‍

New Hard Seltzer brand ‘Spijked&’ on a mission to restore ocean health

Swinkels Family Brewers enters the Hard Seltzer market with its own brand.

Swinkels Family Brewers launches Spijked& in the Hard Seltzer category. A distinctive feature of this new brand is that Swinkels Family Brewers is entering into a partnership with The Seaweed Company to contribute to the restoration of the ocean. With this, the brewer is entering a new market, in addition to its varied range of beers. Spijked& is an alcoholic sparkling water that contains 4,7%, five-times distilled alcohol. It is has 65 Kcal and less than 1 gram of sugar per 250 mL can. Spijked& is vegan-friendly and comes in four natural flavours: Lemon, Cherry, Wild Berries and the first-of-its-kind: Seaweed. The Seaweed flavour is, besides being surprisingly tasty, an integral part of Spijked&’s purpose to be ‘More than a Hard Seltzer’.

Restoring ocean health with seaweed farming
Spijked& has a distinct nautical feeling and this theme flows throughout the brand, providing the inspiration for our groundbreaking partnership. Swinkels Family Brewers is teaming up with The Seaweed Company to make headway on sustainable seaweed farming, which contributes to restoring ocean health and helps to reduce carbon emissions. As part of this collaboration Swinkels Family Brewers will grow an A4-sized area of a seaweed farm for every can of Spijked& sold.

The name Spijked& is based on the English word ‘Spike’, which means adding alcohol to a drink. In the USA this type of drink is also known as a Spiked Seltzer. The ‘ij’ provides the connection to our Dutch origin.

Gijs Swinkels, CCO at Swinkels Family Brewers: "Spijked& taps into the growing trend of the modern consumer, that tends to be extremely mindful about the things he consumes, its impact on the environment and is looking for lower calorie, yet great tasting, alternatives to his regular alcoholic drinks. The Spijked& range of hard seltzers is a ‘better-for-you’ alternative for the health and environmentally-conscious who are after a refreshing alcoholic drink. We believe that Spijked& offers a lot of potential. Especially because the Wild Berries flavour was ranked second out of 69 hard seltzer brands, winning a listing at the Swedish Alcohol Monopoly Systembolaget for Summer 2021.

Investing in sustainable initiatives is extremely important to our family business. This focus led to us to develop the exciting partnership with The Seaweed Company and this collaboration fits perfectly with our sustainability and circularity strategy.”

Joost Wouters, SeaEO at The Seaweed Company: “We are very excited to work together with Spijked& to grow more seaweed farms and speed up the cultivation of this unique untapped natural resource. Seaweed is an important contributor to restore the state of our oceans. It doesn’t need land, fertilizer or fresh water to grow, absorbs a lot of CO2 and it enriches marine biodiversity. Seaweed has many valuable applications that contribute to the health and wellbeing of people, animals and plants.”

More about Spijked&
Four Spijked& flavours are launched in the Netherlands today. For consumers the drink is available to buy online on the Spijked& brand website. For trade customers it is available at Swinkels Family Brewers and Bier&cO. In addition to the Netherlands, it will also be sold in the United Kingdom, Denmark from November this year and Sweden and Iceland at the beginning of next year.