Celis Financial Woes

This is depressing news.

It's a shame that when they were doing their business plan there had already been 5 years of so of double digit growth in craft beer sales. If there had been a few ups and downs in percentage sales they might have been more cautious/less optimistic.

 

From the article:

“The new investor group has tapped former Big Bend Brewing Company vice president of operations Mahala Guevara and brewmaster Jan Matysiak as consultants to assess the viability of an acquisition. Recall that Big Bend, also based in Texas, suspended operations after six years at the end of 2018, citing market headwinds and the collapse of Canadian equipment manufacturer Diversified Metal Engineering.”

That is an interesting ‘twist’ in utilizing folks from a failed business to evaluate Celis. I suppose this sorta makes sense since they have experience in having to close their business of Big Bend and are familiar with the business dynamics of today’s craft beer market.

These are indeed very competitive times for the craft beer industry. Hopefully Celis will find a way forward here and not have to close down operations.

Cheers!

 

Sounds to me like a good idea. As a friend of mine used to say, "I have to learn from the mistakes of others. I don't have enough time to make them all myself."

 

It was just bad timing, as we are seeing with a lot of breweries. The white and raspberry, were frequent purchases, and I took a lot of that to Florida. One of my favorite beers of theirs is Citrus Grandis, but after getting an initial push last year after entering the market, it never showed up again. It is still languishing on the shelves with a Feb ?? 2017 brew date. I would hate to see the White disappear again, it is such a great drinking low ABV beer

 

Tragic, like it's the 1990s all over again.

 

Well, except that's there no more Philip Morris-owned Miller Brewing Co. to buy it completely (they'd bought into it in '95) and then close it down all within the year 2000.

 

Love Celis and Celis White in particular. I think the issue here was the 50,000 barrel brewery. Why on earth would anyone come out of the gate with that much capacity? Just plain financially irresponsible.

 

What happened to the deal with Atwater to "share" the brewery?

That and the fact that the orginal Celis was selling 20k bbl/year in the 1990s (bigger than Rogue, Great Lakes and Bell's) probably influenced the decision on the size of brewery.

 

That's impressive and crazy to think, but even based on that it's an ignorant line of thinking.

I can't help but wonder if the family was oversold on it, and taken advantage of by either business partners and/or vendors. Or the goal was quick acquisition. Either way, a terrible move.

 

was the brewery they bought custom built or did they buy an already existing brewhouse?

If the latter there seems like more wiggle room for loose secondary income streams planned that didn't come to fruition. If the former then it definitely seems like someone got upsold hard

 

I too was excited to see that the family was bringing it back & disappointed in not seeing any around my area.. I wish them all the best. My memories of Celis White before Miller bought it was a perfect beer. Absolutely delicious. The beer that built Blue Moon.

 

That's a shame. Fond memories of enjoying the original Grand Cru when I lived in TX, was looking forward to trying it again.

 

Doing research on a slightly different topic, came across an article from a Texas paper before Celis opened in Austin (snip):

 

Out of curiosity, has anyone done a side-by-side with their Wit and Hoegarden? I’ve heard from several people that they’re the same recipe.

 

Interesting, and that original brewery failed miserably. Instead of trying to keep the new venture small, manageable and profitable... they made the same mistake again.

 

Celis' history is a sad one but few would say it "failed miserably". The brewery went from brewing 6,000 bbl/yr in 1992, reaching their peak barrelage of 24k bbl/yr in both 1996 and 1997 when the were ~57th largest brewery in the US. They were #27 of the old IBS's* "Top 50 Craft Brewing Co." list in 1995 (*pre-Brewers Association).

Celis sold a controlling share of the business to the Miller Brewing Co. in 1995, looking for financial and distribution help. In 2000, Miller bought out the Celis family in April (the original deal allowed for that), only to then close the brewery and put it up for sale by the end of the year - most industry sources assume it was Miller's parent company, Philip Morris which caused the closing.

Well, I guess I just don't see a 50k bbl/yr capacity brewery as unmanageable or excessively large for the two brewing companies involved. Don't have the financials, but I imagine one builds as large a brewery as one can afford within reason.

OTOH, the history of "reborn" early well-respected craft brands has not been good - things didn't work out for the new versions of New Albion, Tupper's Hop Pocket, Rhino Chasers and the new owners of Catamount (Harpoon) and Pete's (Gambrinus) eventually folded those brands.

 

This hasn't been the case for years. 50k bbl/yr is excessively large for a craft brewery opening up in 2017.

I take back failed miserably, but either way, the point is that it didn't work.

 

That's always been the Celis' claim - their current website says:

... but, of course, neither Cascades or Willamette hops were commercially available in 1965, so, as with many other brewers, "original recipe" means something other than what one would suppose.

M. Jackson's take on Celis White in the mid-1990s (so,post Miller's buy-in) was that it was "...very similar (to Hoegaarden)...but perhaps softer, less flowery, and with more fruity acidity." ---Ultimate Beer, 1998 - First US ed.

Yeah, that does seem to be true generally and in the case of the Celis brewery currently. I imagine they thought, erroneously, that they weren't a "new" brewing company, but reopening an old one with a new facility, and with a partner, Atwater (but haven't found out what happened to that aspect of the deal). Atwater, a few years early in 2013, was planning an even larger brewery in Texas, according to Brewbound at the time:

 

When Celis White was 1st brewed in the USA were there any other white ales being brewed here, My friend and I all liked it a lot but it was the only beer of that style around in North NJ.