"Everybody’s opening a brewery..."

Producing the best IPA/DIPA in any given area should always have a market. That's part of the reason I don't necessarily buy local...breweries like DC Brau and Lost Rhino make nice Pale Ales & IPAs, but they're pricier & not as good as other less expensive & more widely available ones.

Sounds like you may have found a potential niche. If I'm ever in NY I look forward to trying an "Out of the Cave Imperial IPA" (or something to that effect). Good luck to you, cavedave.

 

You are right, though I can think of many beers brewed closer than NC that don't make it onto our shelves uber fresh like one would expect.

I think if our beer is better tasting, equally fresh (or fresher), and equally inexpensive (or near to it), the fact that we are a local business will sway folks our direction. At least that is the plan.

Haha and if you are in the area Monday night, 9/9, stop by Poughkeepsie Town Hall where my potential partner will be trying to get his zoning variance for brewery on his property in a steel frame outbuilding. We need all the support we can get.

 

Using Pittsburgh (my hometown) and Maryland (where I live) as examples, it has gotten to the point where I automatically assume that any new brewery that opens is going to be mediocre at best. It seems like the people opening breweries are the ones who have been homebrewing for a year or two, their friends/neighbors told them they make good beer, and they either have more money than brains OR they take right to Kickstarter. Granted, there are some exceptions (Roundabout in Pittsburgh; Union in Baltimore), but it just feels like these markets are getting saturated with these breweries.

Sometimes I wonder if a bubble wouldn't be a good thing...

 

I have always believed that the way to succeed in the current U.S. "craft" market is to eschew the temptation to appeal to the tickers by producing one-offs and limited release specialties and instead establish local brand loyalty though focusing on the things you mention. Best of luck to you guys -- the ticker mentality runs pretty rampant in the "craft" culture, but hopefully true quality and freshness ultimately trump it and win out in the long run....

 

Yeah, that's the problem with beers sitting well past their "Best by" dates on retailers' shelves. It is seldom the week or so (if that) it might take for the beer to get from one coast to the other that is the main cause, but the length of time it can then sit in a distributor's warehouse and at the retailers. Nearness to the brewery is no guarantee of freshness.

 

Although I don't any brewing experience or the motivation to tackle a project like this I have spent a bit of time looking at who has been successful around SEPA and what seem to be the reasons why they stuck it out when others came and went. I think you've got some of the key elements in your thinking.

Obviously part of it is deciding whehter there's a niche to be filled. Another part is brewing something you'd want to drink yourself instead of what's currently available. For example, in SEPA we have a collection of the top rated (on this site) German style Pils beers, each different from the others, and virtually all of them are brewed by people who wanted to have that variation of the beer around both to sell and to drink themselves. When a new one breaks into the local market it seems to be because its good and because the brewer wants to drink it when it comes out that particular way and thinks other people will agree. (And of course taste test marketing helps spread the word and/or fine tune the taste.)

 

Well, this is the same story again- self distribution. People just do not grasp how expensive distribution is. Some breweries do it fairly well, but a good distributor lets the brewery just brew beer.

 

Around here in SEPA the key determinant of the freshness of the cases I see when I go shopping seems to be supply and demand and does not seem to be the distance between us and the brewery either. There's usually a "first in, first out" strategy followed by the retailer and distributors.

I've tested this out for myself by sometimes looking through all the cases in stock at places I visit to see what the range of dates is and where the cases are located. (Remember most beer in PA is sold by the case and we have retailers who basically operate out of warehouses. Typically the freshest case is not in the most convenient location for the customer.)

Also I shop fairly regularly at one local retailer who knows when I walk in the door that if I want at case of Two-Hearted he's going to have to pull that most recently bottled case from the bottom of his pile or 5-6 cases because it’s a month fresher than the one on top... But he's happy with my obsession with freshness since I buy there regularly and give him my special order business for things he doesn't normally stock that are hard to find.

Similarly distributors around here have a tendency to also follow a "first in, first out" distribution strategy. (But the guy I deal with rejects deliveries of "mature" beer. I've been there when the delivery guy from a wholesaler tried to deliver out of code beer or almost out of code beer.)

 

It's absurd now and worse than it used to be. In San Diego too, only certain stores have it and in my experience they're some of the older stores that have sold it since they first opened. Places like Pizza Port in Carlsbad have it on draft but they deliberately leave it off the menu so only those "in the know" order it and drink it there. That kind of stuff is absurd. If this brewery really gives a darn about expanding too fast into new markets, they need to fix California before a single bottle goes to another state.

