How does a brewery get its beer in Trader Joe?

If only Trader Joe's could afford refrigerators for their beer. Maybe we could form a kickstarter for them.

 

Notice I said "cool beer." The Kirkland mixed pack has been around for a long time. I went through a ton of those six years ago when I remodeled my basement. It's fine beer, but not great.

The CEO of Costco spoke at one my wife's MBA classes once, he said they pride themselves on demanding the best quality products for the Kirkland line. Seeing how the only Kirkland Signature beers are the mixed pack of middle of the road and that Minhas Contract brewed light atrocity, it's always made me wonder.

 

I think the key word in Nic's post was "cool." The KS craft beer case is servicable if pedestrian takes on each style, brewed by breweries without any beer geek cachet.

 

It used to be brewed by Gordon Biersch, not sure who is doing it now. Always amazed me they couldn't find someone from WA/OR to do it for them.

 

With the size of Costco, and the amount of volume I suspect they require from a supplier, maybe there's not a brewery large enough, that has the extra capacity?

 

I thought GB is still brewing it for the Western US.

 

That's a very good point, one that i tend to often ignore.

Still, let me live in my quixotic beer reality where Costco has awesome house beer.

 

Going back to the original post, I suspect they cultivate relationships with local distributors, as I've long seen local & regional product (Iron Goat, Laughing Dog, Bale Breaker) alongside the contract brewed stuff.

 

Yeah, unless something changed it's still GB west/FX Matt east.

 

Quick story about TJ's in Kansas City. When Abraxas hit stores, there was a 1 per person limit everywhere. After hitting 4 stores and coming up empty at 2 of them, I was told that TJ's received a crazy large allocation. Something like 8 cases. I got there at about 3pm and was told some guy bought everything they had left about an hour earlier. The policy of no limits, no holds, no reservations was in their words "unilaterally applied to all products". So I stored that knowledge in my brain and guess where I went 1st on black Friday. I thought it was strange that nobody was waiting for the doors to open. Maybe I was about to hit the jackpot and run off with a whole case of BCBCS. Well much to my surprise, TJ's received a ZERO allocation of any Bourbon County products. Why is that? Why does the selection at TJ's seems to be so random? After reading this thread, I can tell that my experience at a single TJ store is not an isolated case. I guess insider knowledge of what they're gonna get before hand is the best approach. So now when I go to TJ's to buy an apple and look at yoga pants, I'll befriend the beverage manager and try to obtain that crucial data.

 

The Tanasbourne store also has a small refrigerated section for beer and wine.