IPA Factory Breweries

The places that hone and improve and reach/maintain superior levels of quality w/their beers will survive and thrive. Those that brew inferior versions of hyped or non hyped styles will see sales flag and eventually go out of business. In the long run the market will do what it does.

 

I can't say what will happen to these breweries on down the line but one that comes to mind under maybe (4) Beer sits too long, so we distribute is Equilibrium.

I remember a year or two ago this was a "go out of the way to visit" brewery anytime I was in Southern, NY and was excitedly shocked to see they began larger distro footprint that now makes it all the way to TN.

Why I'm leaning to 4 is that what beers have made it here all have a fairly old canning date - packs I've purchased the last 2-3 weeks are all around a 09/01/20 date.

They craft a great product so if they could branch out into other styles and differentiate a bit from the plethora of Southern, NY IPA factories (we all can name them by heart) I think it could jolt a new found interest for their beer overall.

 

I'm pretty sure that Other Half figures out what they are brewing by doing the following:

Step 1: Spin a wheel with Pale Ale, IPA, or Double IPA to select style.

Step 2: Spin a roulette wheel of hop varieties. Add hop type to hop bill.

Step 3: Flip coin.
Heads: Repeat Step 2.
Tails: Continue to Step 4.

Step 4: Flip coin.
Heads: Spin a roulette wheel of fruit varieties. Add fruit to malt bill and repeat coin flip
Tails: Continue to Step 5.

Step 5: Flip coin.
Heads: Add Lactose
Tails: No Lactose

Step 6: Brew

Step 7: Profit

 

Locally here in VA:
SIPA Collab with Cloudwater - $20
3 TIPAs - $27

I don't know when these initially dropped but I don't think they're moving very fast in distro.

Locally, Aslin is the brewery that has shifted to getting a lot more of their beer to distribution. I see my friends in MA have gotten some recently too. This is a brewery who up until recently said they were operating a "Tree House model." I am not sure how fast the beer is moving as more of their brands are making it to distro and getting out into more territories.

 

It's weird though. I imagine they're still doing fine as they just opened up a fourth brewery (Domino Park). It seems like this has allowed them to spread out and ship between the breweries to do onsite DTC sales. At the same time, they just opened up shipping to their 6th territory (5 states + DC). It's hard to read.

 

It does seem like shortly after a brewery starts distributing (after step 4), it means they've already peaked. I see this locally with Proclamation. Their stuff flew off the shelves for a while, now they sit..and sit. Quality stuff too. Once something is easy to obtain then it's time to move on. Nature of the Beast.

 

I think COVID has certainly been a contributing factor. In my area (Houston, TX) there are several breweries that previously never packaged anything, distributing several offerings. That makes sense, they've got to make up for lost taproom sales. That surely still hurts them b/c margins are slimmer.

I also think, truly, these are the beers that sell. Yes, there is still a market for Pilsner. But that market is MUCH smaller than the market for {choose one: NEIPA, fruited sour, pastry stout}.

Also, you can get away with charging $15+ dollars for a 4 pack of 16oz cans of NEIPA and no one bats an eye. Heck - $15 for some of these hazies is probably on the cheap in. Try selling a $15 4 pack of 5% pilsner....

 

Also, there's probably some R&D cost to developing new recipes for pilsner, kolsch, ESB, whatever.
R&D for new NEIPAs = close your eyes and throw a dart at the wall to pick which hop combination will go into the exact same base beer as your last 15 releases.

 

When did you start noticing this happen with Proc? I haven't had much from them and only went to the brewery one time right before the pandemic hit. I wasn't all that impressed but they still make quality beer, I too see a lot of it sitting on the shelves at Gasbarros and such

 

this seems wildly accurate imo

 

As I understand it, the move was scheduled before COVID hit, and as for many things, that caused a huge pumping of the brakes. But I think it’s back on, if they haven’t yet opened.

They failed to open a brewpub in Herndon (local red tape) in a timely fashion, so opened a nice, fairly large production facility and tasting room in Alexandria. I think the Herndon place finally opened this year, but we all know it’s 2020, so not sure how it’s working.

And yes, OTWOA is still very good, even more so to me given the haze craze, in general.

 

To the OP, I’m not sure the style matters so much. Five-plus years ago it might’ve been WC IPA and [BA] Imperial Stout. A brewery gets hyped, expands production, and eventually everyone places them in their proper place (a pseudo-rarity argument, to be sure).

To the IPA Factory concept, I wonder what the effect of having 25+ different versions of IPA/flavored stout/fruited “Gose”, not all of which can possibly be easily distinguishable, has to do with this.

Initially, getting the new beer from The Factory is nice; but at some point, it’s just a hassle to keep up.

 

I suspect that for most BAs when they read IPA Factory Breweries the first sort of breweries they think of will be the breweries cranking out new Juicy/Hazy IPA brands on a regular (e.g., weekly) basis. A brewery like Other Half Brewing Co. which has over 600 brands listed on BA.

Permit me to ‘expand’ the discussion to more of the “Factory” part with Stone Brewing Co. Over the past few years Stone has nixed a number of non-IPA beer brands and today is very much predominantly a hoppy beer company. I was not a fan of this change in product portfolio and their other recent business/legal decisions have motivated me to no longer buy Stone beers.

Cheers!