Hate to see one of the originals from MI in trouble. On the other hand, I haven’t had a beer from them in years. A Ringwood brewery.
I will forgo any Ringwood comments…
I heard on the local news last night that here in Oregon, the number of breweries closing doubled over the last 4 years while the number opening halved. I think we’ll see this continuing.
This reads like they are looking for a buyer.
I just don’t get it. Is it the sales dropped as new breweries entered a crowded space and gravitated to something new? We’ve seen several of these recently with breweries you would expect to have a track record of sales to lean on.
Something I’m seeing locally is that as the number of brands goes up, the distributors do a more and more poor job of keeping stock fresh with “legacy” brands. New brands sell well, so the job is easy. “Old” brands have a harder time.
Reference Sierra Nevada and Bell’s in my area. When Bell’s first came to the area it sold like hot cakes, and fresh Two Hearted was easy to find. Now that Bell’s is old news it doesn’t sell so there’s no fresh beer to be found. SNPA only sells during the summer here, for whatever reason. Usually come spring there’s still 12-packs dated from August/September time frame still on the shelves.
Local brews, seasonal brews, and whacky beers sell. Sadly that’s kinda hurting some of the better beers and brands, in my opinion. Brown ales aren’t to be found on shelves here anymore. Fresh SNPA will always be a classic. This is why I drink Yuengling, it sells, so it’s fresh.
I remember liking some of Arcadia’s offerings, but haven’t had anything from them in years either. Now, is that because I’ve moved, on or because distributors are not bringing them in or making them visible? Are those maybe two sides of a coin? I honestly don’t know. Next trip to the stores I will look hard to see if there’s any evidence of their existence.
Or a partnership similar to CBA? That seems like a good move for breweries for a lot of reasons. Seems like it’d lower the cost to distribute to certain areas while maintaining or improving service. Maybe a good way to use up excess capacity. I thought there were some CO breweries doing something like this as well.
My friend actually worked there and just moved back to Arizona. Time to ask some questions.