How breweries are coping with the changing market

Reports from West Virginia breweries concerning the changing market highlight the current situation they find themselves in — and how they are coping.

UPDATE 4/1: Abolitionist Ale Works has added cans. Details below.

Draft is dead right now

Not surprisingly, with all the bars, restaurants, and taprooms closed to on-premise business, draft sales have dried up. Yes, there is still a long list of growler filling outlets operating in most part of the state, but sales are slow.

Big Timber Brewing’s founder Matt Kwasniewski sums it up succinctly. “Draft is dead right now, so it’s really just IPA, Porter, and Logger Lager cans,” he says. “Hopefully package sales keeps going and picks up back to normal, if not better.”  

While the demand for canned beer is holding up better, Kwasniewski finds it is still quite subdued. For its canned beer distribution around the state, Big Timber depends on a group of beer distributors. Matt finds that orders from his distributors have been in a sort of “wait and see” status, which has translated into smaller orders. He’s hopeful that will change. Big Timber’s Key Lime Gose will be released soon, and Matt hopes some of it will get out there into the market through his distributors.

Bill Heckel, majority owner at Greenbrier Valley Brewing, concurs with Matt about the slowdown. “We’re working on off-premise sales and getting placements, but it’s nerve wracking waiting to hear back from distributors. I understand that they are sitting on a large quantity of product that has little to nowhere to go.”

Weathered Ground Brewery, which self-distributes its beer and does not use beer distributors, has seen a similar slowdown in its customer’s orders.

“We are continuing with our Charleston/Huntington route tomorrow and it’s looking OK but not great,” says Weathered Grounds Sam Fonda. While their carryout business at the brewpub has been strong, distro has definitely slacked off. Last week, their Morgantown run was cancelled because there weren’t enough orders to justify it, and almost all of their Beckley, Fayetteville, and Lewisburg customers have stopped buying, at least temporarily.

That doesn’t mean that Fonda is cutting off brewing new beers though.

“We do have a big IPA that is going in cans soon,” Sam says. “I hate to dry hop this beer and worry about it aging, but luckily we only did seven barrels of it and luckily this curbside business has been a huge hit. We should be able to sell it all before it goes stale.”

If you can’t sell it now, barrel age it

Fonda says his focus is definitely shifting to beers that can be put in oak barrels and to lagers and other beers that can sit in tanks, kegs and cans and age well. He has halted plans to brew more IPAs for a while.

Bridge Brew Works in Fayetteville is another brewery that is putting an emphasis on barrel aging during the shutdown. The brewery is planning to put some Shay’s Revenge Stout in Smooth Ambler Bourbon barrels to age for release next winter. They are also lagering a Maibock, which they hope to release at some point later this spring.

Just prior to shutting down their taproom completely last week, Bad Shepherd head brewer Ross Williams said the brewery had turned its recent production focus to making lagers, to an extent it had never done before. On the list were a Maibock, a Dunkel, and another version of their Mexican lager: Cerve Say What. Release dates are expected sometime in late spring or early summer.

Breweries move to more cans

With canned beer sales holding up better than draft, more breweries are seeking to increase their can availability. Several in West Virginia are doing it with small, manual canning systems. And some, as with crowlers, are doing it on demand. Larger breweries, such as Big Timber with large automated systems, also hope to do a greater variety of beer in cans.

Matt Kwasniewski says he might try to package some other beers they have not canned before, if they can get the cans. That underscores a growing issue around the country. With draft sales slow-to-dead, distribution breweries are shifting to more canning. This puts a backlog in can availability from manufacturers until they can catch up with orders. Pre-printed cans, like those used by Big Timber, must be ordered in very large quantities. Shrink-wrapped cans, which Big Timber uses for its small batch products, can be purchased in smaller quantities, but still take a good bit of time to produce them.

Small-batch canning that does not use a preprinted or shrink-wrapped can is a quicker turnaround, but you still need a supply of unprinted cans plus your paper labels. Breweries can get the sticker-style labels printed pretty quickly and often locally. This allows them to begin canning beers that previously were only available as draft. With many breweries here and elsewhere moving toward more canning of this style, at least temporary bottlenecks in the can supply chain could occur.

Abolitionist adds canned packages

Abolitionist Ale Works taproom, which had been closed, will open for pick-up this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (4/3-5) from Noon-8 p.m. All product is available in sealed cans to go. 4-packs of 16-oz. cans, single cans, and Crowlers. Full menu is on their website and everything can be ordered online through their merchandise store.  Announcement on future operating hours will come soon.

Morgantown’s breweries are canning

Both of Morgantown’s breweries use blank cans and are looking to up their canning capacity and can sales. Morgantown Brewing is offering its entire draft list in cans to-go — when they have cans to fill. “We’re currently out of cans and growlers,” Chris DeFazio, MBC’s co-owner, told Brilliant Stream in a message today. He said the brewery expects to receive 150 growlers today and about 1,000 empty cans sometime this week. They’re seeing lead times definitely longer than normal.

Morgantown Brewing has plenty of beer ready to go, they just need packages to sell it in. For instance, DeFazio says they are releasing two mixed culture, fruited sours this week. “One is called Listen to Whitney Houston, which is conditioned on blackberry, pomegranate, and red raspberries,” he says. “The other is Listen to Shania Twain. It’s conditioned on peaches, mangoes, and pineapples.” With fun beers like that coming out, you can see why he is going to need a good supply of cans and growlers quickly.

The situation at Chestnut Brew Works shows an another side of needs for ramping up canned beer selection. “We’re really only able to can Your Best Hoption and Halleck, since we have labels for them,” says Chestnut’s founder Bill Rittenour. “But we’re considering a label printer and larger canning machine to expand our canning capabilities.”

Fonda has Weathered Ground canning several brands of beer for the first time, so he can get them into the market. Released today was his Enniskillen Dry Stout for the first time in 16-oz.cans. Coming very soon is Blissful Weiss, also for the first time in a can. And as mentioned above, he will soon can the big NEIPA, Worth 2 Licks.

Even though shut down at the moment, Bad Shepherd Beer Company shared some good news. “We are looking forward to receiving a shipment new cans and labels in the next week or so,” Ross Williams said, adding that he hopes to be canning more when the brewery resumes sales. It appears that one positive outcome from all of this mess could be West Virginia beer fans will have many more options for purchasing local beer in cans when things get back to normal.

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