FROM Limited regional legacy TO champion of local originality


The U.S. beer category has grown significantly from hundreds to thousands of brewers. Standing out in the category is proving harder and harder, especially as claims of originality across all large and craft beer brands have clouded the market. The reality is, there are only a few truly original American beer styles. Perhaps the most original of the original? Cream Ale.

Genesee Brewing Company’s Cream Ale has been the style’s gold standard since the ’60s. The problem is that not enough people outside our region know that. As the competition has significantly more marketing dollars to spend, we had to go spread the word about Genesee Cream Ale a bit differently. Being a media advertiser wasn’t going to cut it due to our limited marketing budget. To break out and break through, we had to become a media publisher. So that’s what we did.

We took trips—six to be exact—to new expansion markets, making friends who are as original as Genesee Cream Ale. Our mission was to connect like-minded people to each other—giving them the name AleBlazers. Through thousands of photos and hours of footage, we captured stories that were published online, on social, and on paper through a zine, as we knew our audience relishes analog.