As per usual, I end the year with a pictorial review of the breweries and taprooms that I have visited during the previous twelve months. While the situation with respect to COVID-19 did improve during 2020, the virus did hang around, restricting my travel for significant parts of the year. While personal travel was a little easier this year, professional travel to academic conferences continued to be highly restricted. With respect to visiting breweries and taprooms, I did visit 22 in 2021, slightly less than the 26 that I visited in 2020. In a non-COVID 19 year I typically visit over 60 breweries/taprooms.
Before providing more statistics on my 2020 visits, let me explain the difference between a brewery and a taproom. The difference is quite simple. A brewery is an establishment where beer is produced, whereas a taproom is an establishment owned by a brewery that sells but does not produce beer on-site.
Of the 20 breweries that I visited, 10 were in my home state of Ohio and 10 were in other states. Outside of Ohio I visited breweries in Indiana (4 visited), Michigan (3), Colorado (2), and Texas (1). Most of the Ohio breweries that I visited were in the northwest Ohio region, the two exceptions being in Cincinnati. Both of the taprooms that I visited were in northwest Ohio. Of the 12 Ohio establishments that visited, six were ones that I visited for the first time. Of the 10 non-Ohio breweries that I visited, all but one were new visits – the exception being Hop & Sting Brewing Co. in Grapevine, TX. In the lists below, establishments that I had visited before are indicated in italics.
As per usual, I have posted one photograph from each of the breweries/taprooms that I visited during 2021. I hope you enjoy them. At the time of writing, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu , Director-General of the World Health Organization , is optimistic that COVID-19 will be “beaten in 2022“. I hope that his optimism is well-founded and that we can all look forward to a happy and healthy New Year.
Regular readers of this blog will know that I travel quite a bit and that in the course of these travels I take the opportunity to visit breweries. In 2018 and 2019, I visited 66 and 63 breweries respectively. For 2020, I had set myself the target of visiting 52 different breweries – an average of one per week. But as the famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns, so astutely observed in his 1795 poem, To A Mouse, “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”. Translation – “the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry”. And so it was, with arrival of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020. Lockdowns, social distancing, and travel restrictions meant that my visits to breweries were severely curtailed. I did manage to visit 22 breweries/taprooms by the time the lockdown came into effect in mid-March. During the remainder of 2020, however, I was only able to add another four breweries/taprooms to bring my total to 26 for the year.
Thanks to the availability of COVID-19 vaccines and the easing of lockdown and other restrictions, however, I have started to travel again. Last month. my wife and I had a four-day trip that took us to Cincinnati, OH and Indianapolis, IN. While we did some sightseeing on the trip, for me it was an opportunity to visit some breweries. Our first stop was Cincinnati, where we spent the night and visited a childhood friend of my wife and her husband. After dinner and a pint of Belhaven Scottish Ale at the Cock and Bull Public House, we spent the remainder of the evening at the city’s March First Brewing. Billing itself as Cincinnati’s only brewery, cidery, and distillery, I was curious about its name – March First. Was it named that to honor the fact that the state of Ohio had been founded on March 1, 1803? Apparently not. As it turns out, the brewery’s name reflects the struggle that the owner had in coming up with a name. When completing some paperwork for the state of Ohio, the owner had to fill in the name of the company. Not yet having identified one, he looked around for a few seconds and saw from a wall calendar that it was March 1 – hence the name was selected.
March First Brewing, Cincinnati, OH
The next day, my wife and I picked up our oldest daughter and her boyfriend, both of whom live in Cincinnati, and headed for Indianapolis, IN. This was a trip that we had talked about doing last summer, but COVID-19 meant that it never happened. It had been a number of years since I had been in Indianapolis, and I was keen to explore it again. It is a city with a burgeoning craft beer scene; it was recently ranked by Real Estate Witch as the second best metro area in the country for beer drinkers. Quite an accolade to live up to.
On our first evening in Indianapolis, we visited Ellison Brewing Co. It was a beautiful evening and we enjoyed several beers on the brewery’s patio. During the evening, we had the opportunity to have several conversations with our waitress. We learned a bit about the brewery’s history and the post-COVID-19 challenges of hiring staff. Ellison Brewing Co, was founded in 2015 by Iraq War Veteran Aaron Hansen who opened a combined brewery/distillery in Lansing, MI. The space occupied by Ellison in Indianapolis previously housed Tow Yard Brewing. When Tow Yard filed for bankruptcy and closed its doors in 2018, Hansen seized the opportunity to acquire the space and expand his brewery’s footprint to Indianapolis.
Ellison Brewing Co.,
The patio of Ellison Brewing Co.
