Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Finding success in the cannabis industry sometimes means not mentioning cannabis

Finding success in the cannabis industry sometimes means not mentioning cannabis

Outbound's overhaul reflects the lengths cannabis companies go to establish brand recognition amid a patchwork of state laws and no interstate commerce.

High Style Brewing had big expansion plans for its cannabis business. But it hit a major snag: Its name wasn't legal in Nevada.

Instead of spending the past year expanding, the San Diego crafter of cannabis-infused, non-alcoholic beers underwent a rebrand and a major extension of its product line. The brewery relaunched this month as Outbound Brewing.
Outbound's overhaul reflects the lengths cannabis companies go to establish brand recognition amid a patchwork of state laws and no interstate commerce.

"We figured we would be running into this [type of] issue with more and more states," said Lyden Henderson, the brewery's chief operating officer and co-founder. "We did not want to fracture our brand."

This time last year, High Style had a good plan mapped out for the business. The company landed distribution deals across California to put its Coastal Haze on dispensary store shelves, focused on proof-of-concept efforts in local markets, and started chatting with licensed operators in other cannabis-legal and beer-savy states including Colorado and Oregon.

Henderson and co-founders Marty Reed and Greg Haap figured more states would follow in short order.

They worked for more than a year on research and development to dial in a proprietary process to craft a good-tasting, non-alcoholic beer that then is infused with a dash of THC, the psychoactive cannabis compound, to result in a drink that mimics the early onset effects of drinking a beer. The crew then spent several months ensuring those brews passed muster with California cannabis and alcohol regulators.

Nevada was a logical next step because it, like California, had a recreational cannabis program in place, and in close enough in proximity to test a potential operational strategy of working with contract brewers and cannabis licensees in that state to replicate the recipes and processes for the brews.

But crossing state lines is tricky: Nevada's cannabis regulations were different from California's and included a provision that prohibited the use of cannabis slang like "bud," "pot," "420," "weed" ... and "high."

So High Style spent a good chunk of 2019 brainstorming brand names. The brewery relaunched this month as Outbound Brewing and concurrently released a slate of non-alcoholic, non-infused beers and a line of CBD-infused, non-alcoholic beers that will allow the brewery to both latch onto growing consumer trends and potentially achieve a nationwide reach that's often elusive for cannabis companies.


Navigating a tangled web of laws

"There are ways to get around this through strategies," said Olivia Mannix, co-founder of Cannabrand, a cannabis-centric branding and marketing agency founded in 2014 in Denver. "But it's still not a walk in the park to reach a broader demographic. It's something that is tricky."

A common practice has been the licensing of brand names and intellectual property to regulated manufacturers outside of their home states. Other firms with deeper pockets -- such as MedMen, Acreage Holdings and Harvest - went on a land grab, buying up licenses in newly legal states to then erect vertically integrated operations there.

The United States is witnessing federalism in action as states across the nation establish programs to regulate the cultivation, possession and sale of federally illegal cannabis. Each of those states operate in a silo and boast a unique slate of laws that often are subject to frequent tweaks as officials learn on the fly in creating first-of-their-kind regulations.

"We are straddling two very different segments of products," said Charlie Reed, the brewery's director of impact and business development. "At this point, there will not be something that works in every single recreationally legal state."


Creating a new brand

In California, developing a product that plays in two heavily regulated industries of alcohol and cannabis created some interesting challenges. The labels couldn't be too colorful or cartoonish, so as not to appeal to children. But Outbound also couldn't call its concoctions "beers" or identify them using any common beer styles, such as IPA, pale ale, or sour. So Outbound's labels instead say "craft malt beverage."

States like Colorado have labeling rules that require information such as potency and contaminant testing statements and a specific THC symbol. Illinois requires Surgeon General-esque health warning statements. In Washington state, cannabis products can't mimic alcohol products including using phrases like "0% ABV" and "not a beer."

"We'd like to remain as consistent as we can be state to state," Henderson said. "I'd love to see the same brand in different states and see something familiar, so I know there's consistency there."

Outbound's rebranding process and new product extension took eight months and included closely reviewing each state's alcohol and cannabis laws in addition to scouring trademarks in the crowded craft beer landscape.

"There were a couple ones that just totally broke our hearts when we found a tiny brewery in the middle of nowhere," Reed said.
The beverages are breaking convention, and the Outbound name and imagery are meant to reflect that, said Kyle Merwin, co-founder of Born & Bred, the San Francisco-based branding agency behind the Outbound redesign.

"Regulation should never limit creativity; it should only inspire it," Merwin said.

And even if the the beverage can't be called a beer, there are clever ways of pulling in familiar language such as "flavor profile," "hoppy," "malty," and "earthy," he said.


"They're going to feel it before they necessarily read it," he said.

The rebranding efforts continued in the background as the company still had to continue business as usual, including exhibiting the brews under the High Style name at the inaugural Cannabis Drinks Expo that took place July 2019 in San Francisco.


"We're trying to find our spot in cannabis; we're trying to find our spot in craft beer," Reed told CNN Business two weeks before the event.

As Reed poured samples of the non-infused, no-alcohol beer bases for the Grapefruit Haze, Pale Haze and Blood Orange Haze, she said she wasn't breathing a word of the rebrand to any who approached the booth.

Now Outbound is shouting it from the rooftops, and the brewery's officials are finding a silver lining in a major roadblock to national expansion.

"I'm grateful for that initial conversation with Nevada, so we're diving into this sooner rather than later," she said. "Of course, this would have been great to start as Outbound."

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
FBI Removes Agents Who Kneeled at 2020 Protest, Citing Breach of Professional Conduct
Trump Alleges ‘Triple Sabotage’ at United Nations After Escalator and Teleprompter Failures
Shock in France: 5 Years in Prison for Former President Nicolas Sarkozy
Tokyo’s Jimbōchō Named World’s Coolest Neighbourhood for 2025
European Officials Fear Trump May Shift Blame for Ukraine War onto EU
BNP Paribas Abandons Ban on 'Controversial Weapons' Financing Amid Europe’s Defence Push
Typhoon Ragasa Leaves Trail of Destruction Across East Asia Before Making Landfall in China
The Personality Rights Challenge in India’s AI Era
Big Banks Rebuild in Hong Kong as Deal Volume Surges
Italy Considers Freezing Retirement Age at 67 to Avert Scheduled Hike
Italian City to Impose Tax on Visiting Dogs Starting in 2026
Arnault Denounces Proposed Wealth Tax as Threat to French Economy
Study Finds No Safe Level of Alcohol for Dementia Risk
Denmark Investigates Drone Incursion, Does Not Rule Out Russian Involvement
Lilly CEO Warns UK Is ‘Worst Country in Europe’ for Drug Prices, Pulls Back Investment
Nigel Farage Emerges as Central Force in British Politics with Reform UK Surge
Disney Reinstates ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ after Six-Day Suspension over Charlie Kirk Comments
U.S. Prosecutors Move to Break Up Google’s Advertising Monopoly
×