Experiencing the American Craft Beer Scene Today - Part2
Over the past 8 weeks, we’ve been writing quite a few articles on our blog that point to all the changes that have been happening over the past 6 months with our KBC2.0 beers and just what it is we’re trying to do here at KBC.
We’ve also discussed a few of the changes you can expect in 2025 (as an aside, please note that as we get closer to the new year, we’ll share further details on what you can expect between Jan and May - the month our brewery celebrates 10 years of selling/pouring beers for customers).
In a break from talking specifically about KBC, Ben kicked off an article talking about some of the breweries we had a chance to visit along our East Coast tour.
He specifically referenced Trillium Brewing, Allagash Brewing Company, Oxbow Brewing Company and Hill Farmstead Brewery. I’d like to quickly point out that we actually visited (in order of visit) Treehouse Brewing Company, Bissell Brothers, Maine Beer Company, Sacred Profane Brewery & TankPub, Schilling Beer Co., Alchemist Beer, Vitamin Sea Brewing in addition to the above four (11 in total).
Going to a brewery and ordering a smattering of beers and gleaming some of their DNA via their end product is great. Even better is actually talking to the people behind the scenes. It was wonderful to meet new people (like JC Tetreault at Trillium, Jeff Pillet-Shore at Allagash and Bob Montgomery over at Hill Farmstead). It was even better catching up with friends on their own turf (Tim - thank you).
=====
Now rewind a few weeks to when we were on the US West Coast.
In the case of the New England, it was Ben, James and myself visiting all these places. With the West Coast, we were in the company of compatriots: Derrek (West Coast Brewing), Gareth + Shoji (Be Easy Brewing) and James (Black Tide Brewing).
What was the overall takeaway you ask? For a brief moment of time, I actually found myself getting sick of beer >.>
Truth be told, thinking over the whole experience, there were things about the state of industry over there that was I both jealous for and lucky we didn’t have to be worry…..just yet.
Aftermath of Corona is still keenly felt
The Seattle metro area has a population of slightly over 4million and boasts 69 (as of 2022) breweries. While that seems like an awful lot for a Japanese city, in 2017, for a brief moment of time, Seattle had the most number of breweries/brewpubs in any metropolitan area in the US at 173. As such, compared to its heyday, 60% of breweries/brewpubs have shuttered or consolidated.
Portland, another great beer city in America has similar grim stats. The metropolitan area has a population of approximately 2.5 million and once had 133 breweries/brewpubs in 2017. As of 2022, that number is now down to 70.
Note: For comparison’s sake, Kyoto, a city with 1.4 million people, had 8 breweries/brewpubs operating in 2022 (as an aside, in the last 2 years, the number has increased to 13 breweries).
The aftermath of so many closures and the fact that the overall consumption of beer in the country is declining (either because people are drinking less than before or because they are drinking different things) means that the overall mood of the industry is somewhat sombre.
Despite the above, the silver lining is that those breweries that are operating today and are successful are doing so because they are weathered and keenly understand the mantra ‘you either adapt or die’.
So what does that look like?
Soul Searching
With the industry having matured, there is almost zero illusion that anyone is trying to start a brewery anymore because they think they can get rich quick.
The interesting thing is that out of the breweries we visited in the Pacific Northwest (again, in order of visitation) - Fast Fashion, Redhook Brewlab, Single Hill Brewing, pFriem Family Brewers, Baerlic Brewing, Upright Brewing, Steeplejack Brewing Co., Wayfinder Beer, Living Häus Beer Co., Grand Fir Brewing, Great Notion Brewing, Cloudburst Brewing (12 total) - a lot of them felt comfortable with who they were. Take it our leave it.
Case1: Cloudburst Brewing
Cloudburst Brewing came onto the scene in 2016. The head brewer, Steve, used to work as a production brewer at Allagash and then Elysian. In 2015, when Elysian sold their brewery to AB-Inbev, the biggest beer conglomerate in the world, Steve walked out the door. Fast forward a few years and in 2018, Steve was awarded a bronze medal at the Great American Beer Festival for an American style wheat beer. He got up onstage to accept his award with an undershirt that read, “FUCK AB-INBEV”.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with his sentiments, you gotta respect his honesty. It also looks like he values his company being fiercely independent as well.
So how does manifest at Steve’s company? Cloudburst now sells beer directly to customers at 2 taprooms. He also sells beer to about 70 accounts. Lastly, despite maxing capacity at their original location, they have zero desire to expand.
