Tallgrass shutting down

In your opinion what happens to Lift Bridge brewery if their contract with 3rd Street brewery unexpectedly goes away like the first time it happened to them?

 

Lift Bridge can go to Summit, Barley John's, recently expanded Badger Hill, or any of the other breweries in the area (or outside of it) with excess capacity (there may well be a lot more of those soon nationwide) and/or take the opportunity to downsize operations in an environment where smaller increasingly is likely to be more profitable or at least a heck of a lot less risky. I don't think Lift Bridge's brand is nearly strong enough to thrive regionally, and a presumably largely debt-financed major expansion is the last thing almost any brewery should be doing in 2018. At least Tallgrass had the excuse in 2015 of the writing not yet being on the wall.

I wish Lift Bridge luck, but their plans seem to be based on excessively optimistic forecasts for continued craft beer demand growth in general and a foolhardy overestimation of the interest in their product in particular. I'm sure the owners tell a convincing tale when they're talking to you, but just because you're on friendly terms with business owners and they feed you information doesn't mean their plans are destined to succeed. That said, I don't think failure for Lift Bridge's expansion is inevitable, but I think the possibility is so strong that it's astounding that they seem to proceeding, and I know that's not an uncommon sentiment locally in the industry.

 

I completely agree with islay that any large brewery expansion now is very risky but Lift Bridge does have two things going for it that most MN breweries do not have right now - Farm Girl and Mango Blonde. Two beers most breweries would love to have in their portfolios. One of those beers seems to be on tap at many bars/restaurants and they seem to be big sellers at liquor stores. Surly Furious and Summit EPA are the only MN beers off the top of my head that I see more often offered on tap. But then again tastes change and competition will only increase in the future so who knows if the LB expansion will work out.

 

Is Lift Bridge currently contract brewing some of their beers?

 

Yes

 

That sucks, the pub ale was one of my favorite brown ales. Now I just need to harass upslope into distributing in Iowa.