Wow, what a few months can do
Ok, so here we are! It’s nice to finally get a chance to stop and send out some communications.
First: thank you. You guys have been awesome. Thanks for sticking with us, thanks for helping us along with this new process, helping us break and fix the website, your suggestions and comments, and for your patience. We never wanted to be in the online sales business – that is never why we started this!
But we are making it slowly but surely.
There are tons of updates. But for now, let’s talk about beverages, and the industry. There are a few fascinating things happening locally and around the world.
First and foremost: every brewery is desperately trying to get their beer into cans and bottles. Those with their own canning lines (see: Aslan and Kulshan) are pumping out new cans. Both of those breweries are sending us about two new beers per WEEK. It is insane. But pretty awesome. We heard 122 West just bought a canning line, we have seen cans from Stemma and Boundary (and bottles), and Wander at a clip I have never imagined.
This means that there are LOTS of new beers available CONSTANTLY. On average we used to get 15 new beers per week, of maybe 50 new beers available. Now we are being offered 100 new beers weekly and we are trying to figure out what you all will want, while keeping a balance of styles, prices, etc. Phew.
Traditionally, in down times people get more price sensitive. We are working hard to find great beers, but also beers that anyone can afford now too. We are looking at options, and have created a tab on our website called “Specials and Mixed Packs.” We will see a lot of specials coming up because there is so much beer on the market right now. We want to be a store that anyone can afford to buy at, so we are paying special attention to this.
Kegs are getting old, too. Everywhere. That is a big problem. We are going through a decent amount of crowlers here, but we are thinking about all the restaurants that will start back up whenever the beginning of phase 2 happens. There will be some hard decisions to be made on the side of breweries, distributors, and retailers as how to deal with that cost (or some may simply choose to serve old beer, too). We have some great beers that can be cellared (which we bring out for special events) and we also have a reasonable supply of IPAs that will still be ok for a little while longer. We have bought a few kegs from local breweries in the past few months, but are just about ready to start bringing fresh beer back in.
It has been a crazy time. I have lots more to say about employees, next steps, goals and changes, safety, and other stuff, but I’ll leave you here at this point.