Bear Republic in Illinois

Good question, I haven't seen them lately. Gonna miss them if this is true. Black Bear Stout is one of the first craft beers I remember liking and my dad loved Hop Rod Rye when I gave it to him for the first time.

 

Hopefully @BearRepublic can provide some insight.

 

Maybe working through old stock, but 41 places still list a Racer 5 near my zip code(beermenus).

 

They definitely did pull out. They had to shrink their distro a lot because of the drought.

 

The last stuff came in about October 2013

 

Yep. They basically ran out of water and had to pull back distribution.

 

Drought impact: Bear Republic cuts 2014 growth plans by 40%, considers new brewery elsewhere

"Bear Republic is installing a waste water-filtration system and helped bankroll the construction of two wells. Plans to grow 35% this year were cut to 15%. Kruger said there are discussions about opening a brewery elsewhere with a "more stable water supply," but that could alter the taste."

But, hey, have you seen those fountains in Vegas? And my neighbors greener than green lawn that gets watered 5 hours daily?

 

Bear republic, like a lot of west coast brewers lately, had been sitting on shelves collecting dust. I've seen double jack, wipeout IPA, best republic, ect sit on shelfs for a year of you go to certain stores.

 

Maybe if they had better distribution systems, their beer would actually be bought. The new Double Jack bombers came in a couple weeks ago, they were almost 9 weeks old at the time. The freshest FW beer I've seen in the last 2 years was a month old. And we DO get fresh beer here, and in Chicago.
As well, Bear Republic had no bottle date of any sort anywhere on the bottle. What kind of beer enthusiast would buy an IPA with no bottle date?

Stone, Lagunitas, and Sierra Nevada have good distribution, have bottled-on dates and their beer sells well; think its pretty simple.

Port is just not popular, in my experiences.

 

Play on playa, play on. [fistbump]

It pains me that I can never have fresh DJ. oh well. Lots of fresh beer to drink. Better get started.

 

This is disappointing to hear. But like many others in this thread already said, no bottle dates, me no buy. Its as simple as that! I have not bought a Bear Republic in over 2 years, for this very reason.

And Firestone Walker, its time to work on getting your IPA's sent out fresh. I just bought a 4-pack of DJ and its dated end of July and the new batch just got here (new green box and label). WTF?

 

Thanks, that's good to know. Maybe I can find it useful in the future when I travel to other states while looking at beers to buy. And hopefully they end up coming back to Illinois at some point in the future.

 

Quite positive that either they just start dating their bottles or that information is inaccurate.

 

Looks like it has been well over a year per this post.

 

Good to know, thanks.

@papat444 a slight update to Bear Republic. Straight from the horse's, err bear's mouth . Thanks for your great site!