What highs and lows that company has had. https://www.sandiegoville.com/2024/09/modern-times-beer-shutting-down.html
shocked that a place that hasn't sold IPAs that are anything close to fresh (or good) in 4+ years was struggling. maybe I'll go buy some of that "new" booming rollers that was probably canned last spring for nostalgia. oh wait, they made it hazy...
A sad end to some of the most fun I've had being a beer club. I quit a couple years back but I had hoped they would be able to continue on and perhaps make beer I might be interested in again, but no luck. Gonna assume this is likely the end of the League as well.
Had some "fresh"MT at Maui beer fest in May. Unfortunately it was all hot garbage. Sad ending but not surprising. Hubris and ego are not good ways to run a business, just ask GF. Opening a place with a fucking pool being a great example. Great news for Alesmith, positioning themselves to be west coast Sleeping Giant making other peoples beer. Cheers.
i just found out that there were still some pre-covid-era employees there, which is absolutely shocking to me. who watches a business crumble for 4 straight years without thinking "gee maybe i'd better start interviewing elsewhere" ... it was kind of a joke (but seriously) for a while that older employees were not to tell newer employees about how fun and awesome it used to be to work there.
I remember asking someone on here that worked for MT how much liability insurance was for Anaheim with the pool and all and the answer was basically they weren't worried about it. It seems like Villians keeps the pool covered most of the time these days.
they recently uncovered the pool at villains per their social media. haven't been back and don't plan to, so not sure if they're actually letting anyone in. but if i had to guess i'd say no, simply because alcohol+drunk people+swimming pool sounds like a bad idea to say the least no idea why MT thought that would ever work in the first place
I'm guessing this is the end of their barrel aged program too. Too bad. I was a member for years and there was a time they were my favorite brewery. Now it looks more like they are the poster child for how to destroy a thriving brand in just a few short years.
Quite the fall from grace when you put it all together. Lacked much business acumen and thought the bravado and hype would carry them forever. Had a ton of fun with folks in that club during the heyday.
this. the shittiest part is that the OG higher ups knew what they were doing and all systematically departed before most of this was discovered, leaving the mess in the hands of inexperienced newbs and interim CEO. if you ask the conspiracy loving side of me, they wanted to be ratmagneted so they could GTFO before the 'unveiling' of the financial shitshow.
They were my favorite from 2013-2018ish. When it became all thick haze, I gave up. I think the last time I bought any cans was maybe 2019 or 2020. Then when the ratmagnet thing went viral, I swore off them. Someone here in an old thread suggested this story as a good thesis for an MBA on how to utterly trash your once seemingly successful business.
Since they are gonna be contract brewed, guessing that they will no longer be able to claim that their beer is vegan since I doubt they will have their own equipment inside Alesmith's brewhouse. Time will tell on that, but I would be surprised.
I think the issue was more so they expanded too quickly into multiple high cost areas (Portland, LAX, San Francisco, etc.) and then a pandemic shut down their entire food / bar market which was probably what they were focused on to carry those businesses. Then add in the scandals. I don't think another brewery in San Diego had as good of a flagship core as they did when they "officially" launched. Blazing World, Fortunate Islands, Black House, and Lomaland were all solid beers. I still remember having Neverwhere in like 2013 at Monkey Paw. Tasted similar to when I had my first Rayon Vert from Green Flash. San Diego's version of Orval.
This is the story of brewery expansion, then contraction and failure, that happens regularly in brewing. Modern Times is just a spectacular example. Ten Barrel is a current example of a revered brewery on the way down. Beer is labor and capital intensive. Growth costs money. When sales fall, investment costs and ongoing overhead and labor aren't easy to swallow. MBAs are some of the investors who make big mistakes in the beer business, so they might not have the best perspective to evaluate the situation. Maybe we need beer anthropologists or sociologists to study the culture?
The warning signs were there pre-covid. Covid just accelerated what was going to happen when you take a “spare no expenses” approach to over expansion. There’s a reason why those places all contracted at once and they went to auction, and it wasn’t covid.
