Foam On The Range
The craft beer scene has exploded in the US in the last 20 years, and before the pandemic, there were 7500 breweries. Those brewers were churning out more than 75,000 different brews, because craft brewers love to innovate and are constantly coming up with new varietals to slake the discerning thirst of their core customers.
Unfortunately, no one knows just yet how many casualties COVID-19 will have dealt, thanks to states like Florida and Texas in which brewery tap rooms were forced to close down aside from curbside pick-up, but even in a worst-case scenario, we will still have far more beer available than we could consume.
Compounding the problem for craft brewers all along has been distribution, which is difficult to get when stores have a finite amount of shelf space, and big-box liquor stores like Total Wine are only in the nation’s largest cities. The majority of craft brewers only sell beer directly from their tiny breweries, which illustrates how COVID has been tough on them. Furthermore, with distribution locked down quite handily by the likes of AB-Inbev and MolsonCoors, makers of all the major brands, it’s just difficult to get your foot in the door.
Or beer on the shelf.
But things are taking a turn for the better for the nation’s oldest brewery, D.G. Yuengling & Son, thanks to a new distribution and contract brewing deal with MolsonCoors. Yuengling has been around since 1829, and currently has two breweries in its home state of Pennsylvania, and one in Tampa Florida.
If anything, Yuengling might also be the oldest craft beer brewer too, because they never became the large-scale mass-produced beer that rivals Budweiser, Miller, and Coors became. Its flagship lager beer has an almost cult-like following, with folks packing cases of it in their trunk for the trip back west. It reminds me of how we smuggled Coors back home to Chicago in the 1960s.
The deal with MolsonCoors, a global conglomeration of former brewers and dozens of brands all rolled into one, is a deal made in heaven. MolsonCoors has been faced with surplus capacity at its seven breweries, and in fact brews nearly all of Pabst Brewing Company’s products for them. I bet you didn’t know that.
MolsonCoors will not only distribute Yuengling across the US, thereby relieving folks of their smuggling duties, but also contract brew it to meet demand and fill the supply chain as needed. If you need an illustration of symbiosis, this would be it, because the deal benefits both.
The beer snob in me worries, though. I classify Yuengling as good but not great, a “if that’s all they have, I will drink it” kind of beer. I have seen what happens when a major brewer buys a craft brewer and tries to expand it nationwide, like AB-Inbev did with Goose Island and several others, and MolsonCoors did with Leinenkugel’s. The quality goes down as the production ramps up.
Well, and not to mention the coolness factor, but I just did mention it. So there. Your neighborhood popularity isn’t going to be enhanced when you serve Yuengling at the block party next time, because you can get it at the corner grocery.
Apparently Yuengling wants a little more limelight than cult status affords, so this deal will likely be good for them as it seeks to become a household brand name. For the average Joe Six-Pack, it will be a new product. For experienced beer drinkers, the initial “woohoo!” will wear off to “ho-hum.” And for those who like a zesty IPA and hops dancing on their tongues, we’ll probably just turn our noses. Because we snooty like that.
But the money is in the middle of the market as well as down into the lighter beer segment, where there are many more people than we beer snobs who occupy a lucrative yet small corner of the market. Yuengling wants a piece of that, and MolsonCoors has empty wort tanks and fermenters around the country waiting to be used.
Meanwhile, I’ll be looking for Yuengling in Amarillo in the months ahead, and I’ll probably buy some, if only to have some beer on hand should guests arrive who just want a basic, unassuming beer. Besides, that will allow me to keep the really good stuff for myself, the collection of brews I curate from careful shopping and travel.
Because I snooty like that.
Dr “Beer Traveler“ Gerlich
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