Taxi 2 has been selected as agency of record for Moosehead Breweries, handling all strategic and creative duties for the independent brewer’s portfolio of brands.

The shop was one of seven agencies that participated in a 10-week pitch process.

The brewer had previously split the work for its brands between Sid Lee, which began working with Moosehead in 2011, and Extreme Group, which has been working with the brewer for more than 10 years. Trevor Grant, VP of sales and marketing at Moosehead Breweries, says the plan is for Taxi 2 to begin its focus on Moosehead Lager, Moose Light, Alpine and Hop City brands, and it will begin working through plans for how to handle its broader portfolio, which includes James Ready and Cracked Canoe, in the coming weeks.

“Part of the reason we were looking for a new agency was to really drive some consistency and consolidate all of our creative and strategic efforts,” Grant says. “The goal is to have a holistic plan that we can apply to the whole portfolio.”

Moosehead, which was founded in 1867 in Halifax, is Canada’s oldest independent brewer. Daniel Shearer, general manager at Taxi 2, says that gives the brewer a unique position and story to tell within Canada.

“All the big guys are getting bigger, and a lot of craft beers are being scooped up by the bigger players,” Shearer says. “Moosehead has an interesting portfolio of brands that’s a bit unique for the Canadian marketplace, but they’ve also got an amazing history of resilience and perseverance, with six generations of family ownership that has survived everything from world wars to breweries burning down to the Halifax Explosion.”

The first work, expected to debut in spring 2016, will focus on the brewery’s uniqueness in the marketplace and history, as opposed to jumping on trends currently happening within the beer category, he says.

“They have some craft credentials with things like Hop City, but given how unique they are, it’s going to be less about tapping into beer trends and more about, once and for all, defining the story of Moosehead and celebrating it with consumers. So it might be decidedly ‘anti-trend.'”