Beer Army Combat Brewery - NC

Cans make more sense from a financial (and environmental) standpoint than bottling. The canning line(s), however, are a significant capital cost.

 

They may have made the wrong choice for the distribution of their beer, but I would submit that they also made bad choices in naming their brewery and choosing packaging design. A small subset of consumers would be "warm and fuzzy" about the name, and the packaging was awful. I heard lots of conversation about the name and packaging, but very little about the beer.

 

Double barley is buying some of their equipment.

 

Double Barley is not buying their equipment.

 

That's what I was told, maybe you are special and have better sources

 

I guess it's all about situation and context then. First time I'd heard of them was at a bar in Asheville and I was able to get a flight pour of their Angels Belgian Blonde. Thought it was mighty tasty and the bartender told me that it was a group of guys that used to be in the army who decided to start a brewery. I thought that was kind of neat. Once I did start seeing their bottles around, I did think to myself that it's a good thing I was able to try their stuff first since I would've never bought one of their bombers based on branding alone. I really hope that whoever has ownership of the recipe for Zero Dark Thirty will start brewing it at another brewery under a different name. That stuff is too awesome for it to just vanish into obscurity.

 

They are former marines. Not army. If you want to watch their town hall meeting on youtube, here's the link. Enjoy alot of rambling, complaining about the 3 tier system, and various other things. The only thing this man won't come out and admit about his former brewery is the fact that his beer didn't sell. I didn't hear a single excuse about his side of the operation, just about the distributors, the state laws, and other circumstances. The fun starts at 17.00 in the video.

 

I just had what was probably their last run of Heroes Never Die and it tasted much like what I or my brother make. Not horrible but not worth beer store prices either.

Also just learned that beeradvocate blocks reviews for dead breweries!

 

Seriously? "There was actually periods last year where we actually out-distributed them one county, in Craven county, out of all the other 99 counties." No shit. It's your home county! All your friends and family are there, drinking local. No one in the rest of the state knows who the hell you are. When someone walks into a store and sees a bomber of IPA with a coat of arms on it priced at $5.99 with no freshness date and barely any good scores or reviews on here or the other site, of course they're gonna go with something else. Probably something more local to them that they're more familiar with, just like the folks in your county tend to do. Don't blame it on the distributor just because you overextended yourself.

 

Any idea what he means when he says "over 30 states have the three tier system" and that NC is a "three tier state"? Every state in the union has some form of a Three Tier system of beer distribution (brewer>wholesaler>retailer) - the major difference from a brewer's perspective is whether it is a mandatory 3-Tier system or if it allows self-distribution. NC allows self-distribution, he S-D's locally, and he even goes into reasons why he, understandably, did not expand his wholesale operation outside he local area. Seems his major complaint is not with 3-Tier as such, but NC's franchise law.

Franchise laws applying to beer distributors are a creation of the period of1970s-on (decades after Repeal), a time when local and regional brewers were dying off, many states had no small/local breweries and the in-state, locally-owned distributorships were often at the mercy of the large national and other larger out-of-state brewers. Needless to say, the current beer market in every state is very different now from what it was when the franchise laws, often backed and heavily promoted by the NBWA, were first passed and many (but not enough) states have begun to update those laws. According to a report from the law firm, McDermott Will & Emery (which specializes in alcohol distribution law):

 

The North Carolina Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association is physically located very close to all N.C. government function in downtown Raleigh. This is a very powerful lobby closely allied with many long time politicians. I would assume that this is not uncommon in many regions, but particularly in the south.