Unlike the purposeful and beautiful breweries we came across on the East Coast, Cloudburst has a very minimalist DIY vibe. The location is a stone’s throw from the original Starbucks.
And the most important detail? Their beer is amazing and their offerings are diverse. Given that we went during hop harvest, there were a slew of fresh hop beers that were available. They decided to forego food and simply focus on making great beers. THANK YOU.
Case2: Grand Fir Brewing
Grand Fir is a relatively new entrant coming onto the Portland scene. They were established in 2022 by a wife and husband team. Whitney worked at slew of respected breweries in the Pacific Northwest (Upright, Elysian and Pelican) before becoming brewmaster at 10 Barrel Brewing, a company that was purchased by AB-Inbev in 2014. After working there for 8 years, she decided she wanted to do something new.
Her husband, Doug, is a nationally recognised chef that won a slew of awards. He most recently opened a restaurant in 2019.
When the pandemic hit, Whitney and Doug were given an opportunity to examine their life. They decided to combine their backgrounds and create a family-owned brewery that was known equally for their beers as well as their food.
Walking into the brewpub, it felt like a well-oiled operation that had been around for many years. The beers were top notch and the food was so complimentary to the tap list. The beer offerings were varied (American and German varieties). It was a great experience. THANK YOU.
Case3: Baerlic Brewing
2 friends, Ben and Rik, home-brewed beer and won numerous awards in amateur competitions. In 2014, they decided to bite the bullet and create a small scale brewery.
They opened with a modest taproom and later on expanded to a second taproom location in 2018. The idea was that they would focus on selling beer and have their 2nd location surrounded by 7 different food trucks. They nicked the location “The Barley Pod”.
During Corona, a building opened up just beside their original taproom location and so they acquired it and converted that into a new taproom. Again, sticking to their idea of focusing on the beer, they combined forces with a pizza company called Ranch Pizza - Baerlic serves the beer, Ranch the food.
After sampling and selecting hops with the fine folks at Indie Hops, we were ushered to Baerlic for a few beers and some pizza. Again, how was the beer you ask? High calibre. A varied tap list with Czech, Belgian, German and American varieties. How was the pizza? Damn Delicious. 2 slices are all that you need to fill you up (very American in that respect). Overall takeaway? THANK YOU.
(Just FYI: Indie Hops is a small company founded by 2 friends, Roger and Jim. They work with Oregon State University to fund a hop breeding and research program. They then strike a deal with local Oregon farmers to grow those unique hops and instead of asking big companies to process the hops into pellets, they built Oregon’s first small scale pelletizer so that they and the farmers can then sell directly to breweries. It also helps that they are 2 great guys and very easy to work with).
Closing words
Again, for context of the Seattle and Portland brewery visits, they happened amongst the craziness of sampling over 200 lots of hops of more than 40 different hop varietals. I was jealous of the fact that after having your nose bombarded with tons of different aromas, it was comforting to know that we would be able to walk into any brewery/taproom in either city and could give our noses a brief respite by enjoying some calmer, non-IPA styles that are still top tier level quality. It was also exciting (and jealous inducing) to be able to ask for hoppier beers knowing that the vast majority of the hops in them grew only a few hundred kilometres away and therefore the quality of ingredients they were using in their beers was extremely fresh and therefore very impactful in ways that are difficult to replicate in Japan since by the time the hops arrive, it’s already been a few months since they were processed and bundled at the source.
When I last visited these 2 cities over 12 years ago, it seemed like a lot of places were dealing with the struggles of trying to brew ever more beer in order to satiate what seemed like endless demand (in 2012, there were 2670 breweries/brewpubs nationwide in the US). Despite all the closures I mentioned earlier in my article that happened off the back of Corona, the number of breweries in the US has only increased with each passing year. With the saturation of the market (as of 2023, there are 9906 establishments in the country), the new reality is that growth is no longer guaranteed. The best thing you can do to “succeed” seems to depend on you needing to re-evaluate what “success” means as it no longer equates to “having a big brewery”. For newer entrants, this is going to be an easy state of mind to adjust to. For breweries that are already in business and are already operating at quite a big scale, it is going to be a difficult position for them to shift to.
When KBC poured its first beer in the country, there were 250 breweries/brewpubs. As of 2023, there were 803. We still have a long way to go in Japan before our market also becomes saturated. As such, the level of camaraderie that we are witnessing now between breweries, I hope, can continue for many more years to come *knock on wood*.
