Hulk Hogan's beer brand looks to grow — while moving beyond iconic pitchman

Beer executive Terri Francis spent the summer and fall of 2024 flying around the country on private planes with Hulk Hogan on a high-energy, high-stakes sales pitch. She says it was akin to being on a “rock tour.” 

The Tampa-raised Hogan, Francis and others were there to pitch a new brand of light beer: Real American Beer, which the legendary wrestler and 1980s pop icon co-founded earlier in 2024, partly as a response to the Bud Light marketing debacle of 2023. Real American Beer co-founder Chad Bronstein, who lives in Tampa, was on the tour as well, which took the team to some 20 markets nationwide. The company’s core product is a lager with a 4.2% ABV (alcohol by volume), 110 calories and 4g carbs. 

“Hulk worked his ass off,” says the New York City-based Francis, CEO of Real American Beer. “And he did it because he knows how brands are built. He knows you need to be out there and you need to be working hard, and you need to show people that you're working hard and you care in order for people to believe it.” 

Approaching 10 months since Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, died at 71 of cardiac arrest, Real American Beer, based in Tampa, faces something of a quandary: how does it move beyond its iconic brand ambassador/founder, who, even with (or despite) his star power, brought some controversy, too?

All-American

Real American Beer’s answer is to do it quickly, gently and as uncomplicated as possible. For Francis, that means embracing brand values Hogan held, like patriotism and family, but without some of the noise of lawsuits and politics. It also means, she says, keeping the messaging “super simple.”

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This strategy came to a head in early February when RAB announced two major milestones: it surpassed 10 millions can sold, doing it in 18 months since it launched, and it introduced a new “strategic relaunch of the brand positioning and partnerships.” New taglines include “200% American” and “Hits Different.” The new cans, meanwhile, no longer have a muscle-infused cartoon image of Hogan front and center. The cans remain red, white and blue but also gone is the script writing of prior iterations, which, quips Francis, "no one could really read. We don’t want to make people guess anymore.”

What a RAB spokesperson calls “a pivot away from Hulk” as the branding face of the company was actually in the works before Hogan died. An example: last summer’s RAB Local Legends campaign, something the company called “a celebration of everyday Americans who show up for their communities with grit, heart and humility.” Hogan called it “the real American Way.”

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The group of first honorees included Tampa resident Matthew Holubik, a U.S. Navy veteran and Hillsborough County firefighter and paramedic. RAB honored Holubik with four billboards in Tampa with his picture on it, spread around Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

The RAB brand also took some hits, online at least, when it announced Hogan would no longer be the branding centerpiece. “Fans Outraged After Real American Beer Removes Hulk Hogan in New Design,” stated one headline on the Pro Wrestling News Hub blog. Another article, on digital news site Memesita, called the move “The Bodyslam Heard ‘Round the Brewery: Real American Beer Ditches Hogan, But Can it Rebuild the Brand?

In taking in all the positives Hogan brought the brand, Francis considers the situation an opportunity over a challenge. 

“With Hulk Hogan, we had the benefit of him being so well known. Everyone would take a phone call from us, because why wouldn't you? It's Hulk Hogan,” Francis says. “Our brand has been built on him, and it will continue to be in his name. It's still part of his family, and his family is still involved.” 

“So,” Francis adds, “how do we carry on his legacy? How do we do it the way that we know he would have wanted it done, and he would have certainly said, ‘the show goes on, you have to keep pushing, don't miss the moment.’ We’ve taken on all the things we discussed and that Hulk was so involved in. He wanted it to be Americana. He wanted it to be baseball, Mama, apple pie, Nascar, wrestling. He wanted it to be a beer people celebrated when they're out and about doing things with the people they love.”

Golden opportunity

While the Hogan branding situation draws headlines, Francis, who in addition to CEO is an attorney — prior to RAB she was a global vice president and general counsel with the innovation and new business arm of beverage giant AB InBev — is also paying close attention to the beer market. And that market, in general, has been on the downswing as consumer tastes shift. U.S. domestic beer market sales have dropped three straight years, the Brewers Association reports and the market going into 2026 was down 3%, or nearly $2 billion to $37.8 billion, according to the Beer Connoisseur blog. (RAB officials say the New American/Personality lager segment, where its beer is found, is up 117% year over year.)

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RAB is in 30 states with 185 distributors, and seeks to grow that footprint, rapidly. It had a big win last April, when it debuted in WalMart, and Francis is chasing another big goal: Publix. 

RAB’s target demographic includes people who love to hunt, fish, spend time outdoors and listen to country music, says Francis. Another target is people who love wrestling — but, in this case, it diverges from Hogan in that this is Olympic-style competitive wrestling, not a show like the WWE. Bronstein, the RAB co-founder, also co-founded Real American Freestyle, billed as the first unscripted pro wrestling league.

Francis and RAB want to bring all those segments back to the beer-drinking fold — with or without Hogan on the can. “There's an opportunity to get these new drinkers back into beer,” she says, “and reintroduce them to something that has that same vibe that was going on back in the 80s and 90s, when beer was cool.”