Matt Swihart calls it cautious optimism. The owner and Brewmaster for Hood River’s Double Mountain wants to grow and be able to provide opportunities to his staff, grow their careers and get equity.
”[But] we’re not trying to expand into 40 states,” he points out. Swihart has seen fast, expansive territory reaches while working at Full Sail, and he knows it won’t work for him.
”They were looking for a very large footprint across the United States. And it really kind of bit them,” he said. “It made a giant impression and I don’t want to have to compete with those guys.
”If I’m a volume player chasing six-pack sales around the country, I didn’t want to do that.”
Instead, the goal for Double Mountain — which opened in 2007 — is to be in beer bars and sell a few beers in bottles at a higher margin while being known as a quality producer.
”I’m OK being a small fish small pond,” Swihart said.
Yet the push-and-pull of balancing between wanting to stick to a core of brands but also be new and fresh to consumers is always on Swihart’s mind.
”That’s that’s the ebb and flow, and that’s the tension,” he pondered. ”You look at Sierra Nevada … brands have been around for a long time and they haven’t jumped all over the place and they have this consistent message and look. I want to be around a hundred years and want my kids and grandkids to run the place at some point without being super flighty.
”You hear a lot of talk of people abandoning the idea of flagship and consistent brands. We’re trying to march between supporting what we’ve already created … staying true to the few beers that we make and having a line of beers that we can play with and see what sticks.”
Double Mountain replaced its main IPA that did well for eight years after seeing a slow decline in sales and released a newer IPA to watch sales climb again.
“OK. Is that going to stick? Or do I have to change that,” he pondered. ”It’s tricky.”
For newer breweries, even debating the focus between being draft or a package brewery has a very immediate impact.
Double Mountain’s model was to look at 5-10% growth in a year.
”That’s been our general trajectory. We never wanted to be a national player,” Swihart said, mentioning that being in three states is a good territory reach. ”I think that’ll pay off over time.”
Swihart still feels slow and steady is still the best way for consistent growth and not taking on massive debt.
”I own most of my own company so it makes me flexible, and it makes me weather flat growth or even a little decline,” he said. ”When it picks back up I’m ready to go and I’m not over-leveraged.
”I don’t have to answer to an investment or a corporate group because they need a certain amount of return. Or a banker pulling my loan because I’m not making payments.”
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