From the perspective of an Indianapolis resident, Ellison Brewery is an example of an “out-of-town” brewery that has opened its doors in their city. This appears to be a growing trend within the craft brewing industry. Earlier this year, Dogfish Head Brewery of Milton, DE announced plans to open a craft brewery in Miami, FL. When I was in Indianapolis, I noticed that Goodwood Brewery of Louisville, KY were in the process of converting a space that would give them a presence in the city. This expansion of what I term “branch breweries” is an interesting development within the craft brewing industry (maybe a topic for a future blog entry). As a footnote, since I returned from Indianapolis, the Goodwood Brewery has opened its doors and is serving pints to thirsty locals and visitors alike.
Goodwood Brewery of Louisville, KY are opening an establishment in Indianapolis, IN
The next day, after our visit to Ellison Brewing Co, we visited three other Indianapolis breweries – Metazoa Brewing Co., Sun King Brewing Company, and St. Joseph Brewery & Public House. I was particularly looking forward to visiting Metazoa, In February 2020, I had met the owner of Metazoa, Dave Worthington, at the Beer Marketing and Tourism Conference in St. Petersburg, FL. Dave had told me that if I ever found myself in Indianapolis to drop in and say “Hi”. I emailed Dave about a week before we left for Indianapolis and arranged a time to visit Metazoa. Dave, who is a very busy individual, was extremely generous of his time and with beer-in-hand gave us a tour of his brewery’s space and also answered all the questions that we had about his experience in the industry. I will not say too much about Metazoa here (the next blog entry will be dedicated to Metazoa). Suffice to say that owner Dave Wotherspoon has a passion for animals and donates 5% of Metazoa’s profits to various animal welfare causes. Metazoa served as a reminder of the generosity of America’s craft brewing industry. Data from the Brewers Association showed that in 2016 America’s 5,600+ craft breweries raised $73.4 million for various charitable causes.
Dave Worthington (left), owner of Metazoa Brewing Co., gave us a tour of his brewery space
Metazoa Brewing Co. donates 5% of its profits to various animal charities
After Metazoa, we took to the streets and walked to Sun King Brewing Company. Established in 2009, Sun King is the second largest craft brewery in Indiana (3 Floyds in Muncie is the largest). Sun King was also our dinner stop. Inside the large Sun King Tasting Room is La Margarita, a Mexican-inspired food vendor, that has several locations throughout the city.
Sun King Brewing Company in downtown Indianapolis
After Sun King, we took an Uber to St. Joseph Brewery and Public House. As the name might suggest, this brewery is in an old Catholic Church, and provides an excellent example of adaptive reuse. Coming across a craft brewery in an old church is not an uncommon experience. Indeed, a quick foray into the recesses of my memory, revealed that St. Joseph was the sixth craft brewery in an old church that I had visited.
St. Joseph Brewery & Public House was established in 2015
Entrance to Sr. Joseph Brewery & Public House
Inside St. Joseph Brewery and Public House
So that was my trip to Indianapolis. It was good to be back on the road again. It was nice to spend a couple of days being a beer tourist. Notwithstanding any more travel restrictions I hope to make a few more trips similar to this throughout the remainder of 2021.
Back in February, I received a telephone call from Kevin Lynch, a reporter from the Daily Record, a newspaper in Wooster, OH. Kevin was writing a story about the beer can shortage that was the result of the Covid-19 pandemic. We’ll get back to that story in a minute, but let’s say a few words about the history of the beer can.
The world’s first beer can made its debut on January 24, 1935. On that day, the Krueger Brewing Company of Newark, NJ test marketed the beer can in Richmond, VA. Two different beers were available to thirsty Richmonders – Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer. The initial run was only 2,000 cans, but production increased after beer drinkers provided positive feedback on the new vessel. These first cans were made by the New Jersey-based American Can Company.
The world’s first beer cans contained Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer.
Compared with today’s cans, the first beer cans were heavy and had to be opened with a churchkey opener. With the passage of time, however, the humble beer can has evolved. In 1935, cone top cans appeared. These were followed by pull-tab cans in 1962, and stay-tab cans in 1975.
In recent years, canned beer has become increasingly popular among craft beer drinkers. This popularity has been driven by a number of factors. Cans can be taken where bottles are prohibited – for example the pool or the beach. They are also lighter than bottles, making them more portable and hence a preferred choice for outdoor activities such as hiking. Aluminum cans are also highly recyclable, more so than glass. According to data from The Aluminum Association, “nearly 75 percent of all aluminum produced in the U.S. is still in use today”. But what about taste? Does a beer in a can taste as good as the same beer in a bottle? A blind taste test conducted in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2016 demonstrated that beer drinkers could not tell the difference between canned and bottled beer.
