Are "Brewery Only" Breweries Bad for Craft Beer?

No, they're the best thing about it. It gets the name out, the people, the community, etc.

 

Well if you like the idea that a brewery stays in business long enough to be able to begin and to expand distribution its just fine. Fickle customers will be fickle regardless of what a brewery may do.

 

Why pay a distributor when the customers will come to you?

 

Will the New York state laws allow self-distribution? If not they have to go to the three tier system and through a middleman with three different parties that need profit margin to get the beers to you. If they do allow self distribution what is the cost of the permit or whatever and do they have the trucks and drivers to make it possible?

 

Look, if a brewery thinks a beer will do well in wide distribution and they have the capacity to make enough of it, they'll widely distribute it--that's the business model. On the other hand, brewery-only beers not only give the brewery fan on a pilgrimage a treat (and bragging rights), they provide the brewer with an outlet and test market for experiments and an excuse to make beers that don't mass market well but might be greatly appreciated by just the right audience.

 

These folks are the ones pumping out fresh beer to the locals. Crafting beer the rest of us nerds drool over. More power to em!

 

Not really. Brewery only releases tend to be either few and far in between or nobody but the die hard fans that live nearby know about them. Besides, it's these kinds of releases that help a brewery not only get its name out but potentially improve its financial position so that it becomes a possibility that a brewery-only release will be distributed to bottle shops in the future.

 

I still purchase beer from my beer guy. It doesn't keep me out of his store, it actually makes me spend more money on beer as I will go to the Brewery in addition to the bottle shop. I actually enjoy walking into a tasting room and getting something that may be a one off or one hit wonder by the brewery. I go to San Diego a lot and find some pretty neat gems at many of the places I stop by. And of course right here in AZ, all the local places seem to have something different to try on a regular basis. Kind of like opening a box of Cracker Jacks to see what the prize is for adults! I think if anything, it spurs breweries on to step out and try different things as well as keeping interest in the craft beer scene, both locally and nationally.

 

Those are some of the best places to have a pint if you ask me. It's a very gratifying experience for both brewer and consumer.

 

I think the localism of craft beer is one of its finest qualities. I cherish brewery released beers an will ride my bike miles to find them.

 

No x 100.

Why would somewhere making something great with limited distro be bad in general?

 

If I am given the choice between a fresh beer at a brewery-only release, or going to a local liquor store and checking bottle dates on dozens of IPAs until I find one that is acceptable...I'm going to take the brewery-only release every time. If local bottle shops and stores were better with their turnover, then perhaps my opinion would be different. I understand it's a more complicated issue than it may seem - but I can't deny that freshness is strongly correlated to my purchasing decision.

 

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand that I'm only making the problem worse by choosing fresh beer over the shelf turds that have been sitting there for months. I understand that liquor stores/bottle shops have a bottom line and they need to move stock...it's a complicated issue.

I'm not going to pretend that I know how to fix the problem, but here is what I would propose.

Breweries who have an issue with their beer sitting on shelves could be better about making "Bottled on" dates easier to understand - no more of this coded bullcrap. Clearly marked "Bottled on" dates makes a purchasing decision that much easier. Better yet - go the way of Stone and make freshness the single most important marketing tactic, i.e. Enjoy By series.

Second, I don't see why liquor stores and bottle shops can't do a better job of data analysis when determining quantities to buy from the distributor. By purchasing smaller quantities, you'll have less beers sitting on the shelves, and you'll increase the probability of a customer finding a fresh bottle. There are a few bottle shops around me that take the "less stock to stay fresh" approach and I frequent those places much more often than places that I know have the same exact IPAs sitting on the shelf as they did the last time I was there 3 months ago.

In the end - to me, freshness trumps my desire to see a local bottle shop succeed. I can't help it - I crave fresh IPAs. I've been tricked into buying old past-their-prime IPAs way too many times, and I'm just not going to put up with it anymore. Sorry not sorry.

 

What kind of store loses a massive amount of it's business due to a brewery only release? That should be a problem right there.