Breweries Come & Go in Distribution

Not according to Anheuser-Busch, which imported the InBev-owned, German-brewed Lowenbrau into the US via it's Import Brands Alliance subsidiary starting around late 2006 (actually pre-dating the AB-InBev merger). According to AB's toll-free info line1-888-287-2400, it was dropped from their portfolio in 2013. --- See posts #8 & 13 in thread Lowenbrau beer in the US ---- unless things have changed (again).

 

Fat Head's in Florida. Head Hunter was always in the fridge, and then the once a year Hop Ju Ju was a treat. Heck, I even enjoyed Sunshine Daydream for a backyard chill. Anyone coming down knows to throw a couple HH in the bag for me.

 

Bear Republic is available in SEPA.

Southampton is also available - I drank a Double White a week ago at a beer festival. I can't say I have seen the Keller Pils though.

Cheers!

 

It's funny that parts of Indiana can't get it as it kinda shelf-turds in the Madison area. for me at least it's the price point. I like Alpha King just as much as the next guy, but not for 11.99-12.99 a six pack.

 

Stone was here, then gone. Now they're back.

 

I don't think there's been a formal distribution pull back, but used to be able to find Pannepot somewhat easily in NYC. Now I never see it. One store had a slowly depleting stock (along with all their other stuff - maybe they are/were going out of business) but aside from there I hadn't seen it anywhere for months

 

I kinda wonder about European, especially Belgian, beers and their seeming disappearance from the shelves. Is it due to increased demand elsewhere (closer, increased margins) combined with capped production capacity that is causing it or is it the lack of demand here stateside or a combination of the two?

 

Sigh.

 

Celebration was my favorite winter seasonal until I moved to Colorado and got my hands on Jubelale... did you know it ages gracefully until about 2.5/3 years? Outside of just loving a stronger, more flavorful brown ale, that’s another big reason why I love it so much.

 

St. Louis has many great breweries, many without distribution. For a time, one of those breweries cranking out killer brews, was flying under the radar and distributing across the state - 2nd Shift. They still fly under the radar, but are a little more well known now.

I remember when their bottles hit shelves. Their Liquid Spiritual Delight is a chewy, flavorful stout with many killer variants, and we'd get all of them on the opposite side of the state. Then for some reason, they suddenly pulled distro and now the only way to get them is at the brewery (to my knowledge). I miss being able to pick up their LSD on shelves, and their Blueprint coffee variant proved shear delight as well. I miss them on our shelves.

Just another feather in the cap for St. Louis, but they meant a lot to get here in Kansas City.

 

I don't frequent many bottle shops in the NE & central PA area, and all in all, we have it pretty good here, but there are a few that left that i miss a bit:-

Shorts bailed quickly, a couple of their ipas i had were pretty good
Summit also left, and I loved Saga.
Two Brothers left, but to be honest, I was never really impressed by any of their offerings

I never see Russian River or Jester King around here, but I'm guessing they don't stray far from Philly. Perennial the same?

Some I don't see, and to be honest don't miss anyway, Anchor, Clown Shoes. Coronado. Arcadia I understand is in receivership or something.

Allagash, Deschutes, Firestone Walker, Great Divide and Green Flash I rarely see around here. They are all good breweries.

but as I said, the glass is most definitely half full around here. cheers!

 

I don't reckon that I had the Watneys version but your mentioning it reminded me that I miss Samuel Smith Stingo.

 

+1

 

I actually saw that a couple of weeks ago, nice beer!

 

You're in Pittsburgh right? I have a good friend there and go about once a year and am always surprised at how hard it is to find something on the shelves there that I can't already get at home. I assumed it was because of the weird Penn liquor laws but it sounds like Philly is a different story. Any ideas why?

On the plus side, you do have some cool breweries there these days and Pittsburgh just rocks in general as far as I'm concerned.

 

Cool.
When it was in town, one of the stores had it priced the same as the other Samuel Smith's...around $5. Needless to say, I stocked up!

 

Honestly, not many. Lowenbrau for sure. Rothaus would be another, although I've heard they technically never left and only drop Tannenzapfle on Denver once a year. For a little while I missed O'Fallon...but really only one beer (Smoked Porter).

It used to be regional brewery's goal to distro as far and as wide as possible. Now I think they're starting to realize that their very similar pale, amber, brown, porter, IPA, and wheat are up against 500 other examples. It's just not feasible or smart. I'm not going to buy some random pale ale from Mississippi over something local or a proven winner like Sierra Nevada or Fremont.