Well, that (i.e., IPA focus) might adress the Green Flash question, but would not answer the Smuttynose question… same basic story of over expansion. Smuttynose is, however, a much more diverse brand. Perhaps they are not exciting enough, even though they make all around good beer. Obviously marketing has a lot to do with it, as people do not consider Smuttynose or Green Flash very cool.
Ya, beer is all about hype factor these days. The Smuttynoses, Sierra Nevadas, Founders and Bells of yesteryear have been overtaken by the Toppling Goliath, Trilliums and Tree Houses of today. By the time those guys ramp up production, they will be overtaken by a new generation.
I do think us tickers are partly responsible. I love Bells Expedition stout for example, but do I ever drink it or talk about it in forums much anymore? I guess I recommend it to non beer nerd friends, but the beer media is fickle.
Mikkeller, as pointed out, above, knows how to work the gimmick factor that gives them longer staying power I guess. Although I’m not sure that still works for Dogfish Head or Bruery these days.
For all those mentionning Mikkeller on the same level as Green Flash Smuttynose, I’d be curious to know how much beer Mikkeller actually produces a year. You can sell all of your beer easily as long as you don’t make too much of it. If you make a relatively small batch of a new product it will be gone in no time just for curiosity’s sake. It’s getting people to buy case after case of the same beer that’s hard. This was a problem even for BMC that had to fight tooth and nail with multimillion$ marketing campaigns to try to gain that precious precious brand loyalty (so that consumers wouldn’t just buy the case on sale that week).
The craft beer market as a whole is not as easily subjected to brand loyalty (a big part of liking craft beer is liking to try new things, whether you’re a ticker or not). So breweries that want to make more money by ramping up production in the traditional sense (volume > novelty) are getting bitten in the ass for it. Which I’m not entirely against tbh.
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This. I get so tired of hearing craft brewers beating the drum about needing to grow faster. The bigger you are, the harder it is to grow. It’s like watching someone walking off a cliff.
Craft beer isn’t about growth or getting rich. It isn’t about squeezing every penny of profit out of a flagship or two. Innovate. Be fun and interesting. Stay small. Form relationships and collaborate. If you’re trying to be the next Jim Koch, you’re probably in the wrong line of work.
Timing and forecasting appears to have been the problem in both cases. With everyone in the industry predicting a bubble bursting, why would anyone choose now to expand? Both are good breweries that will survive, but they are taking their lumps now.
Random data point here but I don’t know how well the downtown la and sf mikkeller bars are doing. Every time I’ve been to either it’s dead, even on a Friday or Saturday night. Sure they have $75 cantillon bottles for sale but I don’t see them sustaining the ultra high end beer nerd destination now that beer it’s so mainstream and there are dozens of options within walking distance…
I can’t say the same of the sd location though. They’re always busy.
I think the new trend of opening a bunch of tasting rooms that sell guest beers, and in some cases wine and liquor, is the way to go. Meaning a bar that caters to regular bros but also has some good beer options.
I’m not sure if that’s the model some of the local breweries are actually following, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The best brewpub in the area opened another location a few miles away from it.
A small nearby brewery that most people in the RB group thinks is a joke opened a second location, then a third location focused on food. All within a 10 minute drive of each other. Another one that most of the local RB crew doesn’t like at all opened up a small experimental brewhouse/brewpub. Both of those places were in the first wave of modern breweries to open up in the area.
I’m mostly worried about the 3rd wave of breweries that are starting to finally open their doors and might think they’re going to grow as fast (or faster) than those other breweries. If the area isn’t saturated already, most should be able to pull off moderate, sustained success. If they think they’ll be ubiquitous across the region in the matter of a few months or that they’ll be on the shelves of all nearby grocery stores by the end of the year, they’re going to have a bad time.
We have plenty of mediocre breweries that have several locations as well. Put in 100-500k into a brewery and get the same traffic as a bar. Opening a bunch of satellite tasting rooms for 50-100k just makes sense, especially if you can have guest beers.
I’ll add that I was really looking forward to checking out the Green Flash brewery in Virginia Beach sometime this year. When they first hit the market in the mid-Atlantic, I was pretty happy. I bought their beers often.
These days however, it’s hard for me to really get excited about beer that is produced more than few hundred miles away, with a few notable exceptions. Hate to sound like a homer, but there’s just too many breweries to pay attention to as it is, so I just focus on what’s here.
That usually means I have zero clue what some hype machine brewery is doing 300+ miles away from me, but I’m okay with that.
While something can be said about adjunct tickers (and I’ll include myself in this), remove all of that noise and Green Flash still makes a mediocre IPA compared to many others just within San Diego.
Still buy Alpine regularly but Green Flash lost me when they messed with the IPA recipe and mothballed Rayon Vert.
I think many of these would be “national” breweries are finding that the majority of craft ( for want of a better word) beer drinkers drink comparativly local.
Only the huge ones like New belgium/SN tend to get a national audience.
From my own expierience i tend to drink extremely local now…when i started off NB/SN etc were always in my fridge no more.
