.

So, currently, it’s really all about budtender education — letting them know and try your product. They are the gatekeepers at dispensaries. If they don’t know about or like the product, then they aren’t going to sell it, even if it’s in the store. It’s imperative to get in front of them and explain what we’re making, how it works and why it’s a good option.

We’ve found that once you get them to try it outside of work, they really enjoy it. Single serve edibles are traditionally a hard sell to a heavy cannabis user, but our product isn’t geared towards them. Oh Hi isn’t going to put people on the couch after trying one. We want people to trust our product with the same expectation every time they enjoy one. Our ideal customer is someone that is interested in trying cannabis or is looking for a casual use option that won’t give them an overstimulating experience.

Cannabis has typically been a private or at-home experience in many instances. How do you see the changing environment on social use affecting beverages?

With the laws changing on social consumption spaces in Colorado next year, we are very excited to put heavy focus into consumption lounges where drinkables will be an ideal product for these types of spaces. Imagine going into a cannabis lounge and being able to have a drinkable, similar to any other bar, and enjoy a cannabis in a social setting.

It will be a game changer for the whole industry. People have been drinking in pubs since fermentation was discovered in 5000 B.C. It’s natural to go to a pub and have a drink with friends. I see this translating over to the cannabis space in the years to come.

What’s next for you and Oh Hi!?

I have a focus on growing the brand, including looking into other states for expansion opportunities. We’re also experimenting with new flavors and formulations for future releases and in discussion with some other beverage manufacturers for collaboration concepts.

We have a CBD only version coming out near the end of 2019. This will be available in traditional outlets where CBD products are being sold. CBD products are becoming more widely available and this is a large opportunity to create awareness for the THC products in dispensaries. Our hearts are in THC, but we feel the need to expand into the CBD space because of the widespread acceptance of it. Lots of ideas, but ideas are a dime a dozen. It’s all in the execution!

At Cannablurbs, we’re excited to share the varied perspectives of different leaders across the industry through interviews and Guest Articles. If you’re active in cannabis and think you have a strong viewpoint to share, shoot us an email to talk about collaborating.