Micro and Nano Brewers Sales question

[gunner11]

A question for those that are brewing and selling their beer (micro and nano brewers).

If you are not in a three tier state how have you gone about the distribution of your beer? Do you market to large chain type stores? Bars? Brewpubs? Mom and pop stores? how have you gotten your product in front of these retailers? Any answers would be appreciated.

Those of you in a three tier state, how did you market to the distributor? What are the negotiations on price, product placement, etc. like?

Thanks,

Gunner

 

[gregpio85]

See: ProBrewer.com: An Online Resource Serving The Beer Industry

It's a website specifically for professional brewers, their forums are great for this sort of info.

I don't sell, but have talked to a few of the brewers in IL. Illinois has self distribution up to 15,000 barrels, then a 3 tier system after that.

One self distributor purchased an econo box truck and used that.
One working within the 3 tier system had a seperate business entity that was owned by the owner's wife, then they would walk their beers from the brewery to the "distributor's" building next door.
A guy in a homebrew club had a recipe of his contract brewed and then signed up with a distributor. As I recall, it didn't take all that long for him to find a distributor. They took what they the retail price was going to be and negotiated down to a manufacturer-to-distributor price.

Just goes to show, there's a million ways of doing things. If you want to self distribute, you need to realize you're only going to make a couple cents per bottle, and if you spend all your time driving kegs around, you're not going to be able to take advantage of the economies of scale that a distributor can.

 

[gunner11]

Thanks for the link and post.