• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • About Craft Brewing Business

Craft Brewing Business

Professional Insight, Unfiltered

Craft Brewing Business Craft Brewing Business
  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment & Systems
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • COVID-19

People’s Brewing stakeholder talks about obstacles in first major expansion

July 25, 2013Chris Crowell

Craft beer marketing
Is it time for you to boost production? Or does it make more sense to stand pat?

Craft Brewing Business is all about providing tips, techniques and insight for growing or improving your brewing operation. Whether you are a fledgling brewery or have decades of experience, there are always new decisions to make and opportunities to seize. One of the most-pressing business decisions for many brewers today concerns production: When is it time to expand? And how? And why?

In this great blog post, Kurt Althof, a business development and marketing professional who is a minority stakeholder in People’s Brewing Co., shared some of his thoughts on this critical decision-point. From the post titled “Growth Challenges”:

For the most part brewers are able to command their price and sell all the beer they produce.  So the only way to increase sales, revenue and profits is to make more beer. The trouble is it is expensive to make more beer and going from a few hundred barrels of production a year to a few thousand is a major jump and not one that is easy to make.  Another consideration is that to get to that next level even if making more beer isn’t the problem, you will be faced with the risk of opening new markets.  This means you are either going to have to increase production and go for it, or you might have to take distribution away from your bread and butter markets, risking frustration, in order to test the market outside your comfort zone.

There are risks in any strategy, but Althof recommends the latter before jumping straight into doubling production, stating “I’ve found that scarcity usually increases demand so long as you don’t make them go to long without satisfying all the demand.” Althof also noted that People’s is attempting its first major increase in production, going from 3,500 bbls to nearly 6,000 bbls with the potential for more.

It will be interesting to see how well they are able to get through the extra inventory.  If they stay on the sales pace they are currently on it shouldn’t be too hard and the next challenge will be what to do next because they are out of space at their current facility.

huss-brewing-papago-brewing
The all-new Papago Brewing taproom opens Friday
Ken-Hartill-01
Migration Brewing hires distribution veteran to manage its quest to 20,000 bbls
fifty west fleet feet
Fifty West Brewing teams with Fleet Feet to open a running shop at the brewery
WBD_GeneralStore-33
Cool expansion idea: Westbound & Down Brewing opens a general store in its brewpub

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jamie says

    July 25, 2013 at 7:09 pm

    Nice article and insight on how a craft brewery needs to balance its inventory, production and sales.

    Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Latest News

  • Karben4 Brewing to relaunch Ale Asylum brand
  • Caius Farm Brewery opens in Branford, Conn.
  • Colorado’s Resolute Brewing shares its 2022 year in review (rebrands and invests in local malt)
  • 4 steps to understanding the filtration process in craft beer

Sign up for our newsletter

unsubscribe from list

Most Popular Today

Recent Features

  • Koga-brothers-karben4Karben4 Brewing to relaunch Ale Asylum brand
    March 20, 2023
  • 4 steps to understanding the filtration process in craft beer
    March 20, 2023
  • newbelgium_2023_wildnectar-shopping-basket_family_IMG_2Beyond beer: Examples of craft breweries exploring canned cocktails
    March 16, 2023
  • brooklyn 35 featureBrooklyn Lager turns 35 and more beers to know this week
    March 14, 2023
  • Backwoods Brewing to open a 19-acre resort called Party Acres in the Columbia River gorge this May
    March 13, 2023
  • Distribution update: NYC’s Alewife Brewing now sells in eastern Pennsylvania + news from Maui, Urban South and more
    March 13, 2023

Footer

  • Email Newsletter Sign Up
  • About Craft Brewing Business
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise on Craft Brewing Business
  • Media Kit Download
  • Privacy and Terms

© 2023 · CBB Media LLC