Category: Beer Industry

my occasional rants and raves about what is going on in the industry.

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Lyft and Guild

Lyft, the Ride-sharing service has added another partnership notch to its belt as it will now work with the Georgia Craft Brewers Guild. The San Francisco-headquartered company has already tied the knot with:
Massachusetts Brewers Guild,
Texas Craft Brewers Guild,
Brewers of Pennsylvania,
Arizona Craft Brewers Guild,
San Diego Brewers Guild,
Colorado Brewers Guild

It’s a smart play. For both guild and Lyft to help each other out. I don’t know what amenities come in such partnerships or what rules a Guild has to abide by but I am kinda surprised that L.A. is not on the list. If there was even a tiny discount for trips to member breweries, I would certainly take advantage.

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Barrels Down


In an unfortunate turn of events, a Barton 1792 bourbon barrel aging facility collapsed recently. You can read more about it HERE.

The barrel market is tight so I can’t assume that this is good news since many barrels were probably damaged beyond repair.

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A New Version of Distribution

Yesterday, I handed out a reading assignment. Today, I offer up some ideas to fix independent beer distribution (or at least improve it a little).

1. No More 1 Way Street
In too many brewery and distributor agreements, the brewery is at a vast disadvantage. In many states, they can only opt out of a distributor if it can prove that the distributor is a hot trash mess. That needs to change. Any agreement, anywhere, needs to have specific deliverables negotiated by both sides. No laundry list but, for example, four key points (two for both sides) that would allow an amicable split with no payment from either side. Say, distributor must not have more than a certain number of craft breweries or will patrol shelves for old IPA’s. This would make distributors who let brands languish stay on their toes but also slow down distributor hopping.

2. More Interlocked Companies
It would be great to see Distributor A in Santa Barbara have an agreement with Distributor B in Los Angeles to bucket brigade beer from one locale to another via a trusted partner. This may be pie in the capitalist sky but if there were a chain of distributors up and down the state that were coordinated, the flow of California beer might rival the big players.

3. Get Into the Big Box Stores
Maybe there could be a coordinated, #independent section in your local Target or Ralphs. This might be even more of a reach than goal # 2 but instead of fighting for shelf space mano e mano, a push that has one or two beers for a month and then switches to two new ones focusing on local might be a play that could work.

What will come to pass might not be as rosy but hopefully the bottles and cans can keep on moving from brewery to store.

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Long Read on Distro

The biggest infrastructure issue facing brewery growth is getting the beer to both the OG customer that regulary shows up at your taproom to fickle beer geeks to restaurant patrons AND to those new to beer.

Doing that requires knowing how your beer is treated once it leaves not only the brewery, but how it is treated at your distrobutor, then how it is taken care of at the retailer. Oh and then you have to go about getting back any old beer that will reflect poorly on your brand.

A maze of laws has certainly hampered distribution. SABInBev through their large network has hampered anything but their distribution. The haircut taken by a distributor also plays into the slow down.

All that is prelude to the piece by Collin McDonnell of HenHouse Brewing that appeared between 900 kajillion “Fervent Few” opinions on Good Beer Hunting. It is a long read, but one you should take the time on.

Tomorrow, I post on what I think new forms of distribution could look like.

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Lost Belgian Hops

Beer History is sometimes shrouded beneath myth and changing recipes and trend chasing but in the ground are the past ingredients and some are being lost which is why the following post about Belgian hops is at once a bit sad but also heartening.

So take a read and learn about some old hops, maybe they can be new again.

BELGIAN HOPS

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Girl Beer


Mikkeller DTLA recently posted about a new documentary in the works from a pair of their employees and it is something that I wanted to put on the radar of beer fans because even a short film would probably contain enough info to really raise the consciousness. I will update when more information becomes available.

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LIFO – Last In First Out


Shmaltz Brewing Company, they of the He’Brew beers amongst other beverages was a contract brewing holdout. Until five years ago, they did not have a home base. Now they have returned to their gypsy ways with the sale of its brewing equipment to Singlecut Beersmiths of Queens, NY.

The facility in Clifton Park will switch over later this year and the 30,000-barrel brewery will start brewing new beer. I had some of their beers when in NYC and was quite happy with them so this sounds positive if more beer will make it to L.A.

For Shmaltz this seems to be a strategic retreat and a way to not fall deeper into debt. And perhaps they are a brand that is better suited to not having their own brewery. Whether they can re-kindle brewing agreements again or if that tank space is gone is a different story.

I do see more equipment and facilities coming available for those who want to grow. Or those bigger facilities can become incubators or homes for excess capacity needs because that is probably needed more, flexible brewing.

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Wage Gap

Though I don’t like the aggressive tone of the article name, the STORY within from Splinter News is something that needs to be looked at and then dealt with.

Does there need to be an industry wide standard? Is there a safety net (literally) that could be created by pooling resources? And can something be done without jeopardizing the jobs (whatever their worth) that have been created?

Lots of thought points to measure.

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Pliny the Impact

I am a bit nerdy in liking the economic side of #independent beer so when I saw this infographic regarding Pliny the Younger’s 2018 release, I had to dig in.

What caught my eye was that 40 states were represented and 17 countries. That is amazing in a day and age when hazy IPA can releases rule the day. I would have thought that the bloom is off the rose but the stats say otherwise.

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That Bottle is New to Me

It seems that states are having to take the environmental lead in this day and age and that continues as the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative with seven Oregon breweries will begin testing a reusable beer bottle program.

The Oregon Bottle Bill is already a strong program but this adds another layer that other states will need to catch-up with. New, stronger bottles are being made of (you, guessed it) old recycled bottles.