The founder of Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right Beer, the brand that launched amid backlash to Bud Light, says a “significant cultural moment” changed his life forever.
“The last year was a pretty wild ride by anyone’s definition for Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right Beer. We launched on April 12 of 2023, and it went just incredibly wild and went very viral online,” founder and CEO Seth Weathers told Fox News Digital.
The ad, a 58-second, slickly produced piece published across social media platforms, began with Weathers bashing a can of Bud Light with a baseball bat.
“America’s been drinking beer from a company that doesn’t even know which restroom to use,” Weathers said as images from transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s infamous Bud Light video played. “That’s why I created Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right Beer, 100% woke-free beer.”
The concept, which many people initially wrote off as some sort of spoof or gimmick, turned out to be the beginning of a legitimate beer company. The ad went live only 12 days after Bud Light irked many customers, and piled up views while conservative beer drinkers placed orders for the product before it was even manufactured.
“Beer happened to be the catalyst for this, but we were an answer to things that a lot of, specifically conservatives, had issues with that was going on in the world. And I think it was almost treated as a welcome relief to the current environment at the time,” Weathers said.
“I knew we could make a difference and a change if we jumped on it then,” he added. “So we just got incredibly busy and developed out everything from the packaging to the logo to the website, everything, the commercial, and I got it all out in 12 days.”
Conservative Dad’s Ultra Right Beer launched as a pre-sale, and Weathers says he was stunned at how many people placed orders. Meanwhile, the Bud Light boycott caused a significant hit to Anheuser-Busch InBev’s U.S. revenue.
“Obviously, I didn’t quite have an understanding of how much of a pre-sale that would turn into, but it gave us the ability to launch this company… with zero financial backing from anyone outside of the people that were buying our product, our customers,” he said.
Weathers suddenly had to manufacture a ton of beer that conservatives paid for in advance, and he certainly had his doubters.
“Initially people told us, ‘You’ll never find a brewery to make this beer,’ then, ‘You’ll never make this much beer and get it done,’ and then it was, ‘You’ll never find a distributor and then you’ll never find stores that will sell this,’” he said.
“Well, funny fact, we did all of those things,” Weathers said.
ULTRA RIGHT BEER FOUNDER SETH WEATHERS: PEOPLE HAVE ‘HAD ENOUGH’ OF WOKE COMPANIES
It wasn’t easy, and Weathers joked that you’d think he was making “nuclear weapons” because of all the red tape he faced. He said it was challenging to find vendors in the “very liberal” beer industry, and he faced an onslaught of legal hurdles.
“The regulation on beer is unbelievable… I’ve been fingerprinted by the FBI to make a 4.8% alcohol beer,” he said. “Every single state has its own alcohol laws, you have to go through the process of abiding by those per state, you also have federal laws.”
Weathers said that if he knew all of this in advance, he would have assumed the industry was absolutely impossible to break into. But he didn’t know, and took things one step at a time.
The conservative ale was an immediate hit among beer drinkers, surpassing $1 million in sales, gaining over 10,000 customers, and selling 20,000 six-packs within the first two weeks of its launch in April. In September, Conservative Dad’s went viral again with a limited edition can that featured the famous mugshot of former President Trump.
The beer has since landed in stores, and Weathers has big plans for the future, including additional products.
“It’s been a wild ride, and I think it’s a wild ride going forward,” Weathers said. “We’re going to continue with the Conservative Dad’s brand of beverages. We’ll be launching more in the future as well.”
Weathers said he quickly realized the backlash to Bud Light was a significant cultural moment, and it offered conservatives a chance to show the rest of America that they represent a significant portion of the economy. He said the unique situation “absolutely disrupted” the beer industry and will be remembered as a significant teaching moment.
“Regardless of what Bud Light did, there’s now a ton of other brands out there that they’re going to think twice before they go take a dump on their customer base,” he said.
Weathers gave back to the conservative community, donating to the 1776 Project PAC and other right-leaning causes. He said big corporations “fund left-wing causes,” so Conservative Dad’s is going to do the opposite and help groups that align with its consumers.
Weathers, who is thrilled that young conservatives have been seen wearing the beer’s merchandise, said he read Ronald Reagan’s autobiography when he was 14 and has been part of the movement ever since.
“I’ve been committed to the cause for a long time,” he said. “That’s what gives me the passion behind the company, because I love knowing that we’re actually making changes and we’re emboldening conservatives, too.”
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Fox News Digital’s Kyle Morris contributed to this report.