Why Are Breweries Closing?!?!?!
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- Опубліковано 28 лип 2024
- Craft breweries are starting to close at a high rate and I give my opinion on why I think this is happening.
All of my opinions are based on 10 years of being in the business of craft beer and may seem a bit negative. I never wanted to poo poo anyone's hopes or dreams but I have this conversation often and felt like I was not sharing the sentiment with you, the audience.
I hope this gives some insights into why these closures are likely not slowing down.
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Tanglefootbrewing.com
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Tanglefoot Brewing is a small Czech lager focused brewery in Temple, TX. In 2021 the brewery opened in the back of my family's BBQ restaurant that had been operating for 53 years. The restaurant has since closed and Tanglefoot has now taken over the entire space. This UA-cam channel was started to document the process of opening, running and growing a small craft brewery.
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I would also add from what I've seen in Central PA is the brew pubs that felt like they needed to expand. That expansion especially if it occurred just prior to covid or during covid has killed the brew pub industry, at least in that area.
Do you mean they added more brewpub locations or just increased brewong production?
I saw that in NW Indiana. We were one of the few breweries in the area that fight through Covid, kept staff, kept beer in the hands of our loyal customers. Unfortunately there were many mico-breweries and even larger breweries in the area that did not survive.
@@DanimalBeerSherpa ya, Covid was pretty tough. I feel for those breweries 🍻
The culture of the community where you open a craft brewery matters as well. We moved to DFW metro area about two years ago. We moved from Bend Oregon, a town of about 100,000 with about 30 craft breweries, from mega (Deschutes) to micro (Spider City, Bevel, many others). Bend is full of outdoorsy folks who appreciate good beer. It's just part of the lifestyle. Lots of home brewers, too. The home brewing club in Bend is massive and very active. (It's where I learned to brew. The joke is they issue three things to all new residents: a dog, a Subaru and a brewery.) Fast forward to the DFW suburb of Rockwall: very nice town, love it here, but the beer culture is not the same. Not even close. So, I don't know the brew culture of Temple at all, but I have to think that's a factor as well to running your business.
BTW, I'm just now discovering your videos and am fascinated by your journey. So many "how to brew ____" UA-cams, but you are the only guy addressing the small business owner aspect. I really appreciate what you are doing (and I have no intention of going beyond home brewing!) If ever near Temple, I'll definitely drop by.
That is a very big factor indeed. Part of the reason I opened the brewery was to help grow it. Thanks for checking out the channel! Cheers 🍻
It kinda ties into what you're saying but one thing I've personally heard and seen from at least 2-3 local breweries is the scenario of: the Two Best Friends With A Dream - style brewery popping up for two beer nerds to kinda monetize their hobby. Things go great for a while but eventually one (or both) get burnt out because their hobby is now a job and they kinda start to hate it. One (or both) leave/sell out or bring on business partners and they run off to some other venture. Often they'll look at their lease running up soon and think "do I really want to sign up for another 10 years of this?"
Absolutely true. Seen that as well.
@@tanglefootbrewing there's also a lot of older 90s-era ones that close because the owners retire/die and their kids are trust fund kids who want nothing to do with it. Or they have a ton of hidden debt and deferred maintenance, and plan on passing that off to whoever buys them out, only to have the brewery liquidated because of that. Seen both happen way too many times.
Well said. Up in Minnesota, I've seen a handful of breweries close down. Most were due to property issues, some were bad location, etc. beer is about $7-$8 a pint whereas in 2018, it was $5 a pint. I believe their is still a market for small neighborhood breweries, but at least in Minnesota, the distribution market is completely saturated like you mentioned. I really only go to one or two breweries anymore that are walking distance to my house because I can't afford dropping $20-30 Everytime I want a beer with my wife. Special occasion thing in this economy
Ya, I feel that too.
