Leinenkugel's Turns A Customer Typo Into A Marketing Opportunity With The Summer Shandy Ice Shanty

Midwesterners are no doubt familiar with Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy, which heralds the best season of the year by making ubiquitous appearances in backyard coolers throughout the warmest months. It's actually coming back to store shelves as early as this week, which in a normal year would feel like the brand is getting a jump start on spring, but in 2021 only conjures a mental image of beer bottles skittering across the ice in an isolate tundra. Leinenkugel's knows this, so along with the return of its beer, it's offering customers a chance to win a genuine Summer Shandy Ice Shanty.

The idea for the shanty is rooted in a frequent mistake made by Leinie's drinkers, who call it "Summer Shanty" instead of "Shandy," the latter referring to a beer mixed with citrus flavors and the former being a protective hut used by ice fishermen on the surface of frozen lakes. Both shandies and shanties scream "Wisconsin," so the brewery decided to bring them together in holy promotional matrimony.

Leinenkugel's

"We always say our Summer Shandy brew is like summer in a bottle, no matter the weather outside, and we wanted to bring that to life in a unique way that ties to our Midwestern roots," Erica Morris, senior marketing manager for Leinenkugel's, tells The Takeout. "We created the Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy Ice Shanty to bring to life everything we love about Wisconsin summers, but on ice, to truly make anytime summertime, just like our beer."

The ice shanty, valued at $50,000, comes with a built-in furnace, light therapy, "classic lake house" tchotchkes, a grill, and a supply of Summer Shandy beer. Sounds like the perfect sort of distracting novelty to get us through this winter.

If you want to enter to win the shanty, email SummerShandyIceShanty@promo.leinie.com between now and March 11 and "share your favorite Leinie's beer that makes anytime feel like summertime." (Summer Shandy feels like a slam dunk here, but feel free to get creative.) Whether or not you win the ice shanty, you get free beer just for entering, in the form of a $10 rebate. All the rules and regs can be found here, but all you really need to know is this: send an email, get some free beer, and maybe even end up with an all-inclusive rumpus room you can plop down beside the nearest lake.