BrewDog Acquires Stone Berlin

Oh no... tell me you didn't...

 

There was one on Taunusstraẞe that was always in construction until last summer or so.

Are you still in Deutschland? Might want to meet up for a beer or five on my next trip over

 

We had many Budweisers in Regensburg, We thought it was hilarious.

 

all of that being said about cans, look what Mahrs did:

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=id%3D10155869387152352%3Btype%3Dpost%3Buser%3D127220567351

 

You ain't going to have much luck selling IPAs to a population who thinks David Hasselhoff is the best singer.

 

were you on stone's site selection team?

 

Well, that's proof that the Germans can accept some Americans.

(and Stone seems to have had success selling IPA in the US - a population that loves Rihanna)

 

That is so "Rockn Roll." They seem to really love playing into that image.

And here's a quote from Stephan Michel from 2016:

 

What;s interesting is that Greensboro worked diligently to bring the Richmond brewery here.

 

Myrtle Beach wanted Stone, too. Maybe it was the theme park vibe that they thought fit?

 

That's about 6% of the people. Craft beer's market share by volume was 13.2% in 2018. 6% isn't TERRIBLE. Unless I'm wrong with how I'm comparing these two...which is entirely possible.

 

Well, 13.2% of the US beer market being beer from "craft (as defined by the B.A.) brewers" does not mean that that 13% of the beer drinkers are exclusively craft buyers or that the other 87% only buy and drink macro (70%) or imports (17%).

Most beer drinkers buy from all three segments and not all beer drinkers buy and consume the same amount of beer. BBC had a report out a few years back now (unfortunately, BBD took it down) in which they found more than half the beer buyers in the US bought some "craft beer" and just looking around (parties, lines at liquor or grocery cashier, in BA forum threads) one sees lots of all 3 beer segments from the same buyer.

OTOH, the old "rule of thumb" in the pre-craft brewing industry used to be "one third of the beer drinkers buy two thirds of the beer" - also probably means the 70% macro share of the beer market might represent a smaller (but heavier consuming) percentage of the total beer drinker population.

 

RVA got them instead... Norfolk is still bitter about that. Waiting for new Norfolk Reaver Beach and Veil locations to open - I'll be fine then

 

Couldn't the same be said of Stephan Michel's quotation from @zid ?

I think [Greg Koch] needs help for the stuff he wants to do in Germany. I think he thought it would be way easier! It’s good for him to be close to Scandinavia, but I think [he’ll find it] hard to sell his beer in Germany. We have 5 [million] craft beer fans out of 81 [million] people living here—it’s a tough market.

Of course I suppose it's hard to speculate, not knowing where he got those numbers from.

 

Well, yeah, - but he said it, so you've got to take it up with him - no idea where his figures came from. But I've never* seen any brewer or organization try to estimate the actual number of "craft beer fans" in the US.

It'd be like figuring out how many hamburgers McDonald's sold in one year and saying that "7% of the US population only ate McDonalds in 2017".

* Well, I probably have but just disregarded it.

 

I had a hard time understanding the real reasons why Stone struggled in Berlin and had to sell.

Was it low sales volume in Europe for the fresh Stone beers being made over there (i.e. losing profits on the manufacturing/distribution component)?

Lack of on-site sales/taproom tourism isn't offsetting the high costs it took to build it?

Other?

If it were the 1st item, it seems odd because historically for craft sales (i.e. last decade pretty much) it seems that moving your product into new markets that didn't receive your product before was usually the easiest way to increase sales vs. trying to compete in an already saturated market where your product has been around for a while. With the strategy for Stone to go to Europe, it seemed like a good move, as the US market was shifting towards locals and already highly saturated with craft options on store shelves.

 

If I was actually able to speak with him, I'd probably first ask him if he can have those Mahrs cans distributed here.

This is why I'd like to know what these numbers include. If it's just US numbers, it indicates they were doing just fine in the US. If it's ALL of their beer sold, including Berlin, then it appears it did potentially give them a boost.

 

Well, here are some other barrelage figures for Stone. (Note that these sorts of stats always vary a bit, depending on if they're based on tax paid quantities [no US tax on exported beer], actual amount brewed or sold [sometimes minus returns], etc.)

BMI - STONE
2015 - 326k bbl.
2016 - 346k

Brewers Assoc. - STONE
2015 -328,000 bbl.
2016 - 361,497
2017 - 397,000

 

I have this video set to start before a specific shot. That kiss of Watt seems all the more sweeter now.