Thank you for sharing your insight from the industry! I think your take is spot on. Craft beer has always been about drinking local but I think the industry has become hyper local (as you said, pretty much everyone has a craft brewery within a few miles of them now). And, I believe the quality across the industry has gotten much stronger so chances are your local brewery is actually pretty good now. From my craft beer consumer/enthusiast perspective it seems like the breweries that are going to continue to feel the pinch the most are the "mid-sized" breweries that focus on distribution for exactly the reasons you laid out about saturation. The big guys are established and have their steady shelf space (for the most part) and the small guys are serving from their taprooms almost exclusively these days - both will be fine. The craft beer consumer is shifting. I know I tend to want to get beer from the source and often seek out breweries with food as opposed to going to any other restaurant if I'm going out for a meal.
If you can buy from the source it's always better option for the brewery, so that's cool. 🍻
Especially up in New England, where excellent breweries are EVERYWHERE, i have thought a brewer's Co-op that runs a couple of group tap rooms would be a good idea. 4-5 big tap rooms with multiple breweries selling from it, with a beer garden and food truck area for multiple trucks. Maybe also a food truck co-op?
There are a few complexes down here that have several breweries in one location, not a co-op model but it does build a "destination" type space. 🍻
hugely interesting to listen to, it makes sense sadly, here in England, we are not far off being in a saturated market. Tap rooms, bottle shops and micropubs are the way to support the producers and to drink cask beer more often. have subscribed , good content. thanks and good luck over there.
Thanks for checking it out! Cheers 🍻
I never tire from home brewing. The only drawback is the wait, but that can be a good thing. If we want it, we brew it.
Keep on brewin'!
Everything you said is 100% accurate.
In London lager rules, so craft was always a tough sell, but it forged a path but has lost ground for all the same reasons you mention here.
Now we are left with just 2 major breweries (sans Brewdog) that have dominated the landscape, ex craft; Beavertown and Camden.
The reason they excel is because their beers are tuned closer to lager and pale ale, it's a more accessible profile here. It's sad though because I used to speak very highly of Beavertown before they watered their recipes down.
It's a tough time we live in for craft beer, but I do think about the glory days... Hell it was only a few years ago.
My hope is that establishments like Craft Beer Co hang in there! And I'll forever be drinking NEIPAs, it's not a fad for me.
I have some nostalgia for the craft beer of 10 years ago too, but to be fair, there is more great beer available on the market than ever. Great time to be starting a craft beer journey. 🍻
Agree with all you said. Craft beer is sort of a luxury. In this economy there are less buyers willing to shell out for a $7 beer instead of buying the cheaper swill at the corner store. Even the stuff selling at the convenience store from the larger craft breweries has gotten expensive. $19 for a six pack! Getting ridiculous. We are well off financially and can still support our local breweries, but I can see how someone else would rather buy a 30-pack of swill for the same price as 2 craft beers or forego beer altogether.
I'm a home brewer. I've had thoughts of starting a micro brewery but have seen the market saturation and that makes starting a new business intimidating. There are still some local spots that I think would work for a new brewery but I will wait to see what the economy is like after the next election.
For now, my friends and family know they can get a good home-brew from me and not hurt their wallet.
Good luck to you!
I think distribution is the downfall for many smaller/mid breweries. I get the idea of wanting to reach a broader audience, but is it really worth it? As you said, the competition for shelf space is tough, but you also have to consider how long the beer has been sitting and what condition it will be in by the time it gets into the hands of the consumer. If someone who doesn't know much about beer buys a six-pack that has been on the shelf for a year and gives it a taste, they're going to assume the brewery makes bad beer and will never visit your location or purchase that beer again. You also have to deal with selling your beer at a lower price point for the shelf, which often leads the brewery to raise prices for pints at their brewery to make up the difference. That then causes a chain reaction for people not wanting to come in because of pricing(6-pack for $12 at the store or two pints for $16-18 at the brewery), but also why would I drive 20-45 minutes to get the same exact beer I can pick up at the corner store.
Distribution is such a double edged sword, sure you get your product into more outlets, but then if the distributor and/or retailer treat your product without due care and attention your brewery is the one that takes the flak. I know of at lease one brewery in North Carolina that refuses to distribute through anyone that can't guarantee cold storage throughout the supply chain, and requires their distributors to likewise insist on cold storage at the retail level. I have never seen their beer on a room temperature shelf as a result, it is always in the fridge.
