![]() Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Imagesīetween the competition, consolidation and distribution challenges, don’t expect to find some of your favorite beers outside the brewpub down the street. There’s a limited amount of shelf space, a limited number of draft handles.”Ī bartender pours beers at the Risky Business in Los Angeles on 21 May. “You have almost 9,000 breweries now across the United States. “Long gone are the days when you could just walk up to a distributor and say, ‘Hey, I have a beer I’d like you to sell,’” he said. “We needed a portfolio.”īut even smaller distributors like Mussetter can’t handle the exponential growth in the brewing industry. “We didn’t have anything to lose at that point,” Mussetter said. Mussetter started over from scratch in 2009 as a craft beer distributor and now carries about 55 brands. It’s extremely difficult at this point to start the next New Belgium or Sierra Nevada Trey Malone, professor Mussetter and some of the other companies spent a couple of years fighting the decision in court but eventually gave up because of the cost, said general manager Jason Mussetter. Reyes does business in California as Harbor Distributing and did not respond to interview requests.Īfter Molson and Coors merged about 15 years ago, the company cut ties with several California wholesalers, including Mussetter distributing near Sacramento. In California, distribution is dominated by Reyes, the country’s largest beer distributor and a Molson Coors partner. “I absolutely do prefer having a distributor, but if a brewery is just starting out and being forced to use a distributor that doesn’t represent them, that’s not a level playing field.” “A distributor will go and collect brands just to prevent a competitor from getting it, but there’s nothing saying they need to distribute your brand,” she said. But it’s difficult to scale up.”Įven when a craft brewer can find a distributor, that doesn’t necessarily solve distribution problems, said Wyndee Forrest, president of the Nevada Craft Brewers Association and owner of CraftHaus Brewery in Las Vegas. When you control the taps, you can control your own destiny. “It makes it difficult for small breweries to grow. “It’s challenging for a lot of small brewers to get access to market when there’s this choke point, when your only option is to go with a distributor that already has 2,000 brands,” said Bart Watson, chief economist for the Brewers Association. ![]() Joe Biden brings Bud Light beer to firefighters in Shanksville, Pennsylvania on 11 September 2020. Just four firms dominate 78.6% of the market for beer sold in grocery stores in the US, according to an investigation by the Guardian and Food and Water Watch published in July, based on an analysis of sales data: Anheuser Busch (41.6%), Molson Coors (24.3%), Constellation Brands (8.9%) and Heineken NV (3.8%). The country has far more breweries than ever before – 8,800, up from about 1,800 in 2010, a stunning fivefold increase in just over a decade – but most craft beer is limited to the region where it’s brewed. While Anheuser-Busch, Molson Coors, Constellation and other mega-companies have snapped up scores of craft breweries over the past decade, acquisitions have slowed since Constellation’s disastrous $1bn purchase – and subsequent sale for a fraction of that price – of craft brewery darling Ballast Point.īut now, consolidation within the distribution industry arguably is having an even greater effect on beer drinking in the United States. Cans of Heineken, who owns about 4% of the US market, are seen at a sampling event in New York City on 15 July. ![]()
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