RIP Summerfest

Do they even make a pilsner now?

 

I'm pretty sure SN wouldn't have dropped Summerfest if Summerfest sales were good. They are gonna make what they think will sell and 'Zwickel/Kellerbier, Kolsch' are not going to outsell a session IPA in todays market. Nearly everyone of drinking age knows what IPAs are, I'd guess 2% know what 'Zwickel/Kellerbier, Kolsch' are....hell I don't even know exactly what a Zwickel is.

 

I don’t know. I find a brewery with the history and reputation of Sierra Nevada chasing trends kinda sad. They were the trend setters, not the followers.

 

Nope. They discontinued Nooner a couple/few years ago and for 2021 Summerfest got nixed.

Sierraveza (which is branded now as an "Easy-Drinking Lager") is listed as being available but I have not seen that beer at my local beer retailers in well over year. Maybe this beer is 'available' in the same context as their Porter & Stout? Still being produced in limited amounts and only available in select areas of the country?

The only lager they make which seems to be widely available is their seasonal release of Oktoberfest which in the recent past was a collaboratively brewed product but last year as solely brewed by Sierra Nevada. A indicator that maybe this brand may go the way of Summerfest? Perhaps Sierra Nevada for all practical purposes will be solely a producer of hoppy beers in another year or two?

Cheers!

 

Man, the thought of that happening is kinda mind blowing, but the sad part is, at this point, it’s not that far fetched.

 

And like you I find the business strategy that Sierra Nevada has been following over the past few years sad as well. I recognize that the IPA portion of the craft beer segment is very popular but how many brands of hazy IPA do we need? Is Sierra Nevada really going to increase revenue/sales in the very crowded hazy IPA segment? Or are the Haze Bros locavores and strongly value that their hazy beers be brewed locally (e.g., only Other Half for them)?

I guess that Sierra Nevada will know more in another year or so whether this shifting business strategy makes sense for them but if they lose the business of long term customers will the alleged increase sale of hazy IPAs overcome potential loss of revenue from long term customers? I have been purchasing Sierra Nevada beers for decades but I am now starting to feel that I am not longer a relevant customer to Sierra Nevada so maybe I will reach a conclusion in the near future that Sierra Nevada is no longer a relevant brewery to me.

Cheers!

 

I mean, they are aware of the fact there’s a brewery in damn near every other town in the entire country now that makes IPAs, aren’t they? Someone ran that information past them, I would assume.

They were one of the few breweries in the country producing almost every style of beer at a top level with distribution nearly canvassing the entire country. People can give me this style A or style B doesn’t sell well enough to justify its production...I don’t believe it.

I think this is a concerted effort to make the type of beer they THINK people want. I’m no @jesskidden (and maybe he would know) but I’m assuming (and admittedly, maybe that’s stupid on my part) SN has been doing just fine the last couple of decades doing what they were doing. I think about all these styles of beer (especially their iterations of foreign brewed styles) and SN was often my first (and good) taste of an American brewed version.

Someone’s chasing profits. These beers they’ve essential cancelled, the quotes from people who work (and apparently market) there, and the styles they now make all seem like a dead giveaway to me. Maybe Kolsch, Red Ales, Brown Ales, pilsners, etc really didn’t sell, but something seems fishy to me.

 

This really hits home. I started buying craft beer in about 2008 and Sierra Nevada instantly became a reliable, affordable option for me. By sampling their beers across many different styles I formed the basic knowledge of styles and execution that made me into a craft beer drinker. Clearly SN had achieved a ton already by that time, but I'd like to think my 13 or so years of buying their products and especially recommending them to others - not only friends but liquor store and bar managers - has helped contribute, if in a very small degree, to their success.

After all this, for SN to ditch the products that I liked one after another (Tumbler, Nooner, Summerfest, Stout, Vienna, Ruthless Rye, the list goes on, and don't forget about the seasonal variety packs, which were always full of new and interesting things) in favor of infinite variations of hazy IPAs is just really disappointing. If they were replacing these beers with fresher Pale Ale or making Celebration year round, that'd be one thing. But to replace them with a nectarine beer and a session hazy - two throwaway styles - is very irritating.

