Mother's recalls newly released seltzer

Mother's Brewing Co. is working out the kinks with its new seltzer brand.

The Springfield-based craft brewery yesterday issued a recall for its Ready Hard Seltzer after company officials found quality issues once product was on store shelves, according to a Facebook post.

"Through quality assurance evaluation, we discovered that the flavor of our Ready Hard Seltzer is changing as it sits in packaging. And not in a good way," the post reads. "We are no longer happy with the quality of liquid that has been sitting on shelves in your stores. We are recalling and destroying all current stock and have decided to halt production until we can figure out what is causing this flavor change."

Kyle Jeffries, brewery liaison for Mother's, last month told Springfield Business Journal that Ready Hard Seltzer was being launched statewide with consideration for sales in Arkansas and Kansas. Jeffries could not be reached for comment by deadline on the recall.

In the Facebook post yesterday, Mother's Brewing Co. officials said the recall represents a "quality issue, not a safety issue."

At 100 calories per can, one carb and 5% alcohol content, the product debuted last month in two flavors: blackberry lemon and cherry limeade.

Hard seltzer and other “seltzer-like” products had a market share of 2.6% of all U.S. beverage sales in 2019, up from 0.85% in 2018, according to a December report from IWSR Drinks Market Analysis. Consumer research firm Nielsen noted hard seltzer sales exceeded $1.3 billion for the 52-week period ending Nov. 2, 2019, and it predicts the number of companies in the market to double in 2020.

4 by 4 Brewing Co. LLC also announced a hard seltzer product this year.