BrewDog Acquires Stone Berlin

I have no bone to pick in this argument (though I enjoy your insight)...just here to share this

This is his (Riggs) brewery, in my home town in Champaign/Urbana. Excellent German styles, that I always love having when I come back to visit my family. Their Helles in particular is stunning.

http://www.riggsbeer.com/

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/46277/

 

yeah. just responding to the chorus of Besserwisser

 

Yeah, that's what stopped me from visiting when I was in Berlin. It just wasn't a priority. And we can talk about what is or isn't happening in the rest of Germany, but in Berlin there is a sizeable variety of beer available from many corner kiosks; pilsners, bocks, sour beers, smoked beers, rich dark beers, yellow fizzy watery ones, etc.

Brew Dog already knowing they sell a significant amount of their beer in Europe already puts them in a better position. But the size & location of that building still remains. We'll have to see how it plays out.

 

Little soon to be talking bout the wall, broah

 

I know a number of Stone employees and through the years they have been great. Bad timing is bad timing pure and simple. I have great respect for their vision.

 

as a slight aside, if you want a really good "craft" beer bar in berlin that has an amazing selection of strictly german beers from breweries new and old thats easy to get to and is at the heart of a neighbourhood visit this place

https://foerstersfeinebiere.de

 

Two of my recent homebrewed batches are Tmavý Ležák (Czech Dark Lager) and Bohemian Pilsner. I am enjoying those beers immensely! In a few days I will be brewing an American style IPA.

It’s all good!

Cheers!

 

WOW! Its GREAT to hear that Matt has opened his brewery. He was a gracious host during our tour of Faust (which became my favorite brewery in Germany).

Here's a link: https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/bier-vacation-trips-in-germany.281559/#post-3547808

 

The 'adventure' begins anew!!

Cheers!

 

It's good of Greg to take responsibility... but simultaneously pointing the finger at the construction industry is bizarre. Sure, that can cause issues with opening the brewery but once you're open, the issue isn't the construction industry, but rather, your factory underperforming. Speaking of which, pointing your other finger at Germans "buying the cheap stuff," doesn't really say much of anything. Of course they do. This is the case across the world and in the US too.

Beer companies are in trouble over here too and most people aren't blaming this on the lack of an enlightened US beer consumer. Sure, one can say that the German beer landscape has not embraced "craft" breweries like the US has, but that isn't to say that they are in some sort of beer time warp. It might be much, much harder to buy a NEIPA in Germany, but German brewers are still making them. A previous poster mentioned only finding Stone IPA, Arrogant Bastard, and Ruination in Prague. Claiming that the native beers are behind the times misses the full picture if even Stone's beers are anachronisms within the craft world. (I'm not saying they are bad, just out of step with the zeitgeist.) If Stone never previously existed but launched today in the US, their marketing scheme would not be nearly as successful as it once was. They are wise enough to understand this and spun off the Arrogant brand as a result.

In other words, just because US inspired craft beer is much harder to come by in Germany, it doesn't mean that Stone can successfully apply the same rhetoric that they used in the US market in the late 90s.

 

The likely issue here is that construction delays both caused additional financial burden in the building of the facility plus delayed the revenue stream - a double whammy.

Hindsight being 20/20 Greg would have included 'extra' monies in his business plan to accommodate increased costs due to delays play some margin for when revenue was needed to make Stone Berlin a financial success.

Cheers!

 

Best of luck to BrewDog. I hope Stone can refocus.

I spent a few nights in Berlin on a vacation last September. I looked up the Stone Brewery and it was a long haul from my hotel downtown (Mitte), so I didn't go. Besides, I wanted German beer while in Germany, and I found good options easily enough.

I can imagine that the German tied house practice was frustrating to Stone too... maybe that's part of what others meant by issues in German distribution? As an American traveling in Germany it felt odd how most places had mainly one brewery's beer available for sale. I didn't personally mind it much, because there was usually a variety of that brewer's [German] styles available... but I could imagine it being very frustrating for a new brewer trying to get a foothold, much less a brewer from the US where tied houses has been outlawed for decades. Another factor Stone underestimated, maybe?

 

Agreed, a double whammy in Berlin. In addition the plans were set in place and begun before the slowing of sales growth in the US so the loss of expected income here would be a company wide triple whammy.

 

Although Stone as a company has been doing quite well as measured by production. For 2015 – 2017:

2015: 325,645 bbls (13.4% increase)

2016: 355,000 bbls (9% increase)

2017: 388,000 bbls (9.3% increase)

https://www.stonebrewing.com/about/facts#ageGatePassed

Cheers!

 

Sure, but that was years ago, and since they continued the course, they must have felt that their production volume would eventually right the ship. I guess they might have been wrong. In other words, production is the real heart of the issue, not construction. I'm also just speculating like a madman.

 

Not a madman, just a man who wants to have the problem to have been caused by only one variable.

 

Good info..

What counts though is the projected increases during those years. If they took on debt assuming a 12% increase those numbers would represent losses against anticipated income.

 

Sure, if the beers brewed at Stone Berlin sold like ‘gangbusters’ the delays would have been overcome but sales were slow.

Greg Koch would communicate in a ‘confident’ manner during the 2014 – 201X timeframe concerning Stone Berlin but I am sure he knew that the financial success of Stone Berlin would not happen overnight in the German market. Maybe he thought that things would progress more quickly in the non-German markets?

I personally was never a fan of his decision to go so grandiose with the Stone Berlin facility. It I was a trusted advisor to Greg I would have suggested a more cautious approach by starting small but with a long term plan for expansion as the German and non-German markets were developed. Needless to say but Greg is a bold man and he decided to ‘jump into the deep end of pool’ here. I suspect in hindsight he would have operated differently in this regard.

Would Stone have had better success in developing both the German and non-German markets if his manner of communication was more reserved and less ‘arrogant’? Who really knows here? It seems to me that if an entrepreneur is willing to accept the mantle to be a ‘better’ beer evangelist there is some benefit to presenting yourself in a daring manner.

I am of the opinion that Greg summarized things fairly well his letter via: Too Big, Too Bold, Too Soon.

Stone Berlin was started in the 2014 – 2016 timeframe and it is now a different beer scene in 2019. Hopefully the BrewDog folks recognize this difference and chart a wise path forward with BrewDog Berlin.

Cheers!

 

And numerous other financial considerations. We have little purview into their overall business situation so any speculation is based upon limited information.

Cheers!