Money. You need it to grow and to pay off how big you have grown. Two California beer brands have taken different paths in many different ways and have done so again when it comes to raising cash in 2019.
Cerveceria Calidad who I have interviewed in the past have one beer, they contract brew and they are in the starting phase of getting their beer out into distribution. They have gone the investor route. Bringing in 20+ new people from former Dodgers to restaurant founders to an internet underwear CEO to bring in money to increase production and fund more sales and marketing.
On the other side is San Diego’s (Anaheim, Portland and LA’s) Modern Times which has turned to crowdfunding to raise more than $1 million. Expansion to multiple locations probably being one reason for looking to the internet and fans for funding. The money received would be earmarked for operations, “minor efficiency projects” and equipment purchases.
I am on record as saying that crowdfunding has lust the luster. It was fun in the beginning to get a shirt or pint glass for a small donation but then I heard that some of the funding was done as a form of advertising (as well as operational money). And as a growing niche, craft beer needed to get moving by all sorts of financial means. But craft beer is grown up now, it is not easy but raising the cash for your brewery can be done via the traditional route of banks, or financial partners (silent or loud).
Finding an equity partner for a secondary, tertiary round of funding may not have the ESOP cache for Modern Times but it would have brought much less scrutiny from the internet for sure.
Calidad has always been a puzzle to me. It seems to be a piece of a beverage company profile but it seems built for the Fyre / Coachella influencer set as opposed to beer geeks. Personally, I think the beer is good enough to be set in front of beer geeks but now more marketing seems to be where the money is going even though for a well branded beer, a tap room or bar would seem the play to make. Putting them next to the Alfred coffee shops might be one idea.
How this money gathering plays out is part of the fascinating economic portrait being drawn.