Saint Arnold Brewing Co. Finalizes Colorado Launch Plans

Discussion in 'Mountain' started by Todd, Sep 10, 2013.

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  1. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Introduction to Colorado's Front Range Set for September 16th

    DENVER, September 10, 2013 – Saint Arnold Brewing Co. (www.saintarnold.com), the oldest craft brewery in Texas, today announced plans to celebrate its entry into the Colorado craft beer market with a party at the Falling Rock Tap House in Denver. Saint Arnold's Colorado kickoff party is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Monday, September 16th. Craft beer fans selected Falling Rock Tap House the best beer bar in the Mountain West in a survey conducted by the Brewers Association.

    The kickoff event will feature the three core beer brands with which the brewery is entering the Colorado market, Saint Arnold Fancy Lawnmower Beer, Saint Arnold Elissa IPA and Santo, as well as some special offerings, such as cask-conditioned Saint Arnold Endeavour (Double IPA), as well as bottles of Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 12 (Old Ale aging since May 2012), Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 13 (Belgian Quadrupel originally released in February 2013) and Saint Arnold Bishop's Barrel No. 4 (Weizenbock aged in bourbon barrels with cocoa nibs).

    Saint Arnold also announced the completion of distributor agreements for markets along Colorado's Front Range, which include Coors Distributing Co. in Denver, RMC Distributing in Colorado Springs and High Country Beverage in Loveland. The brewery's personnel will be easy to spot from Fort Collins to Pueblo in its Subaru Forester art car painted by Houston graffiti artist GONZO247.

    "Colorado is only the second state outside of Texas that we have expanded to since opening Saint Arnold 19 years ago," said Saint Arnold Founder/Brewer Brock Wagner. "We love the beer culture that exists in Colorado. Our mission is to brew great beer and build community, and we believe this meshes well with the existing craft beer environment along the Front Range."

    In addition to next week's kickoff party, Saint Arnold plans to be highly visible at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, which runs October 10-12. The brewery will construct a chapel at its end-cap booth (Booth 0-1) and perform weddings during the event, which draws 49,000 craft beer fans.

    Established in 1994, Saint Arnold Brewing operates out of a 104,000 square foot 3-story brick building originally constructed in 1914 that sits on the northern edge of downtown Houston. Saint Arnold's brewhouse, which was imported from Klosterbrauerei Raitenhaslach, a Bavarian monastery, has an annual capacity of 90,000 barrels. Daily tours and special events attract 100,000 people to the brewery annually, making it one of Houston's top tourist destinations.

    About Saint Arnold Brewing Company
    Saint Arnold Brewing's 16 brews are made and sold by the company's staff of 53 dedicated employees. Ranked 45th on the Brewers Association list of top craft breweries, Saint Arnold was listed by USA Today as one of the "10 great places to see what's brewing in beer," and Smart Meetings magazine named it among the "Top 5 breweries to host an event." Saint Arnold is located at 2000 Lyons Avenue and its brewery tour and tasting is offered every weekday at 3:00 P.M. and Saturdays starting at 11 A.M. For more information on Saint Arnold's seven year-round and five seasonal beers as well as root beer, log on to http://www.saintarnold.com.

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  2. Domingo

    Domingo Grand Pooh-Bah (4,252) Apr 23, 2005 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah

    Pretty cool. SA's one of those truly "regional" breweries. I never would have figured they'd distribute out here.
     
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  3. SalukiAlum

    SalukiAlum Initiate (0) Dec 19, 2010 Colorado

    Love Endeavor!
     
  4. StubFaceJoe

    StubFaceJoe Initiate (0) Nov 24, 2011 Colorado

    Well having Todd in Denver is really helping keep me up to date and my wallet empty.

    Thanks for all the info.


    Cheers!
     
  5. Trythevealchild

    Trythevealchild Crusader (407) Jun 2, 2014 Colorado

    Does anyone know if CO is still getting distribution from SA? I really enjoyed the few Bishop's Barrel series beers we got, but haven't seen any in stores since #6 about a year ago...
     
  6. McNazz

    McNazz Savant (1,055) Feb 19, 2013 Colorado

    They are no longer distributing to CO at the this time.
     
  7. Domingo

    Domingo Grand Pooh-Bah (4,252) Apr 23, 2005 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah

    Goes to show that CO (mainly Denver) isn't the holy grail market brewers sometimes imagine.
    We're notorious for 1 and done purchases, full-on ignoring flagship beers, and declaring IPA's "old" if they're dated last month.
     
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  8. Kramerbarthomer

    Kramerbarthomer Pooh-Bah (2,116) Mar 22, 2012 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    You can still find year and a half old bottles of Endeavour DIPA sitting on shelves if you really want some SA, I've seen some in the last month or so... I was pretty happy when they started distro here as they are my hometown brewery and they honestly got me in to craft beer way back when... but the truth is, I don't think I bought more than a couple six packs of their stuff when I saw it here. Their core beers are just underwhelming and don't stand out in the CO market since our distro is so amazing... sad, but true.
     
