It occurred to me the other day that I know very little about the distributor part of the "brewer + distributor + bar/retailer" equation. Who are the biggest distributors in Mass.? How much influence do they have over what beers get picked up and who gets them? Do distributors push certain products or packages of products? How much of a cut do they get? Do distributors have to be used? I'm sure this is old news to BA's working in the industry, but for your average consumer it's kind of behind the scenes (I wonder how many punters even realize that brewers don't sell their beer directly to stores?) If this has all been covered in another thread or site I'd love a link. Cheers.
I will talk about MA since it is where my experience lies. The biggest and most powerful distributors in the state are the ones that carry large domestic brands. Burke is Miller/Coors, Williams, Knife and a few others are AB, and there a smattering of other large wholesalers that carry many national and imported brands. All of these carry some form of Craft Beer in their portfolios. For instance, Burke just picked up Pioneer Brewing. Most of these companies are technically small family run businesses that just happen to be worth millions of dollars and sell products that many people here have issues with. No matter what, they are still independent small businesses. L Knife, an AB house in Kingston, MA, among its large domestic brands, has the most extensive book of Craft Beer in Massachusetts. They have well over 1000 SKUs including brands like Brooklyn, Smuttynose, Oskar Blues, Lagunitas, Green Flash, and many other crowd favorites. They also carry the entire Shelton Brothers bookwhich includes Cantillon, De Ranke, De La Sienne, and a host of others. Atlantic Importing Company, which happens to distribute my brand BLATANT Beer, is another animal all together. They are a much smaller outfit than the ones mentioned above and offer wine spirits and beer. They do not sell any large domestic producers that are not considered craft. Brands like Dogfish Head, Uinta, Great Divide, Bear Republic, Stone, Port/Lost Abbey, White Birch, BLATANT of course, New England Brewing, and several others make this company rather appealing as a brewer/supplier. They are a bit more focused in the book and are tending to bring in more locals as time goes by. Dogfish Head is by far their number 1 brand. Stone and Bear republic are also very strong for them. I believe Atlantic happens to be the NUMBER 1 wholesaler for DFH in the country. Remember, they cover the whole state, and many others in other regions only service their small area. Who decides who distributes what? As suppliers, breweries have a hard choice to make. When you sign with a wholesaler, they sort of own you. That is... you cannot just pack up and go to another wholesaler. Your brand has value to a wholesaler and they will not part with it unless you make a financial offer to them to buy back your wholesale rights. Other wholesalers can also come in and try to buy out your 'contract'. Wholesalers in general take orders for your products and put your product on trucks to get to the retailer. Some will even work hard to sell your products when there are incentives and the like. Many of the sales people on the road work very hard to sell the brands that work for their particular retailers. it is a tough road for any supplier in a large house. We tend to get cannibalized by other similar product lines and the little guys like me need to work extra hard on the street to get retailers and consumers on board. Incentives run this industry(sort of) even the little guys like DFH and others will offer incentives to both the retailers and sales people to sell more product. Some breweries do not follow this path. These incentives can be as simple and legal as offering glassware or shelf talkers, and it can also be as illegal and immoral as requiring money up front for getting your beer on draft. I have heard horror stories of bars asking for 1000s of dollars to put a beer on draft, then to just pull it after a few kegs. How can you get your money back when this practice is illegal? This is not very common practice but it does happen often enough to be an issue. Many breweries have budgets to 'buying' draft lines. Many do not work with this tactic. This is a major sore spot with me personally because I have lost draft lines to larger craft brewers who pay to play, so to speak. Personally, my favorite approach is make great beer, offer it at an appropriate price, and clear the path of resistance and allow the wholesalers, retailers and consumers to all do their parts. Sometimes it is important for the brewery to offer incentives to make this work... for my company it is usually in the form of glassware for events(typically the wholesaler splits this cost with the brewery) even more often, a brewer's presence in a store or bar is incentive enough. They love the attention! enough said? I got more if you want...
More! Very interesting stuff and the kind of info that I think your average Beer Advocate (again, outside the industry) knows little about. But they're a key part in determining who gets what beer and at what price. What are the differences between distributors relationship to stores versus bars? And what are the rules about breweries taking their beers themselves to particular bars/stores?
just want to add that AB owns their own distributorship in greater boston. this means they sell bud, as well as any ab affiliated brand, ie. goose island, red hook, stella, etc. harpoon also self distributes in greater boston.