The recent Covid-19 pandemic has created a demand for canned beer that was both unprecedented and unanticipated. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that Covid-19 forced many craft brewery taprooms to temporarily close. When they reopened, they had to do so at reduced capacities. Bars and restaurants, that sold craft beer, had similar restrictions placed upon them. Unable to sell their beer to taproom customers or to bars and restaurants, craft breweries had to either sell their beer on a to-go basis or via supermarkets and liquor stores. In either case, this meant that beer which was formerly put in kegs now had to be put in cans. The result – a significant surge in demand for aluminum cans.
Earlier this year, I listened to a webinar presentation that Bart Watson, Chief Economist of the Brewers Association, made to the Economic Roundtable of the Ohio Valley. Bart presented a number of interesting statistics during his presentation, one of which was the growing popularity of cans as the preferred packaging for craft beer. In 2016, only 16% of craft beer (measured in dollar value) was sold in cans. By 2019, this percentage had increased to 38%, and by 2020 to 50%. So while Covid-19 created an increase in demand for beer cans among craft breweries, that demand was already rising steadily on a year-by-year basis. Indeed, as far back as 2015, a shortage of cans was already creating challenges for some craft brewers.
Covid-19 demonstrated how quickly demand for aluminum cans can increase. In March 2020, retail sales of canned drinks was up 24%, compared with March 2019. For individual breweries the shift to cans has been dramatic. For example, in 2109, draft beer accounted for two-thirds of sales for Wolf‘s Ridge Brewing in Columbus, OH. As a result of Covid-19, cans now account for two-thirds of Wolf Ridge’s sales. Prior to Covid-19, Booze Brothers Brewery in Vista, CA canned about 35 percent of its beer; that increased to 80% as a result of the pandemic.
Due to insufficient production capacity, it was not easy for suppliers to meet such an uptick in demand. This mismatch between supply and demand meant that the United States market was, according to one estimate, short 10 billion cans in 2020. As a result, some American companies looked to other countries, such as Brazil and Mexico, to import cans. In Brazil, in sharp contrast to the United States, Covid-19 resulted in a drop in demand for cans. This is because canned drinks in Brazil are upscale and are sold almost exclusively in bars and restaurants which, of course, shut down.
Increase in Retail Sales of Cans in First Six Months of 2020 (Compared with Same Month in 2019). Source: IRI-Wall Street Journal
The can shortage created significant challenges for craft breweries across the United States. During a shortage, it is the larger customers (Pepsi, Coke, Anheuser Busch, etc.) whose orders get prioritized. And when demand exceeds supply, prices can go up, which is exactly what many craft breweries, such as Barrel House Z in Weymouth, MA, experienced. And, it was not uncommon for breweries to run out of cans before the next shipment arrived.
Breweries who anticipated the can shortage, and had the necessary cash, stocked up on cans – many did not have the capital (or space) to do so, however. Those that did, were better able to weather the Covid-19 can shortage. Most small brewers purchase their cans through brokers, some of whom changed the terms of business in response to Covid-19. Minimum shipment sizes increased, which was problematic for smaller breweries. Some brokers, who previously provided free storage space for cans, no longer did so. As a result, some breweries had to sublet space to store cans. Sun King Brewing in Indianapolis, IN rented warehouse space four miles from its brewery, while East Brother Beer Co. in Richmond, CA sublet space from a co-tenant in its building. Unanticipated storage were not the only additional costs incurred by breweries who shifted from selling beer on-site to canning beer for to-go sales. Other costs included increased packaging costs and higher wages for former tipped bar staff who now assisted with the canning process. Additionally, canning beer requires a canning machine. Most breweries, including many who can beer, do not own a dedicated canning machine. Instead, they utilize a mobile canning machine which is provided by an independent firm. Mobile canning is used by breweries who do not have the money or space for a dedicated on-site canning machine, or who do not wish to can large volumes of their beer.
When will the can-demic end? One forecast suggests that craft brewers may have to wait until August 2021 for a steady supply of cans to be available. Ball Corporation, the world’s largest manufacturer of aluminum cans, will open new production facilities in Glendale, AZ and Pittson, PA in the spring and summer of 2021 respectively. In the meantime, newly opened breweries, hoping to can their beer, may have to exercise patience as many brokers are not taking on new accounts. The pressure to supply existing accounts is simply too strong. In extreme cases, there was a fear that the can shortage may result in some breweries going out of business. In a can shortage advisory issued to its members in July 2020, the Brewers Association warned that the “can shortage may threaten the ability to survive the pandemic for some craft brewers.” Recent data released by the Brewers Association suggests that the number of breweries that closed due to Covid-19 may not be as high as first anticipated during the early days of the pandemic. This is good news. And as increasing numbers of people get vaccinated and States ease up on capacity restrictions for bars and restaurants, some of the pressure on cans is likely to start to dissipate.
