Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery Is Up For Sale

Industry News
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Tattered Flag Brewery and Distillery Is Up For Sale
(Middletown, PA)
Veteran Owned Brewery and Distillery

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I hadnā€™t realized that they expanded so fast. That seems to have been a major reason for their undoing. My personal experience with the beer has always been average at best. Thatā€™s a lot of brewery they are selling at a bad time to start new craft breweries in PA.

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Its definitely not looking like a great time for craft breweries and craft beer in general. Maybe not a full popping of the bubble, but certainly a shrinking of the bubble.

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Seeing as I am in PA now, I can say that over the past few weeks, almost every brewery I was at was less than 1/2 full even during peak hours. It is sure convenient for me, as I have no difficulty finding seats or ordering beers, but it is concerning for longevity. Even hyped breweries like Human Robot, Hidden River and Imprint have lately not been very packed.

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More interestingly, Iā€™ve never even heard of two of those breweries and I sort of make it my business to know craft breweries.

Similarly, what I think is the best brewery in Baltimore is not on most peopleā€˜s or beer geekā€™s radar and is typically empty on Saturday afternoons.

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Imprint is probably known best for their fruit sludge ā€œsoursā€, so not very surprised that they were not on your radar. Around the beginning of Covid their crowlers were pretty sought after in those circles. Hidden River is less ā€œhypedā€ but is a top tier IPA brewery by any reasonable metric.

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Is this a brewery a secret mystery from the rest of us? :thinking:

As for the three mentioned Iā€™ve seen Imprint cans in lots of beer stores so they must get a decent distro outside of PA.

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Suspended Brewing.

I work in PA and Imprint has never caught my eye and I donā€™t remember seeing (or hearing) about them in south central PA.

These details are less important. I think it is clear that the craft scene is a lot more local (for example, my neighborhood has 4 brewpubs) and it has been clear that most craft beer consumers donā€™t drink the beer for its quality. So being high-quality (by beer geek or beer bro) standards is not as rewarding as it used to be. Nowadays, convenience and price probably have a bigger impact.

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Iā€™ve traveled out to Philly and been to all three - Hidden River, Imprint, and Human Robot. At different times. (Only been to each brewery one time.)

I would say in most markets and online fanbases of PA, they are known breweries. I live in Central PA (Harrisburg area), and we can get Human Robot and Imprint at Breskiā€™s and a few other distroā€™s.

I also know online through a few blogs and pages, that throughout PA those three breweries are known.