The Bruery: explain how they've done it.

The Bruery has to distribute the beer they make far and wide. The beers they make can saturate a market quickly. The provisions store has beers that were released months ago still sitting on the shelves. I bought another bottle of Melange 3 not to long ago and that is a really sought after beer released last fall. The fact is we here on this site are a minority. Not to many people regularly buy bottles of beer that are 20 dollars and up. Or will stand in line to get any beer. So comparing the Bruerys distribution with other brewries isn't the way to go. They have grown and are really popular. But the kind of beers and the pricing will eventually keep them from growing. They don't really have a standby beer that people always will have in the fridge (don't say Black Tuesday)and want to drink on any given night.

 

Me & the 23 bottles of Oude Tart I bought last year disagree.

 

Not sure what happened in that last one

 

I think I've traded 1-2 bottles to some Wisconsin folks, but other than that, ALL MINE!!! The beer really is one of those great on a weeknight or weekend, day or night, tailgating, camping, 4wheeling or bottle share w/ proper glassware type of situations.

 

Agreed, the Sans Pagaie might develop into something interesting, but as it is now it's too acetic for my tastes. Hard for anything to follow up a bottle of Cantillon Kriek straight from Belgium!

 

or who cares.....................

 

I like them. Their beer is good for the most part, but it is a bit pricey. When The Bruery first rolled out to Boston I remember meeting Patrick at a tasting and he was really friendly, nervous, and excited. His personality sold me.

Also:

-Autumn Maple is very different from any other "pumpkin" beer I've had. Pumpkin is in quotes because I don't want you to think I meant literal pumpkins.
-I thought White Oak was really good, but it is almost $20 out here. I'd pay $15 back in CA for another bottle or two.
-Their standard lineup is solid. People calling them bad are exaggerating quite a bit. I wouldn't see their beer on shelves in MA if it was actually drainpour worthy bad beer.
-Black Tuesday

Edit: Forgot to mention that 100% BA Cuir is fucking delicious.

 

Good timing on the link draheim.

 

Done.

 

A blind monkey can hit a bullseye given enough darts.

 

As much as I plan to buy a lot of Oude Tart this year and I think it's a great beer, I'd have a hard time saying a $15-$20 beer will ever be an "everyday" beer. I'd love to see Bruery come out with some of their beers in 375ml four packs (on the shelf beers now and potentially more available beers as I assume OT will soon be). If OT was ever a $20 four pack that was always on the shelf, I could see myself having it as an "everyday" beer. I doubt this will ever happen, though.

 

I understand where you're coming from, but its cheaper and more enjoyable to split an Oude Tart w/ friends on the patio by the pool, while listening to some old school country & western or trojan records ska/reggae/dancehall stuff from the 60s/70s instead of buying a round at a bar, listening to Pitbull or Kei$ha and tipping $1 per drink. . .

 

Well, I think the Bruery has been a bit better, statistically speaking, than a "blind monkey" tossing darts.

PS You better stand back from him, whereas I like being close to the Bruery.

 

I could write a book on why The Bruery is successful. From a business perspective, they've done everything just about as close to perfectly as possible.

In short:

- Great Beer. Pretty undeniable that they do a bangin' job on the technical end of things. High quality products, low rate of defect, all the flavors meld wonderfully. None of the following strategies would work if they didn't have the chops to back it up.

- Flawless Product Diversification. They do an incredible job of starting with a familiar, approachable base beers, then adding a unique twist that sets it apart from the others on the shelves (i.e. Trade Winds Tripel w/ Thai Basil). It makes their products irreplaceable without being too "out there" for routine consumption.

- Smart Publicity. Along the same lines of diversification. Early in their career, they made a point to enter professional beer competitions in the least entered categories, really obscure styles. It gave them a better chance to win medals early on, which they did, and get some national recognition.

- Niche Emphasis. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART. They didn't try to go mass market the way other craft breweries do. How many breweries have we seen start off with a diverse portfolio of products, only to steamline and focus on their best sellers, which are usually wheat beers, IPAs, etc.? Those are high volume, low margin type products that require massive production efforts to increase profits and expand, which comes with crazy overhead and nightmare-ish logistics, not the mention the difficulties of navigating the three tier system and archaic, post-prohibition interstate beer laws. Meanwhile, the elasticity on those products is shit and customers interchange them regularly. The Bruery realized that "specialty" beers have much better elasticity, people will pay out the anus for them (hence the "Why is Fruet $36 thread"), forums like this build crazy hype for them, which is free publicity, and its only heightened by the fact that they market to the most elite, top-tier beer consumer, who's willing to spend much more money and go to great lengths to acquire these brews.

It's a pretty winning combination. I think their approach to the industry should be the model for how to break-through a fragmented market and success in small business.

 

Except that the more people do it, the less it will work.

Also, I think it's a higher risk/reward type thing. Making those beers is difficult, and if you don't hit step 1 then it all falls down and you fail. Although maybe not, because White Birch.

 

That's the beauty of niche emphasis, though, there's a limit to how many people will cater to high-brow beer consumers because there are, statistically speaking, so few of them. And I don't think it is necessarily risky because these beers are created in such small volumes. If a single product seriously flops, you just discontinue it and try something new. With a business like The Bruery, you almost treat products like investments, keep a wide portfolio with a lot of diversification, so if something fails, you can handle the setback. It mitigates a lot of the risk.

The biggest issue is if, across the board, the beers don't meet consumer expectations or you have quality issues (infection, oxidation, etc.). Though, honestly, craft consumers have proven to be pretty forgiving even in those circumstances. It baffles me that Lost Abbey is still in business after their unapologetic attitude towards their extremely expensive, flat beer, but alas, the power of beer geekdom prevails.

It's an exciting industry to follow as someone interested in business. There's a lot happening right now.

 

Yeah I was definitely more referring to the latter. I don't think LA is a great example because they do make good beer, but there are breweries out there who (supposedly) make only crappy beer and yet are still around. Baffling. Maybe once there's significant competition at the high end they'll start to fail.