I get that it's about business but what their business decision tells me, like Jack Horzempa said above, is that they don't value me as a customer any more after all these years. I'll still buy my Pale Ale and Celebration because they're simply too good not to, but I'm certainly done recommending them to craft newbies as the best brewery to sample to start learning about beer and trying different styles, and I'm sure I've made my last request to a bar, restaurant, or liquor store manager to stock SN products. My enthusiasm for the brand is just completely gone.

 

My thoughts exactly as well. Once a brewery has committed to chasing the trend rather than defining it they're always going to be one step behind, while at the same time forced to keep up that chase because their fallback customers have lost interest. It seems to be the plight of many regional-scale craft breweries in the moment, but it still sucks to see a stalwart like SN get sucked into that trap.

The oversaturation of IPA (of all styles) makes it feel like the trend-driven side of craft beer is ripe for whatever the 'next big thing' is. For their sake, when that happens I hope these regional-scale breweries have the ability to pivot less clumsily than they seem to be doing now.

 

I am no jesskidden but it seems to me the Sierra Nevada change in direction started when Jeff White was named CEO in 2019:

“Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. promoted its Chief Operating Officer Jeff White as its new CEO on January 22. Founder Ken Grossman, who had served as the craft brewery’s only CEO since the company opened in 1980, has transitioned into the role of Chairman.”

https://www.thebeveragejournal.com/sierra-nevada-brewing-appoints-white-as-new-ceo/

Below is a short bio for Jeff White:

“Jeff’s Craft beer Journey started in 1985 at The Old New York Brewing Company ( New Amsterdam Beer). Post that was a brief stint as a packaging supervisor for AB in Newark NJ, and then, in 1989 he joined Boston Beer Company. Jeff spent 17 years at Boston Beer eventually becoming COO. After leaving Boston Beer he joined Miller-Coors, as Sr. Director of Strategy where he helped form and lead the creation of 10th and Blake, their attempt to create a Craft Beer Division. Once formed he was responsible for Strategy, Operations, “Culture” and M&A. In 2013 a 25-year-old dream came true and Jeff joined Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. as Systems Integration Director. A couple of years later he became COO and this past October was named CEO.”

https://californiacraftbeer.com/summit-participant/jeff-white/

It just seems to me that Jeff White has a vision for the business future of Sierra Nevada and based upon recent business decisions that vision is hazy (pun intended).

Cheers!

P.S. There is a slight discrepancy of months when Jeff was made CEO but regardless he is the CEO now.

@dele @jasonmason

 

I think that @JackHorzempa is right on. When they switched from being owned and operated by the founder and family to having a CEO who came out of the larger corporate beer world they started the shift. I'm sure SN was doing just fine offering the wide variety of styles.they used to. But I'm also sure that they are able to come closer to maximising the potential of their equipment by switching to a narrower style range (fewer individual ingredients the brewery needs to keep in stock), focusing on high volume mainstream styles, and targeting drinkers in younger age groups.

I have no doubt that their balance sheet looks better with the homogenizing, maybe Mr white has even "justified" his salary, but I too worry about the long term viability of.this change in business plan. The reality, though, is that we represent a vanishingly small portion of the beer consuming population and no large brand will thrive catering to us. SN will likely be just fine, maybe even more profitable then ever once they get around to the hard seltzer line (they already have a stake in a hard kombucha line right?), whether or not I - or we - abandon them

 

I don't like what's going on either but as long as I can buy SNPA and Torpedo they are ok in my book.

 

I will continue to purchase the seasonal Celebration Ale until they decide to nix this brand.

Cheers!

 

I didn’t realize people drink styles other than IPAs these days.

 

I don't think they do...

 

lol touché

 

Rather than just cut out lagers completely, I’d love to see them collaborate more with German breweries, and release seasonal lager styles through the year (maibock, Czech pils, Marzen, etc.). But I know, wish in one hand and....

 

Maybe if some German brewery approached SN to collaborate on brewing a Hazy Lager this might happen!?!

Cheers!

 

Well I did see folks clamoring for that kellerbier...

 

Summerfest used to sell out every year at my local store. A huge stack of cases would show up every spring and be gone by the fall season. Then two years ago, their spring seasonal IPA didn't sell well and the store apparently never ordered Summerfest because the spring seasonal was still taking up shelf space all summer. Similar situation last year. So apparently the solution is to drop Summerfest and make more experimental seasonals.