[quote]Shortly after opening Orange & Brew in 2018, Schmidt said he ran into a similar problem with Chicago’s Revolution Brewing that he did with Goose Island: some of Revolution’s core beers, such as Anti-Hero IPA and Rev Pils, weren’t selling. Instead of penalizing him, Schmidt said, a Revolution sales rep tried to find a solution, offering him different beers in different packages until something resonated with customers.
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Interesting read on Goose Island and Bourbon County Stout, sounds like things are still a mess at Goose Island. Thought this part was interesting. Grocery stores sound like a better market for them anyway, but I remember a few years ago reading they bought a canning line with their marketing budget. Kind of surprised they can’t find a solution for the specialty bottle shops.
I quit buying it when it went AB. Same for Wicked Weed in NC. I’ll drink it if it’s free at an event or at a tasting, but I’m not shelling out my money for it.
Now I can fully understand the mindset of sell more of our products all year and be rewarded with an allocated product. At the same time I applaud those who told GI and AB to take a hike as a result of the practice.
FWIW - I don’t buy Bell’s because they sued a small NC brewery over their trademark and lost. Now that they are Lion (New Belgium) it gives me another reason to skip purchasing their products. AFAIK they never noticed I wasn’t buying their beer and probably don’t care either.
AB’s marketing strategy is about volume -it sells Bud, Bud Lite, etc - so bottle shops just don’t figure in that. To play devil’s advocate, perhaps selling Bourbon County through grocery stores democratizes barrel-aged beer.
While I understand the BIG BOYs business plan (kill the small guy, kill the craft brewer so we can return to selling pi*s beer), I am troubled by the apparent deception. Pretending to be a craft brewer, small brewer, etc, but in reality are one of the BIG breweries. Especially, when they charge a premium.
Years ago, while shopping at Costco, I was happy to discover a case of Pilsner Urquell. Yumm! Unfortunately, I’ve learned/realize any beer, for the most part, carried by Costco/BJs, et al is a brew from one of the BIG commercial outfits.
I don’t get to a Wegmans that often. When I do it’s beer nirvana.
Certainly not like that at our Costco. They carry craft beer from independent brewers, even som3 local ones from here in town.
It’s NOT a shame what happened to Bell’s. Larry worked hard to build that business and he deserves to be rewarded as he retires. Never forget ALL breweries are businesses, large or small.
The MO for those big brewery takeovers seem to be about focusing on a single beer as the flagship “brand” for the brewery. See the proliferation of everything “Ranger” from New Belgium. Pre-Kirin NB sold a ton of interesting beer that was pretty readily available in Colorado. Not the case anymore.
I would expect Bell’s two hearted and maybe Oberon to be available but I wouldn’t expect anything else to have wide release in the near future.
Goose Island tried to do it with 312. New Belgium is trying it with Voodoo Ranger. Sierra Nevada is doing it with Hazy Little Thing. Seems more like a thing once a brewery hits a certain size.
SN still focuses on SNPA, Torpedo IPA, and Tropical Torpedo IPA in NC. Hazy shows up, but the SN space at the store is dominated by the first three.
New Belgium can’t seem to figure out what Voodoo Ranger is exactly. I just saw VR LightLager. Looking at the website it’s an IPA, Imperial IPA, Hazy IPA, Future Hop IPA, V2K Juicy IPA, and Pumpkin Ale. It’s everything but a sour at this point. At one time you could walk into a bar and order a VR and know what you might receive. Now it’s a crapshoot.
All I am seeing in my Facebook feed is stores selling BC and people posting about BC. What’s interesting is the small guys are almost out, but the reports are Wegman’s is fully stocked.
I forget where I heard it but the one big thing Lion did with NB was help them figure out a strategy moving forward with the two large breweries. Pre-acquisition they brewed a lot more experimental beer but their sales were slumping because people weren’t buying their staple beers (Fat Tire, Abbey, etc.) and they couldn’t get Voodoo Ranger to land in the market outside of a replacement for all the Fat Tire taps they were losing. Lion advised them to focus on Voodoo Ranger as a flagship and produce all the variants you see. This isn’t Lion’s idea. Deschutes has done the same thing with Fresh Squeezed to great success. This is a market where people want to buy a new IPA every time they buy a can and want to go into a taproom and see ten IPAs–even if the “new” or “different” IPA really isn’t much different from the last one. Left Hand is doing the same thing with Milk Stout–this is just how the older breweries with established brands have to stay relevant without risking a complete rebrand.
For NB this was inevitable and Lion seemed less pushing NB to make the change as much as helping making the logistics work. NB was late to expanding their sour program at a time when sour beer was really big and just as they were set to flow out great variants on their two foeder aged beers the market flipped, Bouckaert left and they were a bit adrift until Lion encouraged them to focus on what works.
I’m friends with somebody who works for Bell’s distributor here in Colorado and it seems Bell’s has already started moving towards the same platform but with Oberon. They make a few Oberon variants that don’t make it to Colorado much but I expect Lion will encourage them to do the same at least where those beers sell. For now I believe the fruited Oberon variants are mostly sold in Florida. There is a barrel aged Oberon which I’ve tried and it’s actually not bad. I expect we’ll see more Oberon variants as Bell’s answer to kettle sours/seltzers/slushy IPAs.
I agree it’s probably the right call from a business perspective. I’m probably not their target demo anymore as someone who enjoys beer generally, including weird and boring styles. I have zero interest in seltzers or trying a million different IPAs. I thought hazies were interesting the first time I had one but they’re all so samey I don’t buy them anymore.
Personally, it’s just disappointing when craft beer fulfilled the promise of “real” choice a decade ago and now, for a variety of reasons, craft beer has been coopted by big beer and provides only the illusion of choice.
I don’t feel like I’m lacking choice. Sure, not as many craft breweries do lagers or English ales, but I can find them if I want them.
If anything, it’s the explosion in number of craft breweries that exist today that forced large national ones like Bell’s, New Belgium, etc to rethink their model. I see about 50-75% of shelf space at a good beer store taken by local or regional craft breweries. Add in dozens of brewpubs, taprooms, and farm breweries within driving distance, and the model of selling Two Hearted or Fat Tire on both cost in mass quantities doesn’t hold up anymore. Especially after a lot of the big craft breweries expanded (often too quickly) with second locations. So, they might be chasing trends and mas market appeal, but that doesn’t mean it’s as bad as seeing BMC as the only options.