 

If you believe that natural selection occurs in both nature and the marketplace, the best will survive, which includes the best nationally distributed products and the best local products. This model applies whether the number of craft beer drinkers increase or decrease. Drinkers increase = the best list will just include a few more entries. Drinkers decrease = the best list will not have as many entries.

 

I'm telling you, you are vastly neglecting to see the benefits of a distributor. Sure, there are drawbacks but having worked at a small startup brewery I can honestly say that the distributor was worth every penny. When you have 50+ accounts in a 60 mile diameter of your location and accounts are calling you saying they're out of your product or there are difficulties etc.. and you're in the middle of a double brew day where you're experiencing your own dilemmas right there in the brewhouse, it pays dearly to have a middle man. If not, your the one having to arrange for sales pitching, transport, trouble shooting, refilling, etc that will take a nice chunk of time out of your focus on the production of your product. Distributors aren't for everyone, but they absolutely have their benefits.

 

^^^ This is so true. Some distributors- especially the ones that love good beer- are quite good at what they do. It's very tempting for a brewer to think about double-dipping/self disto, but as you so well cite, there are always intervening factors. Seems that Friday PM, Joes over in (name the city) needs a keg of Hop Plague because he forgot to order, or Joe says someone forgot to come by or call, etc. Says he'll be really pissed if you don't drive 100+ miles late Friday for a $120 order. Happens all the time.

 

Yes as long as you aren't necessarily equating best with best tasting or best quality. (I don't know what you meant, so I'm not assuming). We can probably agree that plenty of factors determine who survives in the marketplace and quality of product is only one of them. Name your mediocre beer "Sex Panther", package it with a sophomoric label with a pimp like character on it, and hey that stuff can sell like hotcakes in some markets. One negative upside of craft beer growth & mainstream consumers is that they don't necessarily know mediocre from good from excellent. Then there's the whole business side where you could have a brewery with great tasting beers be run poorly and it won't make it even though the brewer and beer are fantastic. Also some breweries happened to start in underserved markets and so they have a longer history and name recognition whereas newer (but perhaps better) breweries might not do as well in a tight market.

 

As long as you understand what I meant about best being a homogenized term.

 

Sorry... IMHO, just about every IPA out there is a replica (not exact) of Pliny so...yeah... there IS a demand.

 

Yup. Pliny is a classic, iconic, benchmark beer. The fact that you basically can't get it outside of the brewpub and few other places is crazy. RR is not a flash in the pan or new jack brewery either. They set the tone for the current trend of American IPAs and wild ales. Imagine if SNPA was only available in a few places in Chico.

I understand not wanting to march across the continental US like Deschutes or Lagunitas, but to not capitalize at all is stupid. At least make enough to reliably supply your home state and current markets.

 

I understand the value and purpose of a distributor and how much time and stress it saves. In my earlier post we were talking about how to get the majority of a local population behind and support a local brewery. The issue, IMO is price point and how one's local craft is rarely much cheaper than craft beers shipped cross country and always are more expensive than BMC. More expensive than BMC isn't going to win over the blue collar beer drinkers. Yes I understand a 50 client/60 mile radius of distribution will require a distributor to do business smoothly and thus the extra costs for using the middleman in that situation. But I think if you really wanted a really supportive local following, you stay within 10-15 mile radius tops and run your own distributions to your local small or medium sized town stores, bars and restaurants, festival beer gardens etc. Could you then keep the costs comparative to BMC products while still maintaining same profit margin vs. having to contract with a distributor to run your beers around town. I think tasty beer on the cheap is how you eventually win the majority of a local area beer drinkers. Combination of taste and price. Localism support for the sake of localism isn't that significant a factor in buying beer choices IMO.

 

And they risk being forgotten altogether in the sea of new (mostly excellent) DIPAs. People always talk about how SNPA was their first real craft beer, or first hoppy beer or whatever. Pliny could be the first DIPA and entrance into craft beer for alot of people in CA but they risk losing that to someone else.

 

Restaurants are 95% close after 5 years.

It goes to half that if there is a brewpub involved.

Granted, this was a few years ago.

 

There are FAR too many sub-par to downright bad breweries out there selling an overpriced product and taking shelf space and sales away from good breweries (whether because it's local, new to your market, people don't know any better, etc.). These breweries need to go away to make space for people who know what they're doing.

About a year ago a selection of pricey 4 packs from a new out of state brewer hit shelves here. All these beers have mediocre reviews at best and are selling for premium prices. Well, actually they're not selling because the same set of 4 packs have been sitting on the same shelf in the store for about a year now. Maybe this brewer doesn't need to go out of business, but they need to shrink and get out of this market