I think he was just less aware of the major differences between BBC and the vast majority of craft breweries. He kept touting the number from the merger press release that combined they would only have 2% of the beer market as proof that BBC was still independent and craft. Obviously overlooking the fact that the reason size matters for craft definition has less to do with market share, but that at some point, your volumes produced take you out of craft and into industrial production.
I agree that DFH has either (1) stagnated and/or (2) moved to the boring middle over the past 5 - 10 years. Last beer I bought of theirs was probably the Noble Rot, and that was at least 4, if not 8, years ago.
Just to flesh out the local issue with Weyerbacher:
Their taproom is yuuge off a major interstate so getting to-from is a bit of a thing even if you’re local. They’ve changed the PA laws to allow taprooms to essentially function as bars now. They can serve their beer on premise and do growler/crowler fills and cans to go, PLUS serve wine & Liquor as long as it’s made in PA, and have live music and a full kitchen. There is a much stronger drive for locals to go to the smaller places, many of whom also deliver higher quality beer.
A lot of the local craft breweries aren’t equipped with commercial kitchens…so they do food trucks and have responsive food delivery options. It’s pretty darned nice. If you don’t like the particular featured truck, there’re usually menus for delivery within easy reach.
Well, it took much longer than I thought, but Modern Times is closing a number of locations. Rumor on the street is that their bank is repossessing a bunch of their equipment. They have been overleveraged for years, and when I last checked in 2019, had a negative net worth.
In other news, Alan Sprints at Hair of the Dog is retiring and closing his brewery - probably sometime this summer. He really is the heart and soul of the brewery, so closing makes some sense.
Unsurprised re MT. Some of their IPAs and stouts are a nice change of pace from what I typically drink in PDX, but Ruse and few others are just as good or better (and local, but not as centrally located).
I’ve yet to visit HoD. May try to swing by before they close.
I’m interested to see if other breweries that followed MT’s path - and I can think of a very prominent PDX brewery who recently opened two Seattle taprooms - are faring.
This is the new model - open a bunch of satellite tap rooms. There always seem to be a big overhead cost to this and it tends to piss off others in the market that may want to sell your beer. I think most places in PDX now have at least two locations in town, and several have many more than that. I haven’t seen anyone else’s financials (besides MT), but I heard from someone who is better tied in than me that there is a lot of debt out there…
As much as I’d love for you and Kevin to open a joint Seattle taproom, I can’t imagine that model works well in the long run for anyone these days. Keep the beer local. It makes travelling more fun.