Collaborations between breweries have long been popular, and in recent years they’ve been followed by partnerships between craft breweries and any number of consumer products, ranging from baked goods to mustard. While previous collaborations were generally widely distributed—albeit for a brief time—the latest addition in the space is partnerships between brewers and independent retailers on beers exclusively available at those accounts. Today’s beer collaborations are much like the single-barrel Bourbon trend that has driven traffic to retail stores around the country.

At the Open Bottle craft beer shop and taproom, with two locations in Illinois, customer response to some 40 different collaborations over the last nine years has been “fantastic,” co-owner Patrick Bisch says, with many customers “eagerly anticipating each new collaboration release and celebrating the unique beers and stories behind them.” In its most recent collaboration, Open Bottle teamed up with nearby Flipside Brewing late last year on Santa’s Midnight Snack imperial milk stout. Previous partners have included Illinois’ Mikerphone Brewing and Oklahoma’s Prairie Artisan Ales.

Retailers and brewers both see value in the collaborations. “It’s not just another new product,” notes Tyrrell Gaffer, owner of Casanova Liquor in Hudson, Wisconsin, which has partnered with breweries like 3 Sheeps Brewing on special beers for the last ten years, generally priced under $10 a 12- or 16-ounce can. “It makes our store unique, and it allows us to get to know the brewers.” At Indeed Brewing—with taprooms in Minneapolis and Milwaukee—chief business officer Ryan Bandy says that retailers bring grassroots knowledge to a collaboration. “Retailers are selling directly to the people consuming our beer. They have a good instinct of what people want,” he says. Over the years Indeed has partnered on brews with retailers such as Otto’s Wine & Spirits, as well as on-premise accounts. In fact, the brewery’s Haul In lager collaboration with the Smack Shack seafood chain has been so popular that the brewing company is rolling it out this year as a summer seasonal called Brightside.

Nebraska Brewing is making a concentrated effort to offer more collaborations with local retailers, director of marketing Connor Kavulak says, and those efforts have included the Off the Wall series with Wall to Wall Wine & Spirits, which fronts four locations in the Cornhusker State and Iowa. The process involves an initial meeting to discuss the beer style and ingredients and a sample batch. “It’s never one and done,” Kavulak says. “We want the retailer at the brewery to help mill the grains and throw in the hops.” Upon completion and packaging, release parties are often held at the store and even the brewery. “It’s not a true collaboration if we don’t help them sell it,” the brewer says.

The popularity of single barrel Bourbons at retail shops is helping to fuel the growth in brewer-retailer collaborations. Jake Heiliger, COO of the Wine, Beer, and Spirits chain in Nebraska, notes that while sales of many branded barrel-aged beers have slowed in recent years, the brews he’s collaborated on that utilize the stores’ empty Bourbon barrels have been warmly received. Barrel-aged beers produced with the likes of White Elm Brewing “give us the opportunity to offer some unique beers and to use our empty barrels,” he says. In Massachusetts, Julio’s Liquors teamed up with Lawson’s Finest Liquids last year on Stick(e)y Maple, a brew aged in a Julio’s private selection Maker’s Mark Loch & K(e)y Bourbon barrel that had been filled and emptied of Woods’ Vermont syrup, and then filled again and aged with the brewery’s Mad River Maple amber ale. According to Sean Lawson, founder of the Vermont brewery, the limited-release product ($18 a 16.9-ounce bottle) sold out in one weekend at the Westborough, Massachusetts store. While Lawson’s hasn’t collaborated with too many retailers over the years, the brewer is considering more. “Based on the success we’ve seen, we’re interested,” Lawson says.

With the ability to help a retailer stand out from the competition, the collaborative beers are expected to continue apace. Says Heiliger, “they’re fun, good advertising, and drive customers to the store.”