Firestone Walker to distribute in MN

They would. But, the whole......

"Only in Wisconsin"

like....really, really rolling my eyes

Maple Tavern sold quite a bit of Spotted Cow when they had it

 

New Glarus has been rumored to be working on opening a new brewery closer to the Minnesota border. Which sound like total bullshit of course. But it’s O.T., so FireWalker . . . They’ll be grand here in Minnesota.

 

Now that would be interesting

 

I would guess if New Glarus did open a new brewery it would be only as a production brewery to keep up with demand in Wisconsin. I can't see New Glarus ever distributing outside of WI.

 

Agreed. And it's a fucking smart business model, so I give them props.

 

IMO, if New Glarus ever came to Minnesota the next generation of owners would likely make that decision.

 

"Ever" is a long time.

Their Chicago availability was the stuff of legend, and they were even bootlegged into other markets for a short time.

That's a good guess. The children are of a mature adult age, and as it's a family business I can't imagine that they'd be out of that decision making loop. So maybe some day?

 

With the increase of people purchasing local MN breweries, out of state breweries are waning in sales. After the first 90 days FSW will sell you less than 350 cases a month of draft and kegs per month. IMO, Johnson brothers may be better off focusing on long term growth partnering with local small brewery brands who have a better shot at more than 350 cases a month. I like "free agents" Barrel Theory, Lupulin, and Blackstack's chances of growing more than FSW.

 

I can only see their children or a new ownership group selling their beer in Minnesota.

 

350 cases a month? This is easily at least a 50k case a year brand statewide.

 

You would think so but most of the cases sold are in their home state of California. The state of Minnesota has over 125 breweries all selling draft and cases of beer to customers. Many local breweries have a sales staff of around 3 for the state and I would guess the state has over 350 brewery reps while outstate breweries have less than 3 sales reps. It's a dog, eat dog world out there and local buyers are purchasing local breweries while 20 years ago a brewery like Redhook, Sierra Nevada, and Sam Adams had less competition. For example, the breweries I mentioned all had over 100 draft lines while today they are lucky to have anything close to that.

 

You say these things as if there can only be one successful business model or that FSW is new to the expansion game. I’m sure they have some sales numbers they’ll need to hit or else they’ll pull out. They seem to be doing fairly well in IA, so logical next step is MN even if the results won’t be the same.

 

Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas both sell more than 100k cases in just their metro distributor's footprint. I don't think it's unrealistic for FW to do half of that statewide. The "local only" thing is perhaps a titch hyperbolic.

 

Caveat: this is 100% anecdotal...

Over the past couple of years, the liquor store I frequent most often has dramatically reduced cooler / shelf space for large out of region brewers (e.g. SN, BBC, Stone, Deschutes, Lagunitas, Founders, Bells, etc) and large local brewers (Schell's, Summit, and Surly) and has increased the number of MN brewers on the shelf (e.g. Utepils, Tin Whiskers, Bent Paddle, Fulton, Badger Hill, Barley John's, Indeed, etc.) not to mention hyped new entrants like TG. Plus, also squeezing into this space are some of the big boys captive brands such as 10 barrel.

The big boys (AB-Inbev, MillerCoors, as well as their crafty brands), meanwhile, have not relinquished so much as an inch.

I have no idea about tap lines.

But, judging by that one liquor store, FW will have to displace someone and will have a LOT of competition for eyeballs scanning the shelves. My guess is they'll further squeeze the out of state space rather than the local space.

If they sell well, they'll keep or expand their space. If not, oh, well...

 

New Glarus milks the law of exclusivity better than anyone. Selling outside WI would be killing that golden goose.