What Beer Sales Tell Us About The Recession
Cheap beer sales are surging but are still losing ground to craft beer. Yet craft breweries are still suffering. What is going on?
www.npr.org
Bad beer during a pandemic?
- Thread starter Patrick
- Start date
www.npr.org
Randomly:
Natty Light falls into a category that the beer biz calls "subpremium"
Quoted for emphasis.
My sister used to work for IRI, and a friend may have also.
Pretty cool gig if you’re a nerd.
Yes, Craft is taking a hit on draft sales, but I’m seeing lots of breweries adapting: shuttling that stream to canned goods, local deliveries and even interstate shipping.
(Guy I trade with in VT has EQ shipped to his door- I’m gonna have to start getting it from him, lol)
OH’s standard for resto draught accounts (Green City) has been canned for the first time which is great.
I expect the breweries that have made the shift are doing okay, except in terms of front of house personnel.
But hell, maybe they’re Brewers now.
Natty Light falls into a category that the beer biz calls "subpremium"
Quoted for emphasis.
My sister used to work for IRI, and a friend may have also.
Pretty cool gig if you’re a nerd.
Yes, Craft is taking a hit on draft sales, but I’m seeing lots of breweries adapting: shuttling that stream to canned goods, local deliveries and even interstate shipping.
(Guy I trade with in VT has EQ shipped to his door- I’m gonna have to start getting it from him, lol)
OH’s standard for resto draught accounts (Green City) has been canned for the first time which is great.
I expect the breweries that have made the shift are doing okay, except in terms of front of house personnel.
But hell, maybe they’re Brewers now.
jackx
Well-Known Member
It's fortunate that the states have temporarily relaxed the rules/restrictions on distribution. I've been trying to do my part by buying all the additional Kane offerings that are making it to the stores. And in May it was nice to be able to get Magnify delivered to my home.
Great to also see that Heady Topper and Focal Banger from The Alchemist are being shipped to NJ stores.
Wood be great to see OH brews distributed in NJ.
Great to also see that Heady Topper and Focal Banger from The Alchemist are being shipped to NJ stores.
Wood be great to see OH brews distributed in NJ.
This would be great, but there’s nothing in it for them.
They are moving their beer just fine with delivery to the 5 boros, no need to include the 6th.
Grimm distros their non-IPAs pretty broadly, but won’t ship IPAs outside NY due to quality concerns.
I don’t expect it’s the same for OH-
I imagine they simply don’t need to.
I bought a Grimm IPA in Wegmans last week.
Cassinonorth
Well-Known Member
Grimm ships their IPAs to NJ all the time. I can check when I get into work but I know our stores have gotten After Image, Cloud Landing and a few others. I'm not in the stores much anymore so I don't recall which ones have landed recently.
edit: so far...Get back in your body, Gull Wing Doors, Hyperfocus Strata, Light year, Magnetic Cloud, Magnetic Tape, Maximum Happiness, Mosaic Rewind, Psychic Life Coach, and Tesseract. (don't kill me on the names, theyre what we have them in our system as...I don't drink anymore lol).
Last edited:
Cool! I stand corrected.
This must be a new development since corona.
When they started, only their sours and stouts had distro outside NY.
Cassinonorth
Well-Known Member
Either right before or during, yeah. It may have been super limited to start but with the limited bars getting kegs it just made sense like you said with Alchemist sending their stuff. Even limited NJ breweries like Source are distributing too. I used to be a huge beer nerd and seeing some of these beers in stores is incredible to me. Three Floyds just came a couple weeks ago...I remember going to DLD in '15 or '16 and coming back with like 5 cases of Gumballhead/Alpha King/etc.
We’ll leave the light on in case you decide to come home.
But yeah, selection at bottle shops was improving on its own, and got a hit of steroids with corona.
#silverlining
CommandoStyle
Well-Known Member
I pretty much draw the line at $18. I don’t care for triples or milk sake IPAs so it works out.
Fire Lord Jim
Well-Known Member
No! That's like going to Starbucks.
I tend to buy $10 six packs, and home brew the premium stuff.
JDurk
Well-Known Member
I've been carefully looking at the price of 4pks lately. Have noticed prices in the LBS of 4pks creeping up. My local goto, Tonewood Brewing has been pretty good at keeping prices <=$16 for all their products, at the source and the local stores.
jackx
Well-Known Member
A few weeks ago at Bottle King, I picked up a 4pk of Grimm for the first time - Tesseract and Focal Banger. The Tesseract was flat and had me regretting that I didn't choose the Heady Topper instead. The Focal Banger was awesome. I think the Tesseract was $18.99 and the Focal Banger was $16.99.
I disagree with nothing in it for them. Why sell less when you can sell more? If they had capacity to sell to 50 states, I think they would.
I don't think they have the capacity if they sell out over a weekend. Expanding lowers quality. Sales go down. You turn into Bud. No one wants your Budshit. If they turn a profit and don't need to build a huge corporate structure, warehouse, etc. why do it?
My bad beer has been replaced with good bourbon since the pandemic began. Might as well go out in style.
RobW
Well-Known Member
look at what lawsons did... they sub contracted out to Two Roads to reach other states and keep up to the demand... so far its been ok but you can tell the difference from a beer from VT and one from the CT brewery making it for them....
Last edited:
It’s cool, you can be wrong.
Like Magic said- I don’t think there’s capacity. If they were left sitting on beer, expansion would make sense, but I don’t think that’s the case.
one piece crank
Well-Known Member
Bad beer is a pandemic.
(I tried to post this form the future, but had to wait until I arrived in the past.)
(I tried to post this form the future, but had to wait until I arrived in the past.)