Heading into 2019, Seventh Son Brewing was hoping for 50-75% in wholesale growth but came in at 30%.
”It’s tough out there but we are still very happy with the progress we have made,” said owner Colin Castore and Brewmaster Colin Vent in an email to Brewer.
Setting goals and looking to challenge your brewery staff to help reach those goals is a great way to set a mark to reach for. Learning from not getting to those goals is also something that can be positive.
“We are again going to focus on growing our wholesale by 50% [for 2020] and keep ourselves open to the idea of another taproom as well,” the Seventh Son team said, the brewery opened a Sour/Wild taproom and brewery — Antiques on High — which was a 2019 goal. “We are slowly learning how to communicate with our wholesaler better and have opened up some new self-distribution markets as well.”
For Santa Monica Beer Works CEO Scott Francis being able to offer health and dental insurance to employees was a long-time goal reached this year.
“It took us a while to get there, but it was an incredibly satisfying moment,” he said. Also, adding the space next door to the brewery was something that was always dreamed about, but actually being able to accomplish that was a huge achievement for the brand as well.
Although a complete focus on its home territory of Southern California caused delays to the expansion of the brand into other territories despite the demand, Francis said a recent expansion into Nevada — and with sights on several other states in 2020 — SMBW is poised for strong growth ahead.
In 2018, Freetail set its sights on one goal for the following year: To be the No. 1 brewery in San Antonio.
”In order to be effective in outer markets, you have to make sure your base is solid and growing,” the management team said in an email. ”We wanted there to be a flag in the ground stating ‘We are San Antonio’ with our bat flying proudly.”
The brewery — who will be one of the “hosts” of the 2020 Craft Brewers Conference — has been working with its local distributor, Silver Eagle, to own the floor in HEB stores through the area and continue to push for on-premise draft share during 2019.
”In the last year we were able to grow over 16% in HEB alone,” they said. ”As we continue working towards this goal, we continue to work on our long-term goals of moving into the Austin and Houston markets and expanding our new distribution footprint in the Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi, and El Paso.”
Looking to 2020 Freetail is pushing for 10-15% overall growth across Texas. Part of that growth could come by improving the visibility of its brewpub location that is consistently putting out new beers as well as quality food.
”As always we’d love to bring more people into both our pub and our taproom by complimenting our wares with events that highlight local talents and vendors,” they said.
They added that they are incredibly excited to host the 2020 CBC and World Beer Cup.
”Being able to show the world what we do here is an incredible opportunity and we can’t wait,” they said.
Be the first to comment