I’m with you beer has definitely gotten more expensive. Five years ago I use to be able to get Pints (16 oz pours and on a few occasions an imperial pint about 20oz pour) for $5. Now when I go to breweries their Full pour is 12oz sometimes 10oz and will cost $8 or $9. But what’s even crazier is if I just go to the local tap house I can get those same exact beers for $5 or $6 and they are still sold in 16 oz pints. So it’s cheeper not to go to the actual brewery.
Some breweries have started offering annual mug club memberships and give you 16 or 20 oz mugs and sometimes offer special discount nights for members. But unless you go to that brewery a lot it won’t be worth joining.
Sierra Nevada use to have job ads all the time. I had a interview as a mechanic maybe 5-6 years ago. I haven't seen one ad in the past year or so and they do not pay a lot. When I heard Anchor brewing was closing in S.F. I knew things were not going a good direction.
Unfortunately pay in the industry is a natural by product of not having huge margins and is actually a large part of this discussion. Will expand on this in the future. Cheers 🍻
@@tanglefootbrewing I hear that. I wouldn't care what they paid if I was able to get on. I'd work free if I could would of been fun.
It seems like a lot of breweries come into areas that are not desirable, turn them around and then cause real-estate prices to go up. Developers should understand this but it does not seem to work out like that.
I feel like one of big issues is the business model. Of course saturation is going to play a role but what most owners don't realize is their customer base is getting older and have families. Right now, having family friendly places are the key to keeping your customer base while still attracting new ones.
You're not going to grow your business if you dont adapt and understand the market. Like you said, theres tons of craft breweries out there. Havig a bar/restaurant that has a broader appeal is more likely to make you stand out than your standard dive bar/tasting room.
In my area, Ive noticed many places are transitioning to be more family friendly and not a roudy bar that can sometimes draw in more questionable people. Focusing more on customer service hospitality like you said draws in more money and positivite reviews among peers.
Was having this conversation recently, you can’t just grab a “cheap” warehouse space and expect people to come to a bare-bones tap room like you could 10-15 years ago; it needs to be a full brewpub with quality food offerings and potential entertainment, and that, like you said, is a restaurant business that is totally different from running a production brewery business.
Around Chicagoland, the new wave are brewpubs in shopping areas where people will get a bite and a couple drinks before/after shopping or a movie, but those places have the foot traffic and naturally higher rent and overhead.
And the distribution model is super saturated here and even the big micros can only get shelf space for 3-4 beers, with most smaller ones getting no room at all (whether by distribution’s choice or brewery choice seeing it’s not worth it).
As much as I’d like to open a brewery, I have to wait and see once this market smoothes out and starts ticking up.
I see the opposite here in the DFW. The brewpubs are closing or the ones that opened after Covid barely make any beer. They are more food joint.
The most popular Breweries do not sell food. Hell most don't even have food trucks that often.
Austin's problem is oversaturation. Plus the lack of any real decent breweries. For every Blue Owl you get 10 'we have 14 taps, 11 IPAs, 1 Stout, 1 Bock, 1 Imperial Red Ale(which is really an IPA)'
thanks heaps for this :) as an australian we are seeing similar things but not nearly in as bigger numbers which is nice.
Listened to an interview from an Austrailian brewery and the taxes there seem crazy high.
@@bradmcmahon3156 damn! Fuck that.
So far we haven't really seen a lot of brewery closures in Virginia, though I wonder how much of that is because brewery taprooms can sell beers by the glass here, a law that only came in back in 2012 and saw a massive growth in breweries, we went from something like 35 to way over 350 in 10 years. In the last year or so the $7 "pint" seems to have become the norm, and I can't help but wonder if we are in a vicious cycle of ever increasing prices and ever decreasing volumes being drunk - I am not sure which comes first really, but I know that I drink less at taprooms than I used to, and it galls that my favourite bottleshop/beer bar sells locally brewed beer cheaper than the breweries' own taprooms, that makes no logical sense as taprooms don't have to deal with the markups from distribution and retail. There is though, a brewery in Richmond that has recently slashed their prices for a beer in the taproom to $3.50, initially as a trial but now permanently. Their logic is that they sell 16oz cans for $3.50 a piece, and that is a more expensive packaging format, so they should be able to make as good a profit from draft beer given its relative inexpense. I wrote about it on the blog a few weeks back, interestingly their price is close to what I calculated the price would be if we followed the price control elements of Reinheitsgebot as well as the ingredient restrictions.
The pricing is largely just "what are others charging?" and copy that/slightly increase or decrease. A lot of taprooms are subsidizing the businesses profitability with taproom sales so they need all the margin they can get. The $3.5/pint is interesting. Would be curious to see what that does for foot traffic and number of beers sold. 🤔
I think you’re right in the sense that the industry is shifting from a distribution type model to a taproom type model. I personally see that as a good thing. But at the end of the day, the quality of beer is what matters. I still see people waiting in lines for releases and breweries expanding but that’s because the quality of the beer. The strong survive. The distribution model is dead, and the money is made by brewing the beer and selling it pint by pint yourself. Craft beer is an inherently social thing so it makes sense people want a cool venue to go drink and hang out with friends at. But the venue will only take you so far, your beer is what separates you from the rest. It’s also the type of beer you make that matters. You might make the best Czech lagers in the world but the demand for those is nothing like the demand for the hazy IPA or the big imperial pastry stouts. It’s like Joe Dirt said to Kickin Wing, “it’s not what you like, it’s the consumer.”
It's too hot for lines in Texas. We need a drive thru.
Love the Joe Dirt quote 🍻
Well internet lines have replaced actual lines in most cases but the sentiment is the same. Look at Parish in Louisiana for example. All of their Ghost in the Machine variants sell out in a matter of minutes. Covid changed the industry completly. Treehouse in Mass used to have a couple hour line every single day. They don’t distribute beer at all and they just bought and redid a golf course. The only breweries closing their doors are the ones that aren’t making special beer. That’s not to say the beer is bad, it’s just not beer people are willing to drive distance for or stand in line for, or even trade for on the internet.
Ive noticed the bigger established national breweries just doing variants of one beer they're famous for. They just try to push that same beer and get that identity with one beer for the drinker now rather than making it through the brewery. examples. voodoo ranger, two hearted, victory monkey, firstone mind haze, founders, all day, the random drinker knows to just ask for "voodoo ranger" and could care less about new Belgium or whatever brewery it is. The beer nerds and enthusiasts buy hyper local and know what theyre looking for so they know their target now is that random consumer who just buys beer at gas stations or supermarkets. Other craft breweries have realized thats the only way to grow unless you get a niche following like treehouse.
If you have more beer brands you sell more beer, right??!!?!!
its also because brewiers are all breing the same IPAs. You go to any brewery with 16 taps and 14 of the taps are IPAs.
All great points
Hey buddy I agree totally with your take on this. I will also say that my wife and I must be in that minority of people who look for the good beers. Case in point we were near Madison WI this weekend and walked up to a decent brewhouse with a small taproom but as we were walking up we heard loud music. They had a bunch of customers but the band was so loud we didnt even order, we walked out and found a different place with great beer and a relaxed atmosphere. Im not looking for a concert hall experience when I go out. If thats what I want I will buy concert tickets. I know its a draw to get people in the door but I also know I didnt spend money there that night. I know that there is a big shift as you said and we actually go out at home to avoid the places with food trucks, live music or bags tournaments for that matter. I may be in the minority but I will keep doing what I like until I guess I just have to stay home and drink my own home brew (which I really like). Thanks for your insight.
This sentiment is the most appropriate. Go where you want/feel comfortable and if a place is not that you as the consumer get to choose to leave. Cheers! 🍻
My local brewpub, simply named the brewhouse, has done this often and I try to make it early before a band comes in. Usually mellow during the mid-week though.
My wife and I love visiting tap rooms and yes your right , all those things you mentioned about why people visit are true , ambiance , dog friendly a plus , food another plus . However at the core we love good beer , I’ll easily blow 60 to 80 bucks at the brewery and then pick out the brews I liked and if canned , I’ll blow another 100 on beer to go . Plus , plus , plus … win win win . That’s my experience and what I love .
I think that fewer and fewer people have 200 to go drop at the brewery
Add procimity for the win. All those things, plus within a mile of your house = Ding Ding Ding !!
What the tap room model can do though is allow customers a personable connection and experience with your products - something macro producers can’t really do to the same level of intimacy. As the market floods, the taprooms with better products (and admittedly experiences) will float above the poorer options. Such is the free market.
If you want to be a small brewing business taking on the might of massive companies at their own game (scaled production, quality and marketing) - it won’t end well.
Here in Australia it’s only relatively recently that we’ve seen the highest number of breweries ever - it was as low as 19 in the 1980’s, and funnily enough something like a few hundred at the end of the previous century when mass distribution with longish shelf life wasn’t a thing. There’s like 600 odd or so now. Not all of them will survive challenging and changing market conditions. Unfortunately being a good home brewer doesn’t automatically make you a good pro brewer / operator.
It definitely does those things. I'm going to expand on this topic more but the ultimate problem is that beer(the creating/making/packaging) is becoming less and less important and hospitality is the primary business. Which is a bummer if you like beer/own a beer company.
This is a great video. Spot on braj!
Thanks dude! 🍻
Why don't breweries in the US offer bulk fresh wort for home brewing. It's a big thing in Australia. If a brewery could figure out sanitary bagging and shipping of wort it could be a lifesaver.
It could definitely happen but I have not personally heard of demand from home brewers for this.
Sharp analysis. If anyone wonders how we got here, look to politics. Political influence is what sets the boundaries, and the result is market forces cannot accommodate changes. Example, we should be paying $2 a beer right now, but its impossible. Thanks govt!
I'm not sure how significant this is to the bottom line and how much of a trend it is, but I know that most of my friends and I have stopped going to breweries with a tap room/yard in large because there are oftentimes more kids than adults there. A lot of parents have it under control and their kids aren't issues, but it seems there are just as many who let them go buck-wild. I suspect that a lot of those families don't have the same discretionary spending they did a few years ago, so they aren't frequenting as much, while people like me and my friends (who don't have kids) have moved back to dive bars or bottle shops where there aren't as many kids. Just another factor to consider in addition to those you brought up.
These are facts. The kids thing is a polarizing subject but I always say consumers get to choose where they go and if that's a deal breaker there are other spots. It's a natural by product of how the industry grew. 20 somethings get into beer/start breweries > start families > make breweries family friendly. I lean more towards the place that is for "adults drinking alcohol" vibe personally.
Closing in Ontario Canada also.
I had to change, stay as micro brewery. Stuck with the business plan, sought advice from Llc board members, and punted
Was this recently?
Maybe people are starting to grow weary of over-priced craft beer (try $4 to $5 for a 16oz can in my neck of the woods) that has a truckload of hops in every sip. And that is mostly what these craft breweries are producing. So much of this stuff is very similar. After years of my taste buds being assaulted by massively over-hopped beer I said enough is enough. I am now very happy drinking mostly lagers, porters, and stouts. I have pretty much abandoned buying commercially produced beer -- other than Belgian Ales -- and started home brewing. I like that I have total control over the finished product and can make beer that I actually like to drink. I have two 7.5 gallon fermenters that can handle batches up to 6 gallons depending on the gravity of the wort. My brewing system is a Brewtools B40Pro that has a 46 liter tank and can handle up to 20lbs of malt. I make 5 gallon batches with mine and the cost is usually around $1 per imperial pint. I haven't bought beer from a craft brewery in over 3 years and have no plans to do so in the future.
Interesting. Is it purely a price based decision to not go to craft breweries? Genuinely curious.
@@tanglefootbrewing Yes and no. Allow me to elaborate. In my area there are 6 (yes, six) craft breweries within a 50 mile radius of where I live. Most of the beer they produce are hop bombs, which doesn't interest me at all. One brewer was advertising what they were calling an American Blonde Ale, so I bought a couple of cans for $3.95 each to try. The beer...and calling it beer is being overly generous...looked like a cloudy glass of Sprite soda. The room was filled with the smell of grapefruit when I opened the can. I took a sip and then poured the rest of that undrinkable swill down the sink. So that is part of it. I think that many so called craft brewers have completely lost their way. Producing quaffable beer just is not among their priorities. One can always say, well, you just don't like hoppy beer. Perhaps. I will say that at one point Sierra Nevada Torpedo and Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA were staples for me. I can't stand them today. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is about the most hop forward beer I can drink and enjoy.
But set aside the "truckload of hops in every sip" problem I have with most craft beer. Some local brewers are making a fair attempt at brewing their take on some great German and British beers. One brewer came out with a Hefe Weissbier that was very nice. The problem is they were selling it for $4.75 for a 16oz can. Why would I pay that when I can buy a 500ml bottle of Weihenstephaner Hefe Weissbier for $2.99 (or even a little bit less if I buy a case of 20)? Another local brewer put out a really nice English Best Bitter. But the cost -- at $3.95 for a 16oz can killed it. Not too many people are going to be in a rush to spend $23.70 for a six pack of 16oz cans of beer no matter how good it is. I think what is hurting small craft brewers the most is over-proliferation of breweries and very poor scales of economy.
And at the risk of boasting, I have become a pretty accomplished home brewer over the past few years. Local craft brewers just cannot compete with that as I am making beer that I very much like to drink for about $1 per imperial pint. The BrewFather app gives me access to more beer recipes than I could ever hope to brew and it is easy enough to tweak the ones I have tried to make them my own.
I really agree with this. Been Homebrewing for over three years and have been making really great beer after figuring out my process. I brew 3 gallon batches and can control every aspect of how I compose my recipe, plus I can brew more often with more variety of styles. In the past two months Ive brewed a spiced Belgian Dark Strong, a Belgian Tripel, a German/Czech lager mashup, a smoked Helles, a Piwo Grodziskie, an English porter with chestnuts. I could go on and on. And Although some breweries around me are trying to diversify a bit, it’s still mostly IPAs and sours. I can’t stand those styles anymore. And the cost per pint is getting outrageous. I also just love brewing and would be doing it regardless of whether or not breweries had one of every style on tap.
You have the means to do it, so more power to you. Many people can mess up if learning on their own and might not care to take the time to. It'd be wasteful for many in this economy.
@@alejandroramirez4470 And what does my decision to home brew have to do with you or anyone else?? I never even remotely suggested others should be home brewing. Seriously, you took offense over something that has nothing whatsoever to do with you. Relax, drink a beer, and chill out.
Quality also
As a commercially experienced brewer, the reasons are many.
Definitely. True for any business really, sometimes it just don't work.
!!!
Also, people are drinking less alcohol. Really, alcohol is a toxin and even moderate drinking can adversely affect one's health. When I was young, I used to drink quite a bit but young people are more health conscious now.
This is a huge factor. And to be honest, a big factor in the industry for why people want to get out. You're around beer all day, you gonna be tempted to drink it.
good thing Non-alcoholic beers are rising for people that want to try something though. I switch out for some once in a while.
Saturation and interest rates
Taxes on your product. Like you said, higher rent due to higher property taxes, insurance and to some extent is greed from the landlords. All good thoughts to ponder
Taxes are no joke either. There's always someone to pay 🙄
The hard data shows a bit of a different story.
In what way? Curious to hear your perspective.
@@tanglefootbrewing I'll try to be brief haha. I work with the industry data on a near-daily basis it paints a more positive picture than the anecdotal accounts that I keep hearing. There being a culture built around craft beer, especially in some very concentrated regions, think San Diego, Denver, and a few other cities means whenever a brewery closes it makes news and it gets amplified when you work in the industry because you are in the field every minute of your life and you know those people. The rates of closure of breweries are no different than other types of businesses. The beer segment is down all over but the craft sub-segment is remarkably steady on a national level and still growing, true, not at the same rate as like 2008-2015 but craft market is still growing at now just over 13% which means its recovered to around pre-2020 levels. From a production standpoint, we are at about 26.4 million BBL per year, and forecasters project 44.4 million BBL by 2028. I personally would be shocked if we hit that projection that just seems like such a massive leap. With the maturation of the segment in this part of the life cycle we are seeing a steady rate of openings and closes as well which is a sign of a maturing industry. Now in terms of sales in the first half of 2023 craft sales were down about 2% but it's looking like they have rebounded in the second half and that dip was really just off-premise nationally. 2024 is definitely looking like a turning point for the industry I am expecting two trends to emerge: an acceleration of mergers, strategic partnerships along with brewers straight up buying others to increase production capacity to get to that next level which seems to be the 10k bbls annually level. The second trend is more of a prediction and that is bankruptcies are going to spike because of the debt people took on from 2020-2022 to try and stay afloat during shutdowns. A lot of those loans were 3-5-year terms. I think you said you're in Texas? Texas is a difficult place for the industry because it's one of a handful of states that haven't really yet changed laws, taxes, and regulations to foster the industry. The state seems to actively work against it which leads to a lot of the regionality to many of the closings.
@bigjimmitchell thanks for the response! It got me thinking quite a bit about this. It's hard to put all the thoughts into a comment but heres my take:
Obviously it's more complicated and nuanced that this, but, the industry data has always not represented individual brewery economics. Costs, pricing, margin and sales velocity in specific areas is a bigger contributor to success or failure than total volume. Like you mentioned, leases/loans could be coming due or getting more expensive and that drastically changes the profitability of an individual business. It would be nice to get an "Average Profit Margin" data point for breweries nation wide and then we'd have a good insight into the health of the indistry.
Just my thoughts. I genuinely ppreciate the thought provoking conversation!
Thanks for actual data. There’s a lot of navel gazing in this industry.
I hate breweries that have kids running around and screaming
My take on it is there are places that are very kid friendly(builds playground for them) and places that are less kid friendly(busy beer bar with mostly adults drinking). Both should exist. Both should not have the same level of kids running around but ultimately up to the owners to dictate that 🤷
@@tanglefootbrewing heh, beer is what causes kids, I don't want the reminder;)
I agree, but it’s on the parents, too. I’ve been to many breweries where the parents are drinking and ignoring their kids while they run around and scream. Leave the kids at home.
There is a space for those and the one I prefer where there aren't any.
Same goes for dogs. If I want to have a beer surrounded by smelly misbehaving animals I’ll get drunk at the zoo.
If we un Argentina know about are taxes 😢
I hear alcohol taxes elsewhere are brutal 😬
@@tanglefootbrewing yeah, but not only alcohol taxes (8% in beer and 25% in "spirits"). The taxes are about 70 to 80% of the cost.
Craft Beer pivoted to the onsite taproom model?
No, just no
It's been that way for decades. In fact from the very begining of craft beer making.
I guess my point is the production/distribution focused brewery model of the 2010s boom is what is hurting right now and people are pivoting those businesses to capture more high margin on site sales.
Making mediocre ipas that take a ton of expensive hops and then selling them for 25$ a 4pk isn't working? The solution seems pretty obvious. Learn to make other styles and sell them for a more reasonable price...
The real package issue for a lot of breweries is the $9 6 pack at the grocery store. Hardly any margin there and sometimes loses money.
CA brewers for sure won't slow down soon because the amount of hop heads here. I like trying many styles but I'll less likely buy a pack of sour or stout. The new stuff usually ends up being IPAs but other styles can be pricey too.
Bad quality, incompetent ownership.
I love craft beer...way better than queer beer or the corn offerings.