By Dick Cantwell

Getting Into The Book

At Elysian, where I work, every six months or so a wave of expectation and evaluation seems to swell beneath us, demanding that we sit down and figure out what to do next. Has business increased to the point that we need to rethink staffing or our menu? Have our systems become efficient enough to be able to trim this or that? Has awareness of our name and beers grown sufficiently that we need to think about trying to get more kegs farther out into the market? Isn't it time to take that old couch to the dump?

One recurrent theme is whether to seriously consider going with a distributor, with all that such a step would bring. Now admittedly it isn't the glorious kind of concern of a few years ago, when peoples' main question was how many times larger than the old original brewhouse the new one would be, or how much cash was in the suitcase being toted up and down the coast by the Guinness guy eager to acquire a sniveling interest in some finger-popping regional producer. But on our teeny little 2,000 barrel scale it's a very important issue, and one which these days probably has a more realistic bearing on most of us than all that Land of Oz stuff of a few years back.

In our state of Washington we are lucky enough to have the option of either distributing ourselves, which we at Elysian have always done, or of turning the duty over to a professional, who for a discount of around twenty-five dollars a keg will assume the responsibilities of delivery and representation. It's a step that's never made sense to us before, but by the time you read this we will almost certainly have done just that.

There are a lot of things to think about when contemplating such a step. A distribution agreement is like a marriage, one of the guys we met with observed (or at least a marriage these days). It takes sacrifice and cooperation on both sides to make it work, and it's binding. It's also a pretty sophisticated game, involving nuance, special interest, diplomacy and a host of unknown factors played out behind the scenes -- a lot of which you haven't until now wanted to know about. It's tempting to think that, like the economy, it's something no one completely understands, and it's this kind of uncertainty and fear that has played a part in keeping me from wanting to embark on such an arrangement, just as it's mainly kept me out of expensive clothing stores and resort hotels. Too often I see small brewers unthinkingly, even fatalistically get involved with distributors who may or may not do the job for them, almost as though, like some ill-advised marriages, they went with the first one that said yes.

It's vitally important to look long and hard at whatever houses you're considering. It might on the surface, for example, make sense to sign on with a distributor who handles a lot of other micros, assuming awareness and sympathy for what it is we little guys do. But if their book is already cluttered with small-scale craft brewers it's highly possible you'll get lost in the shuffle. It might actually be a better idea to go with someone more regionally, even industrially inclined, who will make a point of mentioning that they have a quality micro, and devote more than a mere mention of your name in their sales patter. You are also in a good position, in these cases, to play an important part in educating the people who are out selling your beer, where with one of the other more micro-oriented places your beer will invariably be compared with one of your esteemed colleagues of similar size. Of course you also have to consider how much time you're willing to spend on such possibly remedial education. And, how do you and yours get along with the other little breweries in the book? Does your joining a particular team create conflict?

On a very obvious level, considering allying yourself with someone able to get your beer farther afield probably means that you're contemplating making more of it. What does this do to your facilities, your costs, and your labor? What will you have to buy to keep up with increased demand? Kegs, definitely (unless you lease them), to the tune of as much as two or three times as much as you already own, based on the fact that you won't get the turnaround you do when you're going out and getting the empties back yourself. It's important to find out how willing your potential distributor is to work with you on this in order that the blow of major investment in cooperage be somewhat softened. And additional fermenters and conditioning tanks. Can you fit it all in? Will you have to add shifts? Is your brewhouse big enough to even make it worthwhile? On the subject of meeting you halfway, what do they expect from you as far as promotional and point of sale materials are concerned? And how soon? An operation that demands, T-shirts, coasters, hats, glassware, neons and Harley-Davidsons is not going to knock themselves out doing business on the merits of your product, and it's only going to get more expensive the farther they reach. Much better if they offer to work with you on this, with perhaps their own in-house-generated banners and signs, and a reasonable timetable taking into account that you aren't yet all that big.

And then there's the unpleasant subject of the dirty games that some distributors play. Does your prospective organization buy handles, or install refrigeration systems, or pay tavern owners cash money in order to maintain loyalty? And to what extent will they require that you chip in? Don't assume you're immune to this kind of chicanery simply because you're loaded with integrity, or majored in the humanities. Treating briefly the subject of integrity and artistic freedom, will you still be able to produce those off-the-wall specialty beers with guys with hand trucks breathing down your neck for more of that fiercely mundane amber or golden ale? Or are these merely the concerns of a child? And what will be the perception in the market when you, the guy who used to deliver in his cellar boots out of the back of his dented personal pickup truck, can see his way clear to having bruisers in weight belts and Gold's Gym T-shirts, driving trucks with Miller logos on them, be the primary contacts for his brands?

These are the issues I'm wrestling with right now, and it's an enormous challenge -- believe me -- to walk the perfect line. Of course it all depends on maintaining your personal presence in the market in order that people realize that you haven't sold out, that you're concerned about these things too, but it can't help but affect the way some people will see you. It's worth mentioning that properly maintaining your new role will take at least as much time as doing it all yourself did; you shouldn't make the decision to go this route because it's going to be easier, but because you want to devote your time in different ways. We're not planning on getting a whole lot bigger, and we have a couple of solid goals in mind as we contemplate a new arrangement. We want to bring down our cost per barrel by producing more beer with certain of our costs more or less fixed; and we want to market our brewpub to a broader audience. We have the space to be able to do it, and we've gotten to the point of distributing ourselves that we know we don't want to take it to the next level without help. We think we're making an informed choice. But I guess we'll see. Your situation might be a lot different, but whatever it is it's worth looking at the issue from as many angles as you can think of.