Breweries Come & Go in Distribution

But one of the 'constants' in this formula is the number of craft beer drinkers, and according to the Brewers Association that number continues to increase at around 2% per year to help offset the increased supply of beer. https://www.brewersassociation.org/insights/shifting-demographics-among-craft-drinkers/ (Although that growth number depends on how you define a craft beer drinker.)

But that's a topic for another thread.

 

Yeah, right? If those 16oz bottles had been cans maybe they would have had better luck.

For me, though, as long as I can regularly get Zero Gravity Keller and Von Trapp Dunkel, I'm fine with how things are.

 

Here's a hint: they're very casual beer fans for the most part (always have been, really).

 

All of the Urban Chestnut that we get in NY now is 16oz cans and kegs (as far as I've seen).

 

Recently there has been a big push back into CO with distro. Recently we have started receiving Bells, Founders, Cigar City, Brooklyn, 21st Amendment, Knee Deep, and I am sure I am forgetting others. Clown Shoes, Magic Hat, and a whole slew of breweries have pushed in only to pull out months later. I will be surprised if these guys have any better luck. Founders is the only one that i was truly interested to see, and even then it's only for a couple beers. In the meantime we are stuck with all these mediocre new skus taking up precious shelf space. There are a lot of midwest transplants out here, and bells has been doing well, i suspect founders will too. I am glad to see jack's abbey on my shelves and buy them when i can in Hope's that they stay. BA Framminghammer may be my favorite BA anything these days.

 

I miss that Marble imperial red.

 

They pulled out of SC as well. I like their beers a lot, their core brands were pretty solid as well.

 

NYC seems to be an attractive area for brewers to reach out to... to test their brand outside of their home market or to place excess stock. Feels like they come and go all the time. I assumed that was the reason for the start of this thread. Speaking of 3 Floyds, we just got some of their kegs not too long ago. I would assume that not many kegs got placed in states along the way from Indiana... but that's just an assumption. I can probably easily think of 2 dozen breweries off the top of my head that have either pulled out, shut down, or scaled back for one reason or another... and that's not counting imports. Do I miss any of those domestics? No.

 

Bear Republic. I believe they pulled out a bunch of distro due to the drought in Cali. Hop rod rye and racer 5 were my gateways into craft beer.

Bonus missed Brewery would be Lakefront Brewing. Consistently solid beer across the lineup.

 

I can provide a little perspective here, at least as it relates to Boulevard. When we launch a new market, we work with our local sales crew, distributor partners and key retailers to determine what our launch portfolio will look like. As we get further out of the midwest and away from the brewery, that portfolio is typically smaller and more targeted on what we feel is more differentiated/will sell well in that region. Once we've had some time in that area, we look to sales numbers to see what's working and what isn't. Given there are soooo many breweries out there and distributors (and even our reps) only have so much time, it's important to maximize the impact of the beers that are doing well and weed out distractions/slow sellers to avoid damaging sales of the beers that are moving.

I hope that helps. I'm happy to answer any BLVD questions you might have.

 

I would wager that a good bit (certainly not all ) of what folks miss is as much nostalgia as truly a brew with no acceptable beer in the market that would replace (or ?exceed) it. Often these "went away" due to poor sales.

Several years ago when the notorious Shelton Bros pulled out of NC, I missed the infrequent Phantome beer I would get. I never bought a lot but did not find much like the ones I did. Many of the Shelton Bros beers have trickled back in but now are just more difficult to find.

 

Did you try Greens when you were here in ATL?

 

Yes, I went to the Green's on Ponce De Leon and the Hop City at Krog St. market. Didn't see any at either store, but may have overlooked them.

 

I wonder how much of this problem is due to ABinBev owning so much of the distribution now?

 

According to the National Beer Wholesalers Association, "...the number of traditional beer distributors... (was) around 3,000 in 2017". According to Anheuser-Busch "more than 500" of them are "independent" AB houses and, additionally, they own 28 wholesale distribution centers (in CA, CO, HI, MA, NJ, NY, OH, OK, OR, WA). So, around 1% of the US total.

 

Absolutely. Thanks for the feedback. I didn't mean to single out BLVD in any negative way, it was more just an example I could think of off the top of my head (because I love Love Child for instance and I know which stores in surrounding counties carry it and pick up a bottle when I'm traveling through those areas. I know the I-95 corridor through MD gets alot more of the national distro brewers porfolio compared to 40 miles east or west of I-95. All about population density/volume sales/turnover. I get it.

 

Leinenkugel's Big Eddy Series
Nøgne Ø

Those are the only two that come to mind right now.

 

Come to think of it, I haven’t seen them in NE Ohio either. I have been waiting to see some Plead the Fifth pop up. Maybe I’m just missing their stuff whenever I make a beer run?

 

More than 500 out of only 3000 is a quite a bit more than 1%

I have noticed a distinct trend with smaller unique beers being replaced with AB affiliated brews all over the place.