Three Floyds changing distributors?

Three Floyds has gone through some seriously great production expansions as of late. We have designed and installed a new Braukon brewhouse in addition to overhauling our bottling line. All of these infrastructure improvements will increase production and further ensure Three Floyds' high standard of brewing excellence. The new brewhouse is is fully functional and our brewers are working around the clock. The kegging and bottling lines are operating faster than ever. This being said, these improvements did not come without a cost. The brewery lost only a few days of production. The benefit being that our loyal Three Floyds' beer drinkers will have greater opportunity to get and enjoy our ales and lagers. Please be patient as we reinvigorate our stock and pipeline it to you the loyal fan, the loyal bars, restaurants, retailers and the distributors that get it to you.
This is posted on FFF website under the brewpub taplist and carry out page. My take is that they are opening another production facility most likely in IL (CHI-town area). Production at the Munster facility may stay the same, feeding the pub and Calumet Brewers who distributes Lake County Indiana. (my brother drives for them and picks up there regularly) Calumet has not been able to place orders and get what they want (what stores and restaurants ask for) only taking whatever Floyds gives them. Maybe this will change for the better.

 

I have read your supporting material several times now, and I am quite curious as to how you came to the conclusion that FFF will be opening a Illinois production facility

 

there was that one article a couple years ago where nick flippantly said something about opening a brewpub in chicago, but from what I understand it was a comment made in jest. As for supporting material in the above post, I see nothing.

The real question is, does this distributor change matter? The biggest problem people have is they can't find FFF beer, so will this new distributor make it harder? I doubt it.

 

Not exactly. As i mentioned earlier, FFF has been on allocation forever now. This means that when Glunz gets a load, each of the salespeople get a certain amount of cases allocated to them to sell to accounts. Mine, for example, may get 10 cases of Gumball to split between 25+ accounts. So some weeks an account will get it, some weeks they wont. Again, to use my store as an example, i get dosed with two cases of Gumball per month...one every 2 weeks, basically. This is pretty universal for most stores out there.

As for Zombie, it was originally limited to 30 or so accounts hand picked by FFF. I dont know what's going on now...a couple of those hand picked accounts even asked me if i knew what was going on since they received only 1 case of ZD instead of their normal drop.

 

Parking should be fine.

And no, i'm not going. Larry is going in my place.

 

• I have no proof that FFF is opening a facility in IL. As to how I came to that conclusion, it says they have a new brewhouse and Calumet Brewers hasn't been told to pick up their beer anywhere new. We all know they don't have room where they are, and it says a new brewhouse not a renovated brewhouse. So my guess is that it isn't in IN. Besides everyone here is talking new distributors in IL. Distributors are territorial and a brewer cannot ask another distributor to take over someone else's territory. So my thought is that if a new facility opens in a different area there can be new contracts drawn up on distribution.
• I am not trying to convince anyone of my theories, just my thought of what I think is going on. ​
• Lets just hope they don't lose quality in all their changes.​

 

You can clearly see the upgraded brewhouse in this photo that I posted here, in June.

http://beeradvocate.com/community/t...omation-this-spring.81655/page-2#post-1450113

 

It is well known that they recently made renovations at their existing location, not building a new brewhouse somewhere else.

 

And you can clearly see the new chicago brewhouse already burned down in this photo -

 

Lincoln left Glunz shortly after and now works for New Belgium.

 

My beer guy in Palatine said his store will be receiving Zombie Dust at some point. He wasn't sure when or how much. Certainly hope this is true!

 

Who is Ed Debevic? And how did he get dragged into this crazy dialogue?

 

I almost guarantee you will be seeing much more ZD and Gumballhead in stores. I talked to some of the guys in the brewpub during the renovations, and they basically completely shut down production for almost a month with "all the German brewing engineers doing their thing." This is why it was almost impossible to get anything 3F most of the summer. Since they posted the update on their website about reinvigorating their supply, I have seen some larger retailers as far out as the NW suburbs actually get ZD, which I have never seen before.

Not to completely defend 3F, but IN state law has prevented them from boosting production in years past, which from what I have read has changed very recently to allow 3F to brew much more beer. Expect to see much more available soon.

 

I'd feel better if you'd be willing to fully guarantee this. The "almost" makes it sounds like you might be speculating or guessing.

 

3F is in Belgium.

 

two brothers bought three floyds, the new distributor, windy city.

 

Ha, this completely goes against what Cardinal Liquors told me last Friday. Guy there told me FFF will no longer be available in the suburbs very soon. Awesome how much misinformation we get.

 

Who cares where its available in Chicago? Get off your duffs and go pick it up (and while you are there getsomeformetoobro) if you want some.
Hell, I drove 4 hrs each way this weekend to strike out on ZD. Still scored other awesome shtuff.