This Beloved Costco Kirkland Signature Product Will Soon Be Gone

Costco's Kirkland Signature brand has a loyal following for one simple reason: the strong ratio of quality to price. The company's CEO (currently Ron Vachris) personally vouches for each product. Unfortunately, with one beloved product, what the CEO giveth, the CEO, presumably, also taketh away. According to Craft Business Daily, starting this month, production of the Kirkland Signature Lager will begin to scale back, and will disappear altogether by September or October.

For the last two years, the beer was made by the venerable craft brewer Deschutes in Bend, OR. Having earned a gold medal at the Great American Beer Festival and a silver at the World Beer Cup, the beer was taken seriously for a store brand. (Unlike the other Deschutes beer brewed for Kirkland – the disappointing barrel-aged Vintage Ale.) Not only was it a good-quality Munich-style Helles Lager using specialty malts from Bamberg, Germany, it was also cheap. A case of 12 cans cost around $12 to $16, depending on your region. That's fill-the-cooler-for-the-backyard-barbecue prices for sipping from tasters at a craft brewery beer. Costco has not explained the reason for the discontinuation.

Posters on a Reddit forum devoted to beer are not happy about the announcement. If the users follow through on their posted plans, expect a run on cases of the lager — as one commenter puts it: "Time to see how many cases fit in a minivan." Fans felt it was the best value deal in craft beer, and they called it their go-to beer.

Many felt it was a big step up from the old Kirkland Light offering, which they called "dog water." Costco's light beer was so negatively reviewed, shoppers are still salty, and that negative connotation may have affected the public's perception of the Kirkland Lager. One commenter said their beer snob neighbor wouldn't try the lager because it had Kirkland on the label. 

Another possible reason for the discontinuation lies in how Costco stored the beer. One commenter wrote: " The beer is mostly excellent but Costco really needed to keep it refrigerated. Once the hype died down, I realized that the quality just wasn't there because lagers don't do well at room temp for several months." Perhaps that's why, when we compared it to Trader Joe's Simpler Times Lager last year, our reviewer found Kirkland's offering lacking.