Consequences of better distribution: Good or Bad?

I think it's a good thing. You may be disappointed you can't your faves at will, but as other beers do the same, you will get beers you wouldn't have gotten before.

 

Tis a double edged sword.... although greater distribution usually leads to increased production in most (not all) cases

 

for me it depends on the trade off of what i'd be getting. it doesn't really have to be anything groundbreaking, just solid stuff coming my way. i'll take Clown Shoes as an example...its something i'm glad we're seeing here in SoCal now, that i've been enjoying drinking my way through their offerings. i'm not really sure what i saw 'less of' this year (it seems like i'd actually seen more of what i expected to see less of ) but i do enjoy the increased distribution we've seen

 

In a perfect world that would be true, but those of us on the left coast are getting the short end of the stick. The great breweries like Deschutes (and their highly sought after beers) are on a constant eastward march, which means there's less and less for the locals. However, almost none of the highly regarded midwest or east coast breweries (Victory and DFH being the notable exceptions) bother to expand out our way.

 

I wonder why that is. I spoke to the president of NJs big craft beer dist quite a few years ago, and he said a lot of breweries don't want to come to NJ because of the laws here. They have since lightened up and we have a lot of more choice now. Maybe it's the same thing in Oregon?

 

I don't really care how expanded distribution impacts access to the special release beers. I didn't even both seeking any Parabola this year and, even though I love the beer, I don't care one bit that I didn't grab any. There's always something on the shelf to satisfy my needs, that I haver stopped needing any one specific beer.

As for shelf beers, there expanded distribution can matter to me. I just want fresh sixers available to me and don't care for distributors having to buy a lot of stock at once and releasing it in waves so the shelves are always stocked but not freshly. Then we have to start waiting for the old beers to sell before we get a fresh alotment.

 

Both.

Bad, because many of us are not able to have access to the same selection as in the past (as you mentioned). Many, many limited releases were easier to obtain, and obtain in larger quantities, but now are very hard because of expanding distribution and craft beer having gone more mainstream.

Good, because it is a good sign of a maturing market. I'm trying to avoid bubble talk here. Rather refer to it as talk about a mature market. By this I mean that I'm really looking forward to when the better breweries are distributed in most states, and are better able to keep up with supply, and this will help shake out some of the not so good breweries that arguably don't deserve the same shelf space. One recent example that has me overjoyed is Founder's, Victory, Crooked Stave, and Allagash coming to Arizona. I have little patience for disagreement on this one because I just don't see there being a good case for keeping more mediocre beer on the shelves. Let the better beers (and breweries) win.

 

it's great. so what if i miss out on a certain beer. i have new ones from out of the area to choose from. that is a net gain imo.

 

Not so - there seems to be an endless supply of quality brews
Cheers

 

You assume shortages are a bad thing. They certainly are for us consumers, but not necessarily bad for the beer producers. The exclusivity of the very top shelf brews translates to leverage for brewers with regard to wholesale and retail distributors.

Distributors need to move large amounts of basic beers from a given brewery in order to qualify for a few cases or sixtels of the highly desired premier beer made by that same brewery. With so many beers on the market and a fixed amount of shelf space, this type of leverage is critical for brewers who wish to expand beyond their original local footprint.

 

My initial thought as I was reading the first few posts was: well, it should ‘even out’ in that limited beers from other areas should become available.

Your post is indeed a counter-argument to that initial thought.

You made specific mention of: “However, almost none of the highly regarded midwest or east coast breweries (Victory and DFH being the notable exceptions) bother to expand out our way.”

According to the seekabrew website, Victory is distributed to all of the West Coast states: CA, WA and your home state of Oregon. I do not know how widely Victory is distributed throughout all of those three states but with the recent opening of their expanded new brewery in Parkesburg hopefully their beers will become even more available to you.

It is my understanding that the reason that many East Coast and Mid-West breweries do not generally distribute to the Western part of the US is that the majority of the beer drinking market is east of the Mississippi (with the Northeast being the highest concentration). Simply a business decision to serve the bulk of the population (also on a population density perspective).

Cheers

 

From my talks with various brewery owners and our distributors, it usually comes down to one or both of the following issues:

Lack of density. Oregon only has about 4 million residents. Other than the 1.5 mil living in the Portland metro, the rest are spread out over hundreds of thousands of square miles. Most of the large Portland distributors have little to no presence in the other metro areas like Eugene or Bend (much less the far flung areas like the entire eastern half of the state), so for the brewery it means they have to sign on with multiple distributors to cover one state, and a couple of those distributors will be covering small volume territories. Unless you can move shipping container loads at a time the freight gets expensive, which makes it very difficult to price your beer competitively. Most of these problems apply to Washington as well.

Market saturation. There's 150+ breweries in the state already, and gaining traction and shelf space in a crowded (and occasionally too locally focused) market is difficult. I've seen countless breweries try to expand here in the decade I've been working as a buyer, and unless you can bring something unique to the table you'd better be able to price your beer competitively with the likes of Deschutes, Full Sail, Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, and Lagunitas, all of which can usually be found on sale in the grocery stores for $7-8 per 6pk, and all of whom have lots of name recognition. Even if you can price your beer competitievly (like Goose Island), the hyper-localism and desire for freshness often kicks in. Why buy a 6pk of GI IPA that was trucked across the country from New York when there's things like Laurelwood Workhorse, Goodlife Descender, 10 Barrel Apocalypse, Hop Valley IPA, Deschutes Fresh Squeezed, and a dozen more, all of which are better and probably fresher due to their location.

 

Don't get me wrong, I realize how friggin soiled we are with incredible beer. I was just pointing out the disparity that seems to be occurring where all the great west coast breweries are expanding east, yet very few of the Midwest or east coast breweries are expanding our way.

 

I'm not sure about that. It seems the same people end up getting all the new beers and what remains of the old beers.

 

I may have worded it poorly, but I meant that Victory and DFH were exceptions in the sense that they actually do distribute out here, unlike almost everyone else east of the Mississipppi.

 

Because competition
Would like to see it though