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  9. Domingo

    Domingo Grand Pooh-Bah (4,252) Apr 23, 2005 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah

    I don't think their situation is a unique one. Lots of legitimately good breweries enter our market and run into the same issues. There isn't much motivation to buy a randomly new pale ale, IPA, red, stout, etc. from another region unless it's especially noteworthy or unique. Especially when there are fresher versions and/or known 5-star examples on the shelf right beside them.
    I'm sure most breweries hear (or read on Facebook) the usual "I sure wish I could buy your beer in Denver!" replies. At the same time, talking and buying are VERY different things.

    Because of how distribution works I have no idea if this would be feasible - but I think it would be funny if a brewery didn't send us any of their flagships but ONLY sent their rare, barrel aged, fruit infused, numbered bottle, etc. stuff.
    In reality, that's what people want. Macro converts and new to craft drinkers aren't going to choose a random pale ale from Deleware and BA's certainly don't care. It might not be profitable or even an option, but it's the only way most regional breweries are going to sell very much out here. I don't care how many transplants from the Midwest you think will buy your flagships - after the first novelty week is over they won't.
     
  10. McNazz

    McNazz Savant (1,055) Feb 19, 2013 Colorado

    Please excuse my slaughtering of proper grammar in my earlier post. :flushed:

    People seemed to love the Bishop Barrel stuff since they appeared to fly off the shelf. And Pumpkinator is better than ST Warlock IMHO and people went nutso over that stuff. But like most breweries you can't rely on your specialty beers to pay the bills, you gotta be able to sell rego 6-packs and bombers.

    EDIT: What @Domingo said.
     
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  11. Mebuzzard

    Mebuzzard Grand Pooh-Bah (4,290) May 19, 2005 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    It's a long process to be able to distribute successfully in CO, a brewery just can't announce "hey, look for our 4pks next week". Like @Domingo says, it'll work for a while. They should start off with on-premise, build some sort of following, then release packaging. It might take a few years, but the shelves are crowded with locals right now. Some won't be around in 5 years--but people will still choose them over "imports" from another state.


    Something like this may work, but breweries don't want to alienate their base and send all the rare stuff to someone else. However, maybe a select few bombers that are just the opposite (cheaper) might work better. How many FiftyFifty shelf turds are still around? I think of Epic (ok, kinda local), but they sent out their bombers first at $4.50 and then sixers. It works so far.
     
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  12. Domingo

    Domingo Grand Pooh-Bah (4,252) Apr 23, 2005 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah

    The one recent example where a brewery entered our market and took it by storm was Firestone Walker. I think they started with a plan similar to this one. We got draft releases for Parabola, Double Jack, etc. at lots of different places and a good support network. Then we would get some of their normal 6'ers and we got all of their boxed/specialty items all over town.
    That has continued. We still get all of the specialty beers and they've gradually expanded their whole (distributed) line-up to us. I know that there are still some gripes with older hoppy beers, but it appears like most of their flagships move. The boxed stuff obviously does, too.
    Whatever steps they did to enter our market I'd imagine would be wise steps to follow. Having good beer doesn't hurt, but I think they took care of the intangibles very well, too.
     
  13. Kramerbarthomer

    Kramerbarthomer Pooh-Bah (2,116) Mar 22, 2012 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    The Bishops Barrel series has generally been excellent for them. But, yeah, it won't pay the bills...

    FW also makes far superior beers than St. Arnold (as well as most other breweries) does IMO (as much as it pains me to admit it)...
     
  14. denver10

    denver10 Grand Pooh-Bah (4,155) Nov 17, 2010 New Mexico
    Pooh-Bah

    Even FW seems to sit, IMO.

    Not that I wasn't guilty of allowing that to happen. Union Jack is my favorite IPA but I never bought bottles of it because I could never find fresh enough sixers of it around. Nor did I ever find any local store offering them as singles. The youngest Union Jacks I would come across were, when lucky, a month and a half. If I could buy a couple singles of them, I would have (but I couldn't). And I wasn't about to buy a full sixer of it because a) I tend to have a variety of beer in my fridge at all times so getting through a sixer can be a drawn out process, by the time I would get to the last couple beers they would have been a few months old at that point and b) I could always find a sixer of Odell IPA less than a month old at the local store, and Odell IPA was a couple bucks cheaper (plus available as singles). I love Union Jack, but I also love Odell IPA...so I always went for the fresher, cheaper, and just about as good option.
     
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  15. Domingo

    Domingo Grand Pooh-Bah (4,252) Apr 23, 2005 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah

    Somewhat related to this thread, anyone have any insight as to Jack's Abby Smoke & Dagger being on tap at the Bull & Bush? I haven't run into the Minister to ask.
    Any chance we might get more beers from them or was this just the B&B tossing something zany on for the hell of it?
     
  16. ASak10

    ASak10 Initiate (0) Jan 2, 2014 Colorado

    Last I saw it on tap was during GABF week, and haven't seen it since, so maybe they just held onto a keg and decided to tap it now?
     
  17. Domingo

    Domingo Grand Pooh-Bah (4,252) Apr 23, 2005 Colorado
    Pooh-Bah

    Per the fine folks at JA, that is the case. It's still drinking well, although I can't imagine there's much left in that keg if anyone is eager to try it.
     
  18. DividedAvery

    DividedAvery Initiate (0) Oct 22, 2010 Colorado

    It was a special GABF delivery BUT there may be more coming around in the future I hear. I remember around GABF being at Highland Tap and Burger drinking Hoponius Union and Mass Rising. That was awesome....
     
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