Rhinegeist and Kroger launch Super Lager for value-focused shoppers

Rhinegeist Brewery is turning its Cheetah lager into Super Lager with Kroger, a relaunch that pushes a Cincinnati craft name into a wider grocery play built around price and reach. The beer is set to arrive in August in 16-ounce single-serve cans and 12-ounce packages, aimed at shoppers who still want a recognizable craft brand but are watching what lands in the cart.

The new label is not a brand-new recipe so much as a repositioning of a familiar one. Rhinegeist describes Cheetah as an extremely light-bodied, cleanly fermented, easy-drinking craft lager with malt and subtle citrus notes. The beer first appeared in early 2018 as a draft-only lager, then moved into year-round 12-pack cans and draft later that year at 4.8% ABV and 6 IBU. Rhinegeist’s June coverage also identified Super Lager as the same beer as Cheetah and called it a World Beer Cup Gold Award-winning lager, giving the value beer a medal-backed selling point.

Kroger’s role makes the launch bigger than a local label swap. Tracey Ireland, Rhinegeist vice president of marketing, said the collaboration began “over a pint,” and said Kroger has been a retail partner since Rhinegeist’s inception in 2013. That long tie-up helps explain why the beer reads more like a dual-branded channel move than a standard private-label lager. Brewbound described the positioning as premium-light and value-conscious, which puts Super Lager squarely in the lane where grocery shelf space is tight and pricing pressure is real.

The rollout starts in the Midwest before expanding into the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, extending Rhinegeist beyond its home base in Cincinnati and Over-the-Rhine. Rhinegeist already distributes in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, so the Kroger launch builds on an established footprint instead of starting from zero. Brewer Magazine said the Midwest would be the first stop, which fits a brewery-and-grocer partnership anchored in shared regional roots.

That strategy lands as the U.S. craft brewing industry works through a 4% decline in production in 2025, according to the Brewers Association. Against that backdrop, Rhinegeist is leaning on an accessible lager rather than novelty, wrapping a familiar flagship-style beer in Kroger’s retail scale and using the Super Lager name to chase volume where craft now has to fight hardest: the grocery aisle.