Two SE breweries fold

[swenocha]

Blue Pants (Madison/Huntsville, AL) and Biloxi (Biloxi, MS) announced closure this week...

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[Beer-lord]

The landscape is changing. We'll be seeing more of this.

Although unfortunate, the rumors you have most likely heard are true, as of Aug 1st, Biloxi Brewing Company, LLC has closed our doors. Our great distributor partners at F.E.B. Distributing Co., Inc. have plenty of stock to sell through, so you will still be able to get some of your favorite beers for a little while. Thank You all for your support during our short 5 years lifespan, we enjoyed talking to every one of you that visited out taproom…

And in my area, we actually have some of the very small tap rooms expanding to a second location. We're late getting more to open but I expect bumps on the way.

[RickBeer]

Those that chose to expand via distribution are having problems. Those that remain a brewpub, with only self-distribution locally, are not.

[John Sand]

Those that chose to expand via distribution are having problems. Those that remain a brewpub, with only self-distribution locally, are not.

In your area?

[swenocha]

Here's the post from Blue Pants:

Blue Pants Brewery
Yesterday at 2:30 PM ·
A Letter from the Owners:

To our loyal Blue Pants friends, fans, and customers,

Due to recent events and negotiations, we are no longer able to continue doing business at our current location. After much thought, we have decided to view this as an opportunity to pursue other ventures. This is the end of an era for our business and our family, and we are sad to see it come. However, we are excited for what the future holds and the opportunity this gives us to explore new ideas and new passions.

Our gratitude for your support over the years cannot simply be put into words. Please know that Blue Pants Brewery would not have been a success for these 9+ years without the love and support of all of you - our loyal fans. We are forever grateful for our amazing staff that we had the opportunity to work with over the years and hope that their experience at Blue Pants furthered their passion for craft beer and increased their drive to continue on in this creative industry.

Madison and Huntsville have so many hardworking breweries making delicious craft beer, so we trust that your desires for amazing product will be more than satisfied! We look forward to enjoying them all with you as customers and avid supporters in the coming weeks, months, and years. We have been lucky enough to develop several Blue Pants brands over the years that our loyal followers love, and we will be pursuing the opportunity to keep them on the shelves for awhile longer by brewing those beers under contract with some of the other amazing Alabama breweries.

The taproom will be open until Friday, August 23, when we will host one last celebration with unreasonably good beer, cocktails, live music, and food. We hope you can join us! Please stop by to see us before then if you can!

Thank you, again, for your continued love and support over the last 9+ years!

Cheers,
The Blue Pants Owners & Team
Allison “Blue” & Mike “Pants” Spratley

[swenocha]

And in my area, we actually have some of the very small tap rooms expanding to a second location. We're late getting more to open but I expect bumps on the way.

Lot of that here as well. Fortunately we haven't been on the contraction side of things for a while. Last one to close was Bosco's in 2014, and it was a brewpub/restaurant that closed their two area places and contracted back to their home base in Memphis. Growth everywhere otherwise... Tailgate now has three locations. Southern Grist, Mill Creek and Jackalope all now have two. Bearded Iris will open their second later in the year. Also, Yee-Haw (Johnson City, TN) just opened a Nashville location, marking their fourth location overall. TN Brew Works, Yazoo, and Fat Bottom all have additional taprooms in the Nashville airport (along with a retail shop for Music City Light). Of course, Yazoo and Life is Brewing (Mantra/Steel Barrel/Humulus Project/MTSU Fermentation Science Dept) greatly increased their spaces this year as well. A few new breweries opening as well (Barrique, Various Artists, Living Waters, Crazy Gnome, Bold Patriot, Tennfold, Panther Creek, etc.).

Wondering when we hit the breaking point... I can easily predict one of the above new ones that's yet to open will not last based on their negative social media buzz pre-startup, and we've had several over the years fizzle before they even opened (Broadcast, Nashvillian, etc), but no real large closures like the OP so far...

[Beer-lord]

Wait, did you say Bearded Iris?
I'm not sure if very many areas of the country can continue with this growth. The 'what have you done for me lately' is already creeping in.

[RickBeer]

Those that chose to expand via distribution are having problems. Those that remain a brewpub, with only self-distribution locally, are not.

In your area?

No, in general. I know of two that lost huge dollars until they stopped distributing, except self-distribution. Margins are awful and they end up making more and more beer trying to keep up. Brewpub is the way to go.

[mashani]

Those that chose to expand via distribution are having problems. Those that remain a brewpub, with only self-distribution locally, are not.

In your area?

No, in general. I know of two that lost huge dollars until they stopped distributing, except self-distribution. Margins are awful and they end up making more and more beer trying to keep up. Brewpub is the way to go.

Yeah. Distribution has to compete with shelf space with all the other Macro and Micro brews. There is only so much shelf space, and stores will stock what sells the most. It's a tough to compete in that space. Although qty is lower, margins are tremendously higher with brew pubs.

If I ever did that thing, I'd be running a brew pub that maybe also makes fermented vegetables and cheese and bread (IE all things fermented), and serves that stuff as light meals along with the beer. Salty/spicy fermented veggies will get people to drink more of it too

[John Sand]

Interesting views. Locally one of the smaller breweries achieved fame and fortune by distributing through supermarkets.

[mashani]

Interesting views. Locally one of the smaller breweries achieved fame and fortune by distributing through supermarkets.

This ties into shelf space I mentioned. We have a local super market chain that stocks local and localish beers on their shelves, some of it canned or bottled by the really small guys with hand written in marker or glued on color laser printed labels or kegged to fill growlers. But this is *at the expense* of breweries that are out of state who are attempting to distribute more nationally. So it is good for our locals, but bad for people trying to grow beyond that. It's "already big name" micros, the locals, and nothing in between. It is those "in between" types that are having a really hard time, putting money into expansion because they want to go big, but not getting the shelf space to make it happen. Trying to grow up too fast and burning out / running out of capital.

I've mentioned before a local brewery that did open fermentation to intentionally allow their beer to be infected by the local bugs... and thereby produced a bunch of *hot stinking garbage* that they called beer because the bugs that blow off of the Eerie lake are not the same as the bugs in Flanders, and they don't make good beer. For at least 6-8 months that breweries beers took up a bunch of shelf space at said supermarket that some good beer from somewhere else could have been, until finally they went under. But the supermarket gave them space because they wanted to support the locals.

[dbrowning]

Blue Pants simply DID NOT make good beer.
Since the very beginning they have been the weakest brewery in North Alabama.
I went in the taproom yesterday, second time ever. Just because I wont get another chance
But the beer is no better now that it was when they started.

[swenocha]

Blue Pants simply DID NOT make good beer.
Since the very beginning they have been the weakest brewery in North Alabama.
I went in the taproom yesterday, second time ever. Just because I wont get another chance
But the beer is no better now that it was when they started.

Agreed unfortunately. I worked their serving station one year at a beer fest. Served from bottles, and over carb and/or infection was the order of the day. Rarely tried them after, but cant say that I ever had anything beyond passable from them.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk