Founders to Colorado?

I'll buy their porter all day long!

 

I think if you make a damn good IPA it's not too tough to compete with the local stuff. If you're covering any other area than I find it's an uphill battle.

I think this is why brewers like Breakside are doing seemingly well since being introduced.

 

I think that if only one of Bell's and Founders started distributing here, I'd take Bell's. I really like Expedition, and also the Cherry Stout. I had Best Brown Ale once, and damned if it wasn't best brown ale I ever had. I haven't had too many other of their beers, but they seem to have a bigger lineup of 4 and 6-pack beers than Founders (could be wrong on that). I don't really judge a brewery on the hard to get crap; I care more about the stuff I know I can buy when I want it.

 

Hmmm.. I still haven't tried Breakside

 

I've always wished we'd get Brooklyn out here, but I'm fairly certain they'd die a slow death in our market. While I think Bells is equally good, I'm not sure they really have the line-up to do much better here. I'm sure many of us would like to see Two Hearted, but I think we all know what will happen if that 6-pack is 4 months old and it's next to an Odell or Modus from last week. Would Expedition move in a market with Yeti, Czar, Storm King, Stone RIS, Ten Fidy, and about a dozen seasonal big stouts? Is Oberon really any (or much) better than Easy Street, Sunshine, and the like? Would a world-class brown even sell at all? Our state did sweep the category at GABF this year.

With Founders, I can see their seasonals and specialties working well. Rubaeus, Breakfast Stout, KBS, Backwoods, for certain. I'm just not sure about the normal line-up. Dirty might, but unless their IPA's are dated from the future I'm not so sure. While great, do you think a normal porter will move the needle? I think it would be cool to be wrong, but I just don't see casual buyers or geeks going for those beers over the long term.

 

I agree with this 100%. I would still purchase Backwoods Bastard, Breakfast Stout and the Porter from founders, but I wouldn't buy anything else from them or really anything from Bells with the fantastic competition we have here.

 

Also, I want to point out that you always know 100x more than I do and put it poetically, I just enjoy the discussion

 

I treat Breakside like many of the other out of state breweries: I bought something when they first got here, but I won't buy it anymore because there are no dates on the bottles

 

I was going to post pretty much this about Bells and Founders. The seasonal/specialty beers would do OK, the shelf beers not so much after the initial rush.

While I love Two Hearted I wouldn't buy it unless it was bottled within 4-6 weeks. Some out of state breweries are great at getting hoppy beers here fresh (Firestone and Lagunitas come to mind), while we have some others where the freshest you can ever expect to find is two months old.

 

I must be the odd man out here (or maybe it's cause I'm a native?) but I don't, in general, give a SHIIIIIT about out of state beer. There's only a handful of regulars from out of town that I purchase, and even then it's almost exclusively the special releases or one-time-only: FW, Ballast, Lagunitas, Fremont, Stone.

I'm sure I'm the crazy one, but there's so many of you motherfuckin' midwest transplants (said with love, mind you) running around here I think you'd be the only ones buying up Bells and Founders (for the most part) anyway.

Unless it's KBS or Two Hearted or the other super-special ones... I no care.

 

There are also a ton of people in CO from Michigan that miss founders and bells. Myself included.

 

No Canty-loons for you!

 

Breakfast Stout is an amazing beer. Recently did a taste taste with it, Bomb!, and Peche Mortel. Breakfast Stout won. Their imperial stout is really good as well and could totally hang with Yeti.

 

No doubt. Their beers are top notch. I'm just not sure they would sell well enough past that initial trial period. I'd say the same thing about many of our own top breweries heading into crowded markets, too.
I'm not saying we don't want 'em - just thinking about the breweries that either got killed or are gathering dust in our market. Our shelves are crowded. If I could wipe about 1/2 of the so-so stuff off our shelves and trade it for Founders and Bells I'd do it in a heartbeat.

 

I think they would sell just fine. Mainly because there's a ridiculous amount of Midwest transplants here that would welcome any of the (better) beers that we used to get back home. I never bought New Holland in Illinois so I can here why they're turds here along with a bunch of other stuff but I did give a lot of money to FFF, PW, Founders, and Bells.

 

I agree with most of the opinions on this thread that their flagship beers probably would get lost on the shelf here. CO is just a super spoiled beer market and most people that spend real money on craft beer just want the more rare, sought-after releases. However, I'm surprised nobody here has mentioned All Day IPA, which is one of the first commercially available session IPAs and is much better than anything we have available now other than Easy Jack...

 

Pipeworks coming soon, hang tight!

 

Founders just posted they are going to the Dakotas. The Dakotas before CO. Maybe there's an empty market there with little competition, that way they don't have to worry about bottle dates and such. Just put something decent on the shelf and it'll sell.
Looking at S & N Dakota's distribution via seekabrew.com , mostly the usual stuff, nothing mindblowing, so there's plenty of room for them.

 

Couldn't agree more, our market is looking to the Breakside, Pipeworks & Crux's of the market. For every beer almost in Founder's and Bell's repertoire, we have 3+ competitors already in the market with Firestone Walker, Ballast Point, Odell, Avery, Lagunitas, etc.

The one beer I've been hankering for though - is a great BA Wee Heavy, that's packaged. Backwoods always